Between Objects presents artworks acquired for HAM’s collection over the past 10 years in dialogue with artworks by contemporary artists from Estonia. The exhibition is based on a curatorial method developed by Curator Denis Maksimov, where he has invited the Estonian artists to each respond to a work from the collection by choosing an existing artwork of their own to be exhibited alongside collection piece. The connected artists are Pekka Niittyvirta and Taavi Suisalu, nabb+teeri and Sigrid Viir, Maiju Salmenkivi and Merike Estna, Azar Saiyar and Flo Kasearu, and Sauli Sirviö & Johannes Rantapuska and Edith Karlson. 

Through their own artworks, the Estonian artists present a subjective interpretation of the pieces from HAM’s collection. The artists’ responses might have focuced on the work’s intended meaning or perhaps a colour, a shape, or anything else in the object itself. Similarly, the audience is encouraged to focus on the act of looking at artworks. More broadly, Maksimov’s exhibition concept is connected to attempts to think beyond human-centrism with a focus on the agency of objects and their interaction.

Between Objects will be displayed in the museum’s HAM mix gallery, which features exhibitions curated with collection pieces as a starting point. The aim of its exhibitions is to form a living interaction between the collections and current issues and curatorial practices. In showcasing artworks by Finnish and Estonian artists and emphasising the dialogical nature of art, the exhibition introduces the idea of extended locality as a context for HAM’s collection. Contemporary artists in the two countries live and work close to each other, sharing neighbouring cultural and societal realities on different sides of the Gulf of Finland.

The exhibition is realised in collaboration with the Temnikova & Kasela Gallery in Tallinn.