Sometimes life makes itself known

“He lived in the middle of Mustamäe, on the sixth floor of a big house in the middle of other similar houses, in a house with several hundred other people. He didn’t know any of these people, except for a few more interesting, more personal people who stuck in his mind, either on the street in front of the building, in the courtyard or in the lift. All of these face-to-face acquaintances knew him, but they didn’t give any outward sign of it, and Eero responded in kind. There was one particularly sympathetic old man, whom Eero had tried persistently to distract at first, for no reason, but the old man was stubborn, didn’t answer, and Eero soon gave up – why intimidate a nice old man with distractions?”

The grain of sand around which the pearl with the working title Sometimes life makes itself known is gradually forming is a feeling of loneliness. The Lasnamäe pavilion is located in the most densely populated area of Estonia, where the streets, park benches, gardens and shop fronts are bustling with social life, as in many other places in the world. Yet behind the countless windows there are many lonely souls. There are many reasons for this exclusion, psychological as well as physical, social and economic. The forthcoming exhibition brings together stark and poetic stories of voluntary and involuntary seclusion, its causes and its responses. How to overcome loneliness? Can loneliness be voluntary? What do people do to ward off this feeling?