10
EESTI ELU reedel, 22. aprillil 2022 — Friday, April 22, 2022
Nr. 16
On the Wall: How Baltic storms will light up downtown Toronto Vincent Teetsov
Kolding School of Design in Denmark. Messages are held in the Yet, the application of her tumultuous waters of the techniques has been less tradi Baltic Sea. The fishermen and tional. With No Fun Rugs, she sailors know it. All those who has created rugs that mash have crossed this body of together pleasingly imperfect water know it. Scientists have splotches of rich colours, cow analyzed its conditions. And fur patterns, art deco, comic now, two artists have de books, and kids’ carpet patterns. ciphered those messages with In Austria, Ulfsak put on an the plan that, soon, they will exhibition where she displayed be shared as waves of light in tapestries on hospital room an art installation in Toronto, dividers from the 1960s. The Canada. images painted on them, includ As Kärt Ojavee and Johanna ing chaotic piles of people, Ulfsak – the creators of this explored themes of hierarchies project – showed in their artists’ and human relationships. talk and demonstration at An element of humour is Artscape Daniels Launchpad on sometimes part of her art, such the evening of April 11th, the as when she painted Chanel and steps leading up to materializ Louis Vuitton logos, akin to ing this project have stretched what one can find on knockoff over many years. merchandise, onto hand weav They both have very different ing. It’s encouraging to see how styles and usually work Estonian society and arts scenes separately. Ojavee has a PhD in have valued and supported both smart textiles from the Estonian Ulfsak and Ojavee’s artistic Academy of Arts in Tallinn and investigations. has worked extensively with And there is something sym smart textiles and new materials. pathetic between both of their This includes the “Dissolving approaches that finally came Hat,” a fisherman-style hat made t ogether when they started to with sea-sourced materials that collaborate. In particular, their resemble leather, or the collaboration for Save As, “Healing Detox Shirt,” which is which used carbon fibre, optical knit from linen and “soaked in an extract of Fucus Vesiculosus fibres, and other industrial materials to make a fragile, and printed with a seaweed- based film...” Ojavee confirms shadowy textile hanging and a that any healing properties of collection of fabric-wrapped these wearable items are specu frisbees (chosen for their masslative, but more importantly, she produced nature), decorated is making something usable out with eery images of factory of less sturdy but accessible workers and hands. Their ultimate collaboration, materials. though, has been Live Streams Having a curiosity about the from 2016. Live Streams is an “Internet of things”, or how installation project that is part tangible objects can be linked textile, part advanced techno through technology and mani logy. Using traditional looms, pulated, Ojavee created one they have been weaving layered project where touching a rock in a gallery would light up a textile pieces with optical fibres, paper fibres, rubber, rock far away in an Estonian forest. More recently, though, transparent yarn, and colourful working hands-on with materials yarn in mottled greens, blacks, and whites. Together, these is more important for her. components light up in response Conversely, Johanna Ulfsak’s to the movement of the Baltic focus has been on more tradi Sea. tional textile practices, and she Ojavee and Ulfsak break this has emphasized creating limited collections of design objects. technological process into four She is an alum of the Estonian steps. Firstly, Tallinn University Academy of Arts, where she of Technology measures the studied both leather and textile sea’s wave height in metres and design. She also studied wind speed in metres per second. This data, which is weaving at Kawashima Textile School in Kyoto and completed publicly available, is collected her Master’s in textile design at and written into code, for which an algorithm is used to convert those numbers into changes in light, in real time, that are shown through the installation’s fibres. Each fibre is connected to an independent light source. As demonstrated at their end of their talk, with a net-like roll of woven material, each fibre has shimmering and shining proper ties. For example, if you take a concentrated source of light, like a flashlight, and shine it into the end of one of these strands, the light will bounce around and create reflections Photo: k-o-i.ee within the material. At rare
The Toronto Estonian Supplementary School choir responded to a request from EERO to participate in the fundraising concert for Ukrainian children refugees in Estonia on April 23. The concert, called “The World Which Remains for Us” will be online for Torontonians on April 24 at 3:00 pm (err.ee). The most appropriate song, the late Peter Kopvillem’s “Eesti, mu isamaa” is as meaningful for youth here as it is for those in Estonia. Photo: Kai Kiilaspea
