Flo Kasearu 'Holes'

Flo Kasearu’s solo exhibition “Holes” consists of two videos, a sculpture and a series of displays.
The videos, “De(fence)”(2014) and “Korean Garden”(2016/2018), document two international exchange projects that the artist initiated at her eponymous house museum (Flo Kasearu House Museum, 2013 - ongoing). The first exchange project was arranged with a security guard from Zacheta Project Room, Warsaw, where Flo exhibited her solo show “We Are On the Way” in 2014. For the second project, she invited gardeners from Seoul, South Korea, after participating in the 11th Gwangju Biennial in 2016. The videos show invited workers performing tasks at the Flo Kasearu House Museum — guarding a hole in a fence and landscaping. On the one hand, the videos draw attention to institutions as places of work[1]. Flo is thinking about the institutional structures she has experienced as an artist during her professional travels, and the structure of the museum she runs where the work of others is now convened. Similarly to the artist’s own employment abroad, the work of the security guard and gardeners was funded by arts and cultural institutions. On the other hand, the videos continue to explore questions around national identity which have been the focus of Flo's previous projects. Following works like “Uprising”(2015) and “International Fun”(2016), both previously shown at Temnikova & Kasela gallery, the new exhibition talks about fences and holes, borders and immigration. Notably, the words “fence” and “garden” both translate into Estonian as “aed”; the Estonian title of the exhibition “Aia auk” can be translated as both “a hole in the garden” or “a hole in the fence”. During the anniversary year of Estonian independence and ongoing searches for a 13th century military chief Lembit’s scull, Flo observes how the border and the land it encloses become subjects of nationalist rhetoric and suggests the idea of a “hole” as an opening through which these can be examined. Alongside the videos, the artist displays her own discoveries from the House Museum’s garden as an institutional installation of plexiglass displays and wall pieces, “Startup” (2018). Rocks left over from the building of the Korean Garden are here reused in accordance with Flo Kasearu House Museum’s DIY practice and ethic of sustainability. The hanging sculpture, “Sprout” (2018), completes the exhibition.

Flo Kasearu (b. 1985) is an artist based in Tallinn. Her recent exhibitions and performances include “Festival of the Shelter”, Pärnu women’s shelter, 2018;  “There and Back Again”, group show curated by Kati Kivinen and Saara Hackli, Kiasma, Helsinki (2018); “Soon Enough: Art in Action”, group show curated by Maria Lind, Tensta Konsthall (2018); “Members Only”, Performa 17 Biennial, curated by Esa Nickle and Maaike Gouwenberg, New York (2017).

Exhibition sound design Artjom Astrov.

Thanks: Tõnu Narro, Epp Kubu, Heneliis Notton, Vint, Kulka, Zacheta, GB11, Valmiermuža, Ilja Shmidt, Stansilav Stepaško.