In KUMU art museum of Tallinn !
Tallinn offered a wealth of cultural experiences.
We visited literary-related venues such as the Banned Books Museum, which collects censored or controversial books from around the world, and the TYPA museum dedicated to printing and bookbinding, with its temporary exhibitions.
We also explored literary art installations in public spaces, such as Tallinn University’s Poetry ATM and a telephone booth that tells the stories of residents in the Kalamaja neighborhood through innovative formats.
We visited the TalTech museum, which featured an exhibition on the science of human emotions—an essential element in one of our writing exercises.
Exploring the city itself, its various districts, remnants of its Soviet past, refurbished industrial areas, and a coastline transformed into an artistic hub, as well as experiencing its public transport, allowed us to gather impressions, questions, and aspirations—fuel for our artistic journey, as with any meaningful trip.
For me, Tallinn was a true cultural revelation. It is a city at the crossroads of Nordic and Eastern European cultures, where Soviet traces in architecture stand beside modern glass towers and medieval buildings from the Hanseatic era. Estonia remains shaped by a complex historical relationship with its powerful Russian neighbor, a history that still reverberates in today’s sociopolitical landscape.
In such a context, we discovered not only a vibrant local culture but also a thriving community of expatriates drawn by Estonia’s unique mix of digital advancement and agrarian memory, modernity and historical weight. It is this contrast, this tension, that created the fertile ground for our project and our connections. It helped us not only to experiment artistically, but also to forge human bonds across disciplines and borders.