times when the sea becomes more tranquil, this translates to subtle displays of light in the installation. At one point, they created a 20 metre long version of this installation inside a power plant. Ojavee and Ulfsak’s latest residency in Toronto has brought this project back to the forefront and they look to take the concept to the next level. As was clarified by the Estonian Arts Centre, “Kärt Ojavee and Johanna Ulfsak’s artists residen cy takes place as a joint initia tive of Estonian Arts Centre, the charity associated with KESKUS International Estonian Centre, and the Cotton Factory, a creative arts centre in Hamilton, as part of Hamilton Arts Council’s European Artist
Exchange 2022.” The two artists have been working and travelling between Toronto and Hamilton, places they find to be “very relaxed and friendly” for the making of art. For one thing, textile artists from the Estonian-Canadian community have donated co loured yarns to them to use in their projects here. During this residency, they have also been working in Artscape Daniels Launchpad with one of three TC-2 digital looms in Ontario to weave Baltic Sea images into fabric, some of them more abstract, some more defined. Further more, Canada has provided them with additional meanings that can be extrapolated from the Baltic Sea, particularly as a
“door to freedom.”
Canines…
wolf-like pal to come back to you. This brings up another point, about intonation going up and down. Those kinds of changes in pitch make the phrases less like how Standard Estonian is usually spoken, but they have the power to elicit more respon ses from dogs. There’s some thing about a steady pitch that asserts urgency, but changes would appear to instigate more curiosity from dogs, and there fore, attention. Let’s just associate it with the pitch changes of Estonian as spoken on Saaremaa, or the dialect of Estonian in Canada and the United States. Into nation changes can prompt some dogs to tilt their head and listen closely when they’re up to no good. To counteract the embarrass ment of your dog prioritizing something stinky in the park over you, try saying “anna käpp” (“give your paw”) when they finally return, to shake your dog’s paw with everyone watching. The cuteness will momentarily distract all of your neighbours. Of course, if your dog is only just learning Esto
nian, hand actions will make the request clearer.
(Continued from page 9)
handful of possibilities here. They’re either asking to use the washroom outside (“tahad välja minna?”, which means “do you want to go outside?”), asking for food (“tahad süüa?”, which means “do you want to eat?”), or asking for some snuggles. Out and about on their daily walks, you’ll want to reinforce polite walking habits. If they’re on-leash and pulling your arms out of your sockets, call out “kõrval!” to indicate “heel” and bring them back to walking at your side. When they need to sit tight for a moment alone, tell them “oota” (“wait”). When you reach the best part of a walk and can let them run around off-leash to their heart’s content, say “OK, mine jookse!” (“OK, go run!”). Watch for the plume of dust, grass, or snow that will fly into your face. After whistling, clapping, and calling out ‘til your face turns red, you can use “tule siia!” (“come here!”) with a rising intonation to get your
The culmination of this pro ject will be the future inclusion of Live Streams within KESKUS International Estonian Centre in Toronto. How exactly this installation will take shape is still being discussed, but the vision is to establish a physical connection with the body of water that many of our family members have crossed in re- settling around the world and one that has shaped the con tours of the nation of Estonia. Regardless of the installa tion’s final form, it certainly has the potential to become a mustsee destination for those visit ing downtown Toronto, lighting up the neighbourhood through the tempests of the sea.
When you’re back home and your dog is still not tired after all that running and playing, you can say “istu!” (“sit!”), “lama” (“down”), or “ole rahu lik” (“be peaceful”). This is also a calming phrase for scary knocking on the door or if your dog starts to growl at another dog sniffing them. No matter what, when all is said and done, you should give them some head scratches and tell them “hea koer!” (“good dog!”).
Quotes Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth. • It’s okay if you don’t like me. Not everyone has good taste. • If we’re not meant to have mid night snacks, why is there a light in the fridge. • What do people do with all the extra time they save by writing ‘k’ instead of ‘ok’?
