13 November 2025 ERR News English section informs:
Saved from a crumbling local building, fragments of a massive 1980s mural by Estonian artist Andrus Kasemaa are now on view in a pop-up exhibition in Peri.
Thirty-seven pieces of Kasemaa’s 60-square-meter “Mahtra War” were preserved by a team of students from the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) and Pallas University of Applied Sciences (KKP) this summer.
Inspired by Eduard Vilde’s 1902 historical novel of the same name, the 1985 mural was made using a rare secco technique and is one of only two murals Kasemaa completed in his lifetime. He reportedly dedicated it to modernist master Marc Chagall, who died that same year.
The former kolkhoz clubhouse in Peri where it was located had begun to crumble, threatening the mural. Organizers initially expected to save only a few fragments — but all survived.
“If there were just a few pieces, it would be easier to predict what will happen with them,” said EKA rector and professor Hilkka Hiiop. “But now it’s sixty square meters, and we, along with heritage authorities, the municipality and the village, now have to consider what comes next.”
The work is divided into two sections. One depicts Kasemaa’s interpretations of the Mahtra War — an 1858 peasant insurgency at Mahtra Manor, in what is now Rapla County. The other shows artist and collector Matti Milius surrounded by kolkhoz leaders.
One fragment was reinstalled on its original wall because it depicts local residents. “That piece should stay in Peri,” Hiiop added.
During conservation, the mural’s surface was covered in gauze, which removed a tiny bit of paint from the surface — a trace of its rescue. Visitors to the pop-up exhibition at the local village hall can now see both the fragments and a glimpse of the story behind their preservation.
Locals still not wild about it
Local residents themselves, meanwhile, have stayed cool toward the project, as they were when the mural was first created.
Peri librarian Margit Kõva recalled speaking with a woman whose husband appears in the painting as a kolkhoznik, or collective farmer. Even back then, villagers were skeptical of Kasemaa’s work, grumbling that “a lot of money was being spent on it.”
Kõva added that attitudes haven’t changed much. “People still think that if something is done that ordinary folks might not fully understand, it’s just a waste of resources,” she said.
Despite the temporary pause on events at the village hall, the traditional Peri Christmas Fair will still go on amid the pop-up exhibition.
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Editor: Neit-Eerik Nestor, Aili Vahtla