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võiks-olla
2025 - Narva Art Residency, Narva, EE

This work was created as part of Narva Art Residency’s Kunstnikud on Kohal project, which was funded by The British Council.

It was displayed as part of the Hoolimise Keeled exhibition at NART in May 2025.

ERR coverage & interview (from approx. 20’00)

Following a week of workshops at Narva-Jõesuu Keskkool, 'võiks-olla' is composed entirely from elements the students had little, if any, previous experience with: writing in Estonian and working with notation.

Presented as the five lines of a stave, the five main ‘lines’ of text are taken directly from a fairytale the students wrote while trying to creatively find connections between random Estonian words from a previous game. Individually, the students developed these core sentences into their own unique variations of the tale, fragments of which can be seen branching out from the main stave. The yarn-coated words represent those decorated by the students in their own texts when asked to indicate the words they felt were most important.  

The notational markings are taken from a score we made together during another workshop, wherein we used these unfamiliar signs to explore the act of drawing might be used to impart meaning when the  'language' used feels somehow inaccessible.



wire, yarn, & nails on painted wooden board
266 x 120 cm

With thanks to the teachers & students at Narva-Jõesuu Kool:

Aime Onno & Tatjana Barabanova

Polina B, Alina, Polina T, Adrian, Misha, Andrei, Sonja, Lilja, Vaarja, Abel, Bogdan

photos: Jelizaveta Gross @onlooker.photo
©2024 Helena Atkin