To flee or to stay? These are probably the questions that most of us have pondered in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Some of us will remember the photos taken in Kyiv on 24 February 2022, depicting a mass of cars leaving the city.
The motifs of leaving home and longing for home are as old as human history. On a personal level, fleeing or being forcibly displaced is a tragic event that leaves a mark on the rest of our lives, even if we manage to adapt well. “They don’t know that they’ll never really settle down. No, never. Some part of them will never be really there, a part of them will stay on in the old country never allowing them to really settle down elsewhere, to really grow roots,” wrote the Lithuanian-American avant-garde film-maker Jonas Mekas in his memoir I Had Nowhere to Go. Mekas captured his experiences as a refugee and his search for self in a new homeland through his experimental film-making.
The exhibition features five films by artists that deal with home and the memories, longing and melancholy associated with it in various psychological and aesthetic registers. The artists’ film is a phenomenon that situates itself outside film industry formats but uses the (audio)visual means of expression offered by the moving image. In her book The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich borrowed the term “lens transmittance” from optics to highlight the differences in the experiences of women and men at war. The greater the transmittance of a lens, the better its ability to record an image in poor lighting conditions. Hopefully, the films selected for the exhibition will help to illuminate those layers of homesickness and longing that are overshadowed by the great narratives of history.
*The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Marie Under’s poem “The Refugee”, written while she was in exile in Sweden.
Participating artists: Noor Abed, Paul Kuimet, Jonas Mekas, Marge Monko and Anna Scherbyna.
Programme curator: Marge Monko
Exhibition design: Karel Koplimets
Graphic design: Kersti Heile ja Indrek Sirkel
Translations: Peeter Talvistu
Exhibition team: Siim Asmer, Madis Kurss, Mihkel Säre, Urmo Teekivi
This exhibition was organised in collaboration with the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Supporters: Estonian Academy of Arts, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, SadolinExhibition dates: June 20–July 20, 2025
The Tartu Art House
Vanemuise 26, Tartu
Wed–Mon 12.00–18.00
www.kunstimaja.ee
facebook.com/kunstimaja
Photography: Marge Monko
