Artist Diāna Tamane premieres her documentary film and a solo exhibition in Tartu

Diāna Tamane’s art project Under the Same Sky presented at Kogo gallery as a solo show and as a feature-length film at Elektriteater takes us on a journey to the tourist town of Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol, Spain, near the Alboran Sea. This town, which has been a popular tourism destination for many decades, has never really had its own cultural identity. Instead it resembles a strange shell and its permanent inhabitants, of which many are immigrants, are like the lonesome characters from the mysterious paintings by Edward Hopper. Inside this estranged city, the artist has zoomed in to reveal the intimate personal history of one family – grandmother Tamara born in Ukraine, mother Irina born in Latvia and daughter Sonya who grew up in Spain. Travelling back and forth to this peculiar place for more than a decade to visit a family she has known since early childhood, Tamane has managed to collect images and stories that have caused her to shift away from the usual autobiographical approach, yet keeping her genuine interest in personal histories and relationships between different generations.

The exhibition, which can be also viewed as a spatial installation, represents a mother’s prayers for her daughter, a shrine to Sonya if you may, filled with the mother’s hopes. It is the past represented by the mother and grandmother that has given birth to the present and the hope for the daughter’s happiness in the future. The exhibition, as the very first spatial manifestation of this project, with Sonya as the dominant voice, echoes the experimental documentary of the same name in which Tamane introduces the life story of the family from the perspective of Sonya’s mother, Irina. Tamara and Irina have experienced life in the Soviet Union as well as in the united and globalised Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. These footprints in their lives have influenced and transformed them, introducing the life of the global citizen, yet also the life of an outcast that never truly fits. Through the film, as the second part of the project that can be viewed at the Elektriteater, we can learn not only about important political and economic changes happening during the lives of these women, but also about struggles with motherhood, depression and the relationship with one’s own body. In the current troubled times questions of identity and belonging are even more poignant.

Tamane’s first feature-length film Under the Same Sky (2021) will premiere at the Elektriteater on 20 April at 18.00, the second screening will take place on 7 May at 16.00. The screening are followed by a conversation with the artist, moderated by the project curator Šelda Puķīte. On 7 May, also ethnologist and fenno-ugri expert Eva Toulouze will join the talk.

The exhibition is part of Kogo’s programme for this year, which is introduced under the title Past is the Present.

The exhibition is open from 20 April to 18 June 2022.

On 20 April, the exhibition can be viewed at 13–17.30. Kogo Gallery is located at Aparaaditehas (The Widget Factory) on Kastani 42, Tartu, Estonia, the gallery is open on Wednesday–Friday at 13.00–19.00, on Saturday at 13.00–18.00.

The project is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment, Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the City of Tartu and FOKU. Thanks to Sotnikova family, Ingel Vaikla, Evita Goze, Elektriteater.

Diāna Tamane (b.1986) was born in Riga, and lives and works between Tartu and Riga. Her works are based on personal stories that mostly take shape through the collecting and assembling of her own daily experiences, impressions, habits and memories, as well as those of her relatives. To carry out this anthropological activity, the artist mostly uses stills and video, documenting the protagonists of her stories as well as their living spaces. In several of her projects, she has also used vernacular photography, memorabilia or keepsakes as source material. In the artist’s works, family albums, documents and private correspondence are transformed into catalysts, making it possible to reveal not only touching autobiographical stories but also apt portrayals of society and recent history.
Tamane graduated from the Tartu Art College (BA), the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels (MA) and HISK post-academic residency programme in Ghent. Her works have been exhibited at Kyiv Biennial 2021, the first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Latvia), Tartu Art Museum, Estonian Contemporary Art Museum (Estonia), S.M.A.K Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgium), Winterthur Museum (Switzerland), Kathmandu Triennale (Nepal), Surplus Space (China) and elsewhere. In 2020, APE published Tamane’s first book Flower Smuggler, which received the Recontres d’Arles Book Award and was shortlisted for the Paris-Photo Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Award.

Kogo Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Tartu, founded in 2018, focusing primarily on introducing younger generation artists in Estonia and internationally. The artists of the gallery include Alexei Gordin, Eike Eplik, Mari-Leen Kiipli, Kristi Kongi, Eva Mustonen, Laura Põld, Līga Spunde and Elīna Vītola. Kogo Gallery was named Cultural Organisation of the Year of 2021 in Tartu.