The exhibition ‘Fragmented Unity’ by Laivi Suurväli at Draakon Gallery (Pikk 18, Tallinn) is on view until October 26.
“Laivi’s exhibition “Fragmented Unity” is a glimpse into the artist’s inner world, where one can find beautiful ambiguity, haunting silence, and a good dose of restlessness.” Olivia Soans, Sirp 13.10.2024
Excerpt from the press release:
“Today, I am neutral. Expressively unexpressive. A blank canvas. A white t-shirt* on bare skin. Faithful. I am free, wrapped in a swathe of possibilities. Full in emptiness.
In the mundane grip of conformity, I yearn to yearn. To be something more. To stand apart. To be a dress like a story. A layered narrative where contrasts meet and merge at the seams. To flow in dispersed definition. I want to try to defy…
I strive to be overtly unattainable in my inner multiplicity. Elusive, like a text brimming with references. Unaware even of my own secrets and abilities.
I can fray; you can wear me in many ways. Find hints and hidden spaces. To be contradictory. To be sincere and innocent and grumpy and sinful.”**
* I am seemingly resistant to the pressures of fashion. The opposite of discomfort.
** In theorizing the nature of fashion, we examine a phenomenon that extends beyond the superficial appearance of its objects. We seek depth within the surface. It is the everyday environment that creates the divide between fashion and clothing. We submit to paradoxes. In a continuous, self-consuming cycle, the repetition and defiance of what came before becomes the newest trend.
Laivi / I Λ I V I (Laivi Suurväli) is a freelance artist who expresses herself through fashion design. Her work is thematically driven by recurring keywords: desire and longing, dependence and praise, production and supply, preservation and destruction, and the evaluation of value. Her work is characterised by a material-centred and experimental approach to textiles that expands from garments and accessories to sculptural installations and large-scale works on canvas. She analyses fashion as a phenomenon, examining garments and methods of covering the body on visual-aesthetic, functional, and expressive levels.
Laivi holds a BA in Fashion Design from the Estonian Academy of Arts and a MA from Aalto University in Helsinki. She has been in residencies in London, Copenhagen, Barcelona, and Brussels. Since 2014, she has participated in group exhibitions and has showcased her work in several solo exhibitions.
In 2024, she had two solo exhibitions, Mapping Paradise at the ARS project space and Infinite Present at the WIELS Contemporary Art Centre’s gallery Affiliate in Brussels. Her new series Liquifying the Hard Core Identity is currently on display at the Improper Walls gallery in Vienna. In the beginning of 2022, she received the annual award from the Estonian Cultural Endowment for her methodic work in visual and applied arts. Her solo exhibition Collecting and Preserving at Hobusepea gallery and her participation in the international group exhibition Intimacy at the Design Museum in Helsinki, with the installation Notes, Shed Skins, and Dissolved Memories, consisting of sculptural objects and a series of paintings, and the project Goods & Services, were both recognised.
Photography: Roman Sten Tõnissoo
