Under Pressure (working title)
Curator: Siim Preiman
Once upon a time, there was a completely normal person. More than anything in the world, they loved to sleep at least seven hours a night and consume approximately 2,000 kilocalories per day. They spent a quarter of their life in various educational institutions, where, alongside hundreds, if not thousands, of other normal people, they learned all sorts of things. Not necessarily things that particularly interested them or that they were exceptionally good at, but rather those dictated by the curriculum.
As an adult, after finishing school, they spent a third of their time – which means about half of their waking hours – working for someone else. To ensure they performed well at their job, they regularly visited doctors who measured, examined, and, when necessary, fine-tuned them. Thanks to this, the work capacity of this normal person remained at a fairly high level for several decades.
At some point, they met another normal person of the opposite sex, and they had one to three normal children together. And so, they learned and worked until the end of their days, never once stopping to think that things could be or should be different.
Do you know this person?
The idea of a normal person is a relatively new phenomenon in human history, with roots reaching back only about three centuries to the Enlightenment era. Around the same age is capitalism, the dominant economic system in the world today, based on private ownership and free trade – and one that relies on these very normal people to function as wage labourers.
In reality, humanity is diverse, and every individual falls on one side or the other of the zero point of normality. In recent decades, diagnoses of various neurological disorders, allergies, and other health conditions have been steadily increasing, with loud debates over their possible causes. According to the social model of disability, the issue is not that an individual is lacking something, but rather that society lacks the necessary support for those who differ in one way or another. The real problem, then, is the existing system, which, with its narrow definition of normality, burdens an inherently diverse humanity and, in doing so, effectively produces more and more people with serious health issues and disabilities each year.
The proposed exhibition aims to poke holes in this norm, to expand and question it. This norm harms many – sometimes visibly, while at other times, it gradually erodes bodies in silence, with no end in sight. How many people actually live with an invisible disability? At what cost do they overcome it every day? Could things be different? Should they?
Under Pressure is part of Tallinn Art Hall’s ongoing exhibition series, which focuses on the possibility of being good and socio-ecologically responsible in the face of an almost certain catastrophe. This series represents an institutional attempt to create an ethically appropriate platform for addressing urgent issues. For this reason, the standard contemporary art exhibition formula has been deliberately altered: all single-use materials have been excluded, and only locally sourced materials are used, and as sparingly as possible.