When it comes to its mentality, EKKM inhabits the wide area between official state funded art institutions and artist-run and do-it-yourself project spaces. EKKM has maintained its identity as a flexible and versatile institution, adapting to changes and inevitabilities as they come along – starting out as a punk or half-squatted museum, at times functioning both as an experimental and a more traditional Kunsthalle and ending up in the state it currently is. To this date, EKKM has managed to avoid defining itself in a too narrow or overly definitive manner.
For a generation of younger artists, curators and art students, EKKM started out as a means to establish themselves; an institution that conjoined two things that were not tended to at the time – the name Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia and a run-down three-storey industrial building just at the edge of Tallinn Old Town. Since 2007, EKKM has produced exhibition seasons that include a variety of exhibitions, events and art projects, as well as collected, popularised and helped shape the field of contemporary art.
EKKM has always provided free entrance to its visitors as a principle. Through this decision, EKKM maintains itself as a social non-commercial public space and avoids entering the customer and service provider relationship with its audiences and taking on consequent expectations.
More context to the images
1. EKKM building and the sculpture garden in the back. Photo: Paul Kuimet.
2. Alongside exhibition projects inside, EKKM organises summerly installation projects since 2022 for artists to engage with the public garden and the unique archaeology of the exhibition house. In 2023, the outdoor project "Trees grow, tall and sacred" led by artists Tanja Muravskaja and Margit Säde in cooperation with the Tallinn Botanic Garden, is dedicated to the ginkgo tree as a symbol. The project aims to enhance the agency, resistance and adaptation of other species. Growing and learning about ginkgo trees enables us as individuals and communities to train ourselves to see a different, longer-term perspective and redouble our efforts to grow trees while we still have time. A Chinese proverb also reminds us that while the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. Photo: Paul Kuimet.
3. In 2023, EKKM garden is celebrating its fourth season. Our freshly united community of gardeners will join in building an outdoor kitchen, as well as generating a programme of workshops and events. We have a volunteer head-gardener managing the outdoor activities each season. In addition, there is an art and sculpture area in our community garden as part of the public urban space, where works belonging to the EKKM collection are exhibited. Photo: Laura Toots.
