Liina Siib. Politics of Paradise

The solo exhibition Politics of Paradise by artist Liina Siib will be open from 16 February at Tallinn Art Hall. Her work pays acute attention to the minor narratives, which are usually overshadowed by the attention economy or accelerated lived experiences. Bringing together new and earlier works, the exhibition mediates intergenerational conversations between individual lives and complex gendered histories of privilege and power.
The curator of the exhibition is Taru Elfving.

Recently, Siib has looked at the ongoing regional economic migration through the eyes of Estonian women working in Finland. This contemporary polyphony of personal stories, desires and realities is reflected in the new installation Urban Symphony in E-minor III. The video and installation Augusta or Politics of Paradise focuses on the tragic fate of one woman in the local historical context. Both pieces continue Siib’s lengthy artistic investigations into the entangled political and habitual claims to space, voice and meaning.

“With her attentive photographer’s gaze combined with playful storytelling, Siib produces witty and seductive yet sharp counter narratives, which encourage us to recognise our own prejudices as well as the dreams mirrored in them, albeit slightly askew. Her works produced during the past three decades also reveal how the different presentation of recurring problems becomes a valuable capital. Shifts in artistic approaches, methods and materials resonate with changes in society and visual culture that does not follow the ideal of linear progress but rather loops and leaps about,” says Taru Elfving, describing Siib’s work.