'Art in the Age of the Anthropocene', at KUMU

The largest-ever exhibition to focus on the relationship between art and the environment in Estonia is centred around three themes: rethinking Estonian art history from an eco-critical perspective, the possibilities of contemporary art in coping with the environmental crisis, and the “green museum”.

We have entered a new geological period: the Anthropocene, i.e. the age of humans. While humans have been influencing the environment since the beginning of agriculture, it is only in the past one hundred years that they have become a planet-changing geophysical force.

The pace of environmental and climate change is accelerating, calling for not only technological and political solutions, but also challenging our behaviour, ethical standards and imagination. How can people with polarised opinions engage in dialogue? How can we achieve socio-political agreements? How should we redefine the boundaries between nature and culture, between the human and the non-human? For slow hope we must turn to the very source of the problems: human thought and actions.

At the centre of the exhibition is the question: is art possible and needed during an environmental crisis?

The historical works enter into dialogue with contemporary artworks created in recent years, some of which are closely linked to environmental activism, as well as with six brand new works by the artists Evy Jokhova, Edith Karlson, Mari-Leen Kiipli, Laura Linsi and Roland Reemaa, Laura Põld and Lou Sheppard, and Ivar Veermäe.