Photo reportage from the exhibition 'Like There Is No Tomorrow' by Mari Männa at the Vent Space

January 14, 2021
Author Echo Gone Wrong

In the current time, nothing is permanent and after an indefinite period, we may be already living in a new reality. While trying to cope with uncertainty, we may find ourselves in extreme situations that are not characteristic of our choices. The exhibition reflects on the artist’s personal events, provoked by her curiosity to unhook habitual patterns.

Mari Männa works intuitively, starting with an abstract form and during the process involving it to something more concrete. Images about the body have become the core motives in her work. Männa’s use of tactile and sensuous latex gives its objects a humane, even sexual tone. Latex as a material has connotations related to fetish, queer culture, and taboo. In her practice, Männa questions taboos, dogmas, and unwritten social rules that exist in our society.

The young artist is interested in to which extent the object can be given subjectivity. When she dresses a sculptural object in a hand-made latex costume, it transforms the form into a lively character. According to one’s sense of humour, her works can be experienced as homage or satire to the modern self-centred lifestyles.

Factors like a physical presence, scale, and mass are all very important in her sculptures. More specifically, the observation on how the physicality of sculpture might activate the relationship between the objects and the human body in space. The objects that are employed by gravity, materiality, and scale could activate the visitor’s awareness of their corporeality.

Mari Männa (1991) is a visual artist from Estonia working with sculpture. She graduated from the Contemporary Art of Estonian Academy of Arts in 2020. During her masters’, she studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and Aalto University in Helsinki. Männa has taken part in group exhibitions in Estonia, Finland, Austria, and Holland, and she is currently busy preparing for her new solo show in Tartu. Männa is involved in art education, as she is organising workshops for the local community.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Mari Männa
Like There Is No Tomorrow
12.12-16.12.2020
Vent Space
Vabaduse väljak 6/8
Tallinn
Photography: Mari Männa