Photo reportage from the exhibition ‘Traces of Existence in a Moment’ by Olesja Katšanovskaja-Münd at the Tallinn City Gallery

Visitors are invited to experience the performance How tall and wide can I be in this space? featuring Olesja Katšanovskaja-Münd in collaboration with choreographer and dance artist Karolin Poska and performer and body-oriented therapist Alexey Rezenkov.

The central energy of the performance results from shifting the social body during times when any action seems hopeless. The artists will explore the possibility of transforming painful experiences and reaching a new level of communication individually and with the world.

“In her creative path, Olesja has been constantly exploring intersections between visual arts and interdisciplinary areas. In her first solo-exhibition at Tallinn City Gallery, she explores the effects of the period of stagnation and global crisis on society from a fresh, feminist perspective. The exhibition suggests that perhaps in these moments of danger we have an opportunity to reforge our relationship with our body and the social body we belong to. Or, how is it possible to move on when moving appears impossible?” observes curator Corina L. Apostol.

Through her education and experience in fine art, museum pedagogy, and conservation, Olesja has honed her ability to sense performance art as an artist, grasp its deep layers as a conservator, and research its practical component as an educator. Based on this knowledge and her personal experiences, Olesja imagines society as a living, breathing, desiring body, activated through collective performance. With newly commissioned installations, performances, and sound pieces, the artist asks how we can feel, think, and act in a way that could be potentially transformative on the current consciousness of stagnation and confinement. Olesja also considers bodily traces from a feminist perspective, centering the female body and women’s experiences at the heart of these questions.

While respecting the existing health regulations, the artist encourages the visitor to cross the threshold between the exhibition space and the artwork and leave their own traces on her installation. We consider these interactions that accumulate over the exhibition’s run as sites of encounter with other rhythms and exchanges between bodies that are searching for ways of inhabiting a new period, acting in alliance while acknowledging shared difficulties.

With thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Roman Münd, Ksenia Kachanovskaya, Alexey Rezenkov, Karolin Poska, Ekaterina Sokolovskaya, Anton Aljoshin, Bruno Kadak (Tormis Disain), Andrey Chertkov (Ach Services), Naked Island

How to move on, when moving is impossible?
Olesja Katšanovskaja-Münd’s
Traces of Existence in a Moment
Curated by Corina L. Apostol

Tallinn City Gallery
Until January 17, 2021