Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds

Tallinn Art Hall is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds on 9 August  2024 at 6 PM at the Lasnamäe Pavilion. The exhibition, curated by Margaret Tali and Ieva Astahovska, delves into the themes of solidarity, empathy and the enduring legacies of historical trauma.

The exhibition includes works by artists from the three Baltic countries, as well as Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands. Their works address the often-silenced and uncomfortable pasts in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. Recent wars have shifted our understanding of history and highlighted how present-day normalisation of violence often stems from unresolved traumas of the past. Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds brings together these challenging, uncomfortable, and frequently overlooked histories, including violent conflicts, painful losses. and their long-term legacies.

Curators Margaret Tali and Ieva Astahovska explain: “Our aim as curators has been to rethink how art can enhance global connectedness, make minority perspectives easier to understand and foster empathy”. The experiences depicted by the artists are often forgotten or ignored, and excluded from mainstream histories. The artists in the exhibition recount these experiences through individual stories, family histories and archival research, while also addressing collective cultural memory. The artworks focus on solidarity and understanding by forging new geographical and temporal connections between events and processes, and by exploring ways of healing inspired by the past.

The exhibition was previously presented at the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga in 2020 and at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius in 2022. It was co-organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art and is part of the project Communicating Difficult Pasts (2019-2024), which addresses the uncomfortable and often neglected aspects of history in the Baltic States and the neighbouring countries. Through this project the curators have investigated the entanglements of past and present, exploring how visual art and creative research methods can reveal the long-term impacts of historical events and reshape contemporary understandings of the past.

Supporters: British Council, Tallinn Culture & Sports Department, Nordic Culture Point, Lithuanian Culture Board, Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Danish Art Council, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tallinn, Embassy of the Republic of Latvia to the Republic of Estonia, Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Estonia.