Tallinn’s Print Triennial & Conference

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Many printmakers may be aware that there is a call for entries to The 14th Tallinn Print Triennial in Estonia. The exhibition will be held 17 October – 27 November 2007.
The deadline for the first stage of jurying is April 2, 2007. Please check out the regulations and the theme:

The organisers of the 14th Tallinn Print Triennial invite artists to address two themes: Political and Poetical, that may at first seem mutually antagonistic, but which are important (or essential) aspects of the graphic arts. Throughout their history the graphic arts have been employed in both the social/political and the personal/poetic spheres. They have offered the mechanism for the mass promotion of political ideas and created conditions in which personal and liberal self-expression can flourish.

This year’s print triennial is a particularly exciting one because it’s being held in conjunction with The Impact 5 International Printmaking Conference:

Impact 5 will take place simultaneously with the 14th Tallinn Print Triennial (on the exhibition ground of Kumu), that has its own history reaching back to 1968. Today it is an international event in the world of printmaking, with participants from all over the world. The Impact conference is an international forum for printmakers, curators, critics, collectors and suppliers of art printing materials and presses.

The conference is held every second year in the autumn. The first Impact Conference was held at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of West England in Bristol, England in September 1999. The 2001 Conference (Impact 2) was held in Helsinki, Finland. The 2003 Conference (Impact 3) took place in Cape Town, South Africa and the 2005 Conference (Impact 4) in Berlin, Germany and Poznan, Poland.

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The main building of the Art Museum of Estonia – Kumu Art Museum.
Architect: Pekka Vapaavuori. Photo: Kaido Haagen

Very interesting for me was to learn that the Kumu Art Museum (photo above), which includes a conference centre, was designed by the Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori and opened just over a year ago.

Tallinn has a special place in my heart. Newer readers may not know that in 2002 I had an exhibition in Finland with two other Canadian artists and friends. We travelled to and around Finland and also Tallinn on the other side of the Gulf of Finland. We fell in love with Tallinn where we met and became friends with artists Loit and Virge Joekalda (whom I’ve mentioned a few times elsewhere on this blog). The Estonians are close cousins to Finns, as part of the Finno-Ugrian group of peoples, so it was thrilling for me to see Loit’s exhibition of frottages and photos from his expeditions to sites of rock art by Finno-Ugrians in Karelia. And now Loit is one of the organizers of this conference! Small world! How I wish I could go to this triennial and conference.

March 2, 2007 in Other artists, Print Triennials, Printmaking by Marja-Leena