Estonian artist Merike Estna at the Paradise Lodge residency in MUMBAI

Almost a year ago Estonian painter Merike Estna was participating in a residency organised by Malonioji Gallery. Malonioji AIR was founded by sculptor Žilvinas Landzbergas and curator Justė Kostikovaitė who in the run of the year 2012 have hosted Axel Linderholm (SE), Merike Estna (EE), Danielle Itzhaqi and Dror Shohet (ISR), Juha Pekka Laakkonen Matias (FI) and curator Alex Ross (US). During her residency in Vilnius, Merike Estna has produced new work and presented it as an installation in VARTAI Gallery, called 15 paintings on paper, 1 video, a cylinder, 2 spheres, a cone, 2 cuboids and leftovers.

This year Merike Estna went under a residency which took place in Lonavala/Mumbai called Paradise Lodge International Artists Residency. Organised by Emma Hunt (UK) and Chinmoyi Patel (India), the residency was a process-orientated with the focus on cultivating relationships between artists, organisations and audiences.

Lonavla, where the artist residency is situated, is a small hill station close to Mumbai, with couple of houses and studios offered to artists. The living and working was arranged on the basis of collective community – a group of 9 artists were living together for a month and sharing everything – from daily meals to the evening discussions. This was what made the experience of being in Paradise Lodge residency intense according to the artist and resulted in the production of a number of new work.

In Mumbai, Paradise Lodge residency was collaborating with Rajeev Thakker at Studio X and CONA (an artists run initiative run by Hemali Bhuta, Rajalakshmi Pandit, Riddhi Shah, Sachin Kondhalkar, Sashi Thavudoz, Shreyas Karle, Teja Gavankar and Vishal Kadam). The focus of Paradise Lodge’s collaboration with Studio X was around the topic of the future of cities and urban spaces, community, presence and participation. The focus to the issues was brought through performances, artist talks, screenings and discussions staged within the Studio X project space.

The same group of 9 artists is now determined to organise a similar artist-residency in Northern Estonia  next year, so that part of the project would keep nomadical moving from place to place.

Merike Estna was recently featured at the Miami NADA ART FAIR (5-8 December), Temnikova&Kasela G booth, where her work is presented in an installation together with another Estonian artist Kris Lemsalu.