Flo Kasearu & Elina Vitola

Flo Kasearu (b.1985) is an artist based in Tallinn. She studied Painting and Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and Multimedia at Universtität der Künste Berlin under Rebecca Horn studio.

Flo Kasearu is an artist who works directly with various social processes, using her characteristic irony. Her works include videos, drawings, paintings, installations, and performances, with the approach chosen to suit a given theme. Kasearu’s earliest performances conceived during her studies addressed tradition, national identity, and the academic environment of art schools. Her subsequent projects dealt with local political and ideological contexts, the artist often working and exhibiting outside of the white cube gallery set up. Kasearu has shown her works in various public spaces, in her Tallinn home which she transformed into an eponymous house museum (Flo Kasearu's House Museum, 2013-ongoing), a women's shelter (“Festival of the Shelter”, Pärnu women’s shelter, 2018). An intervention "Great great great grandscribble-weasel" took place at the Koidula Museum (dedicated to Estonian poet Lydia Koidula), Pärnu, in 2018.

The artist’s recent exhibitions and performances include "Host" at Stanley Picker Gallery (2023), "Flo's Retrospective" at Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (2022); "Cut Out of Life", solo exhibition at Tallinn Art Hall (2021); "Endangered Species", solo exhibition at Tartu Art Museum (2020); "Performing the Fringe", curated by Jussi Koitela and Inga Lāce, Konsthall C, Stockholm (2020); “There and Back Again”, group show curated by Kati Kivinen and Saara Hacklin, Kiasma, Helsinki (2018); “Soon enough”, group show curated by Maria Lind, Tensta Konsthall (2018); “State is Not a Work of Art”, group show curated by Katerina Gregos, Tallinn Art Hall (2018); “Members Only”, Performa 17 Biennial, curated by Esa Nickle and Maaike Gouwenberg, New York (2017); “Costume Drama”, with Andra Aaloe, Drugajanje festival, Maribor (2017); “The Travellers”, group show curated by Magdalena Moskalewicz, KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (2017); “Illustrating the Request for Privacy”, Artishok Biennial, curated by Evelyn Raudsepp, NO99 Theatre, Tallinn (2016); “Uprising”, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2015).
 

Elīna Vītola (b. 1986) is an artist based in Riga. Her conceptual and visually vibrant work varies from paintings to complex communal installations involving several other artists and creative practitioners. Classically trained as a painter at the Art Academy of Latvia (BA and MA), Vītola has taken up this medium as a companion in her artistic journey to disentangle some issues that are connected with her identity as an artist and the art world in general and to build new platforms for other artists. She has worked both as an artist and as a curator in organisations such as the Monumental Cafe and Low Gallery in Riga. Vītola has participated in exhibitions at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, Tallinn Art Hall, Kadriorg Art Museum in Tallinn, the University of Tartu Art Museum, Kogo Gallery in Tartu and P/////AKT in Amsterdam. In 2018, she received the Nordic & Baltic Young Artist Award and in 2021 was shortlisted for the Purvītis Prize. Her works are in the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art and the European Patent Office Collection.