From 17th to 24th of September 2023, we embarked on a Baltic research trip. We visited Estonia and Lithuania.

In Estonia, we visited Tallinn and Narva. In Tallinn, we were given a Soviet tour of the city by art historian Gregor Taul and explored the sites of Tallina Linnahall, EKKM, Kalaranna Promenade and surrounding areas.

Day 2 in Tallinn included a curator-led tour of ‘Art in the Age of the Anthropocene’ at KUMU Museum by historian and curator Linda Kaljundi and a presentation by Anu Printsmann at Tallinn University.

On day 3, we visited the museum stores and had presentations by SAVA Research Fellows Jan Burek and Alex Petrusek. We also had a lecture by Andres Korg, at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On day 4, on the way to Narva, we visited oil shale sites, The Kohtla-Järve Museum of Oil Shale and the Sillamae Museum. Here, we had a tour of Sillamae.

We spent day 5 in Narva, visiting the Narva Art Residency and the ‘Estonian Maldives’, which is actually a blue lagoon with poisonous shale deposit.

Day 6 & 7 were spent in Vilnius. We visited the National Gallery of Art and were given a tour of the exhibition ‘Partially Swamped Institution’ by artists Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas themselves.

On the final day, we had a meeting with artist/filmmaker Deimantas Narcevicius about his film ‘Energy Lithuania’ (2000).

Thank you to all who were a part of this trip!

Photos by Sammara Abbasi