Discussion of the research project “How to Reframe Monuments” at the Estonian Academy of Arts
On 7 May at 18.00, the Department of Heritage Conservation and Conservation and the Department of Installation and Sculpture of the EAA invite you to a discussion on the research project “How to Reframe Monuments” on the Tehumardi Monument in room D-412, EAA.
The discussion will be honoured by the presence of the author of the monument, Riho Kuld, who will talk about the background of the birth of the monument, commenting on the zeitgeist of memory sculpture at the time.
The evening will be chaired by Anu Soojärv. Kirke Kangro will present the designs that will modernise the monument.
More about the monument and the debate.
A new research project by the Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University explores how to deal with complex heritage while creating new qualities in public space and preserving the important role of controversial heritage as a carrier of history. The first case study of the project is the Tehumardi Memorial in Saaremaa.
Dedicated to the night battle of Tehumardi, the memorial was a joint creation of sculptors Riho Kuld and Matti Varik and architect Allan Murdmaa in 1966, while the cemetery next to the memorial was built in 1975. The Tehumardi memorial was brought to the public’s attention in 2022, when, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the appropriateness of Soviet-era war monuments in the Estonian public space was called into question. In 2024, the War Graves Commission granted an application by Saaremaa municipality to open the war graves and reburial of the presumed remains of the Tehumardi Memorial Complex, which inevitably raises the problem of the preservation and conservation of a modernist memorial complex of high artistic and landscape architectural value.
On April 23, the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts Kirke Kangro, the Dean of the Faculty of Art and Culture Hilkka Hiiop, ICOMOS Vice President Riin Alatalu, Junior Researcher Anu Soojärv and the advisors of the project’s partner, the Heritage Conservation Board Jüri-Martin Lepp and Liis Koppel, met with members of Saaremaa municipality to discuss possible solutions for the framing of the Tehumardi Memorial.
The project will be accompanied by a contemporary art programme, where artists Anna-Mari Liivrand, Taavi Piibemann, Johannes Säre, Kristina Norman and Kirke Kangro offered a creative solution for the conceptual reinterpretation of the Tehumardi memorial.
Anna-Mari Liivrand’s design “Straws” proposes a solution to saturate the whole of the memorial by covering the grave markers with dolomite slabs. The bronze/brass lines on the tiles are inspired by the windy landscape surrounding the memorial, in particular the red rhododendrons that grow there. Over time, the metal oxidises and begins to leak onto the tile, adding a teardrop motif. Symbolically, the straw motif can also be seen as a reference to the fragile human soul at the mercy of the winds (foreign powers), left with no choice but to act according to its own convictions. Taavi Piibemann’s design “Almost eternal fire/How to feed memory” places solar panels on gravestones. The energy collected from within the slabs themselves will light the memorial in a steady stream. Piibemann’s second design creates an even denser, more expansive field of cairns on the current landscape of stone cairns, with new boulder cairns overshadowing the pentagon signs on the slabs. Johannes Säre’s design covers the memorial’s paving stones with a layer of moss and introduces a delicate viewing platform for the sword and obelisk. According to Kirke Kangro’s design, the 90 slabs would be covered by a graphic novel-style narrative about Tehumardi – from the tragic battle, its exploitation as a displacement of historical knowledge, to the ongoing debate.