A Place Between Night and Day
Curated by Brigit Arop
On Thursday, 29 August at 6 PM, the exhibition A Place Between Night and Day will open at the Tallinn City Gallery (Harju Street 13). Featuring the works of artists Ann Pajuväli, Saskia Fischer and Sirje Runge, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the tension at the boundaries of space and time, fostering a fertile in-betweenness from which new spatial experiences can emerge. The exhibition is curated by Brigit Arop.
The exhibition delves into the complexities of urban space, architecture and personal space, presenting a range of perspectives and focal points. Modernist, poetic and queer feminist viewpoints sometimes clash and at other times intertwine, unravelling the cultural and social values embedded in urban environments, visions that oscillate between the past and future, and personal memories of navigating the city.
Curator Brigit Arop compares the process of assembling the exhibition to the work of an archaeobotanist, who examines existing and lost artworks to find and plant seeds that will grow into new artistic expressions. “Although the reality is, of course, far more complex, one might imagine an archaeobotanist in a cartoonish generalisation as a researcher who searches for old seeds at an archaeological dig to grow ancient plants by planting and watering them. As the curator of this exhibition, I, too, have explored the existing and lost works, as well as unrealised ideas of Pajuväli, Fischer and Runge, in search of seeds that, when nurtured, may hopefully bloom into new creations.”
The exhibition centres on the ideas of space and presence. Ann Pajuväli depicts abstract personal spaces and urban environments in her works, Saskia Fischer focuses on power structures within the urban landscape, and Sirje Runge, throughout her creative journey, has painted architectural, geometric and minimalist spaces. A key theme running through the exhibition is rooted in feminist geography, which explores the embodied experiences of marginalised groups within urban spaces.
In addition to the works displayed in the gallery, Saskia Fischer’s piece Pansies is exhibited nearby at Freedom Square, connecting the flower vendors operating at the intersection of St. John’s Church, Freedom Square and Suur-Karja Street with the bus pavilion and kiosk known as the “black booth” (now GrillStop 24h).
Saskia Fischer is an interdisciplinary artist working with images, objects, texts and environments. Fischer’s research is concerned with the paradigms that form and inform landscape as a reflection of cultural and social values. She examines the ways Western understanding separates anthropological urbanity from a colonial concept of nature, reinforcing problematic notions of femininity and what is “natural”. Fischer studied postgraduate fine art at Goldsmiths College in London (2018) and photography at Folkwang University in Essen (2015).
Ann Pajuväli is an artist and illustrator with a background in printmaking. She mainly works with drawing and installation, often highlighting everyday objects and situations that are so mundane we no longer notice them. Pajuväli is fascinated with how forms are universally recognisable – she creates abstractions of objects from the real world, balancing on a narrow line of identifiability. Her last exhibitions include Beginners at EKA Billboard Gallery (with Cloe Jancis, 2024) and Night Sky Setting the Scene (2022) at Haapsalu City Gallery.
Sirje Runge is a painter and teacher, recognised for her geometric abstract and minimalist paintings. In addition to painting, she has also contributed to contemporary art with her philosophy and original teaching method. Since 2008 she has worked as a lecturer at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School of Tallinn University. In 2021, at the Estonian Open Air Museum, she presented a project she considers one of her most significant works – Great Love / Beautiful Rotting – where she surrendered her ten-meter oil painting Great Love (2003) to nature.
Brigit Arop is an art professional whose primary activities involve curating, writing, assisting and teaching. She is drawn to artworks that employ autotheory, poetry, material-sensitive approach and humour to challenge ingrained values. Arop graduated from the University of Tartu with a bachelor’s degree in semiotics and cultural theory (2019) and from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a master’s degree in curation (2023). Her latest curatorial project is the group exhibition Greetings, and Whatever Customarily Restores a Bond About to Break at Kogo Gallery (2023).