“The Science of Freedom” is a third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”.

Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

The exhibition primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural political and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and  it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in, or originating from, the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of right-wing phobist politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

The title reflects more precisely on the mechanisms through which positive notions shift and slide in our interpretation towards the negative realm and become associated with different or contradictory meaning depending on the new contexts or situations they are used in. More concretely, how the originally positive signification of “warm” – an agreeable feeling, the sense of a fairly or comfortably high temperature, and a behaviour showing enthusiasm, affection, or kindness – has become a warning sign of political turmoil, social irritation, symptoms of climate change and global pandemic, and therefore a signal of both natural and social global instability. In meeting this misleading shift of signification, Warm aims to be a contemporary reflection on the fundamentally absurd global condition and on the dissonances of the human condition.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

Artists participating in all chapters of the biennale: ArtLeaks, Jasmina Cibic, Hubert Czerepok, Agnes Denes, Igor Eškinja, Oxana Gourinovitch, Ferenc Gróf, Flo Kasearu, Eva Koťátková, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Irena Lagator, Olson Lamaj, Marko Mäetamm, Alexander Manuiloff, Dóra Maurer, Raul Meel, Katja Novitskova, Dan Perjovschi, Géza Perneczky, Nada Prlja, Kaisa Puustak, Driton Selmani, Slavs and Tatars, Société Réaliste, Bojan Stojčić, Endre Tót

Venues: Kai Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Kanuti Gildi SAAL

Catalogie of the triennial: https://www.triennial.ee/catalogue/