Tiina Sarapu recently completed her monumental work “Weather and Earth” at the Harku Weather Centre.

See more: https://rkas.ee/et/uudised/keskkonnaagentuuri-harku-ilmakeskuse-poeetiline-klaasikunstiteos-valminud

Kai Kiudsoo-Värv opened her exhibition “In the End, Everybody Wants to Know” at the Okapi Gallery, Tallinn, on Nov 6, 2025.

A new glass gallery has opened at the St Catherine’s Passage in Tallinn’s Old Town. The host, Kati Kerstna, welcomed visitors to the celebration on October 22. Among them, founders of the glass studio that previously operated at the same location – Kai Koppel and Viivi-Ann Keerdo – symbolically handed over the house keys, along with their best wishes. The Estonian Glass Artists’ Union also joins them in wishing Kati a successful future!

Kairi Orgusaar displays her installation “A Recipe for Harmony” at the Venice Glass Week HUB, Palazzo Loredan, from Sept 13 to Sept 21, 2025.

On Saturday 13 September, the ninth edition of The Venice Glass Week officially opens under the title #TheMagicOfGlass. Until 21 September, Venice, Murano and Mestre will be transformed into a stage with over 200 events in 130 venues, featuring more than 300 participants from all over the world. The programme ranges from exhibitions and installations to workshops, guided tours, conferences, open furnaces, family activities and much more. Most events are free of charge, making the festival a unique opportunity for discovery and participation.

Among the highlights are the festival’s two group exhibitions: The Venice Glass Week HUB, hosted at Palazzo Loredan, home of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, featuring works by 50 established and mid-career international artists, and The Venice Glass Week HUB Under35, hosted for the first time at the Galleria di Piazza San Marco of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, showcasing the creativity of 30 emerging young talents.

All information is available on our website www.theveniceglassweek.com. By browsing through the categories or using the filters, you can create your own tailor-made itinerary.

Photo by Mati Hiis.

The Ivo Lill FOundation Glass Sculpture Contest had, at the nominees’ exhibition, offered visitors a chance  to vote for their favourite author. The overwhelming winner was Kateriin Rikken, with her work “Thinking of, and relying on, I”

Congratulations to the winner and the runner-ups – Kairi Orgusaar and Eve Koha!

Photo by Mati Hiis.

The Ivo Lill Foundation, established under the Estonian National Culture Foundation, was created to honour the memory of glass artist Ivo Lill (1953–2019) and to support creators working in sculptural glass.

Ivo Lill was one of Estonia’s most highly regarded and internationally acclaimed glass artists. His body of work includes numerous cold-worked glass sculptures and installations characterized by optical brilliance, mystery, and an exceptionally sensitive visual language. His creations are notable for their material and technical complexity, demonstrating a deep commitment to glass as a sculptural medium.

Ivo Lill’s solo exhibition “Floodwater” was held in the Viinistu Barrel Gallery in 2007. As a tribute, this exhibition will also feature one of his original works on display outside of the competition.

The following authors were chosen as nominees:
Sofi Aršas, Piret Ellamaa, Iohan Figueroa, Emma Haase, Andra Jõgis, Elle Kannike, Erki Kannus, Kati Kerstna, Eve Koha, Kairi Orgussaar, Anne-Liis Leht, Sandra Prami, Birgit Pählapuu, Kateriin Rikken, Maret Sarapu, Tiina Sarapu, Yulia Vakina, Ilo Vill and Kai Kiudsoo-Värv.

The winner was announced on August 2, at the opening of the nominees’ exhibition at Viinistu. The jury decided to award the prize to Piret Ellamaa’s piece titled “Gate: East and West.”

Negotiations
Glass and print exhibition
April 27 – June 24, 2025
Pärnu Museum of New Art

Two seemingly incongruent art disciplines – glass art and printmaking – have entered a round of negotiations. One of them is transparent; the other, not so much. Some artists have invaded each other’s territories and discovered common ground: both media are frequently unpredictable, not fully subdued to the author’s will. The artwork meets its maker only when emerging from the kiln, acid bath, printing press or some other environment where chemistry and physics tend to overshadow human capabilities.
In life, reaching an understanding can be equally chaotic. The artist encounters situations which, more often than not, elude their full control.

All this chaos is temporarily brought to a kind of order at the Pärnu Museum of New Art. The exhibition is a continuation of the project “Imagine” which took place in 2024 at the ARS Project Space, Tallinn.

Participants:
Sofi Aršas, Sirje Eelma, Maria Erikson, Riho Hütt, Anu Juurak, Erki Kannus, Merle Kannus, Malle Karik-Hallimäe, Kati Kerstna, Eve Koha, Kairi Orgusaar, Rait Prääts, Kerttu Rannik, Lembe Ruben, Maret Sarapu, Tiina Sarapu, Eili Soon, Helen Tago-Mullaste, Andres Tali, Mirjam Varik, Kai Kiudsoo-Värv, Vello VInn.

Curators: Merle Kannus, Lembe Ruben.
Exhibition Design: Merle Kannus
Graphic Design: Lembe Ruben
Lighting Design: Kati Kerstna
Thank you: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Museum of New Art, Estonian Glass Artists’ Union, Estonian Printmakers’ Association.

On Friday, 7 March at 5 p.m., Sirje Eelma and Rait Prääts will open their joint exhibition, “Same House 16./50”, in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House.

The exhibition was born out of the artists’ desire to continue a series of joint exhibitions, to celebrate in their own way a milestone anniversary of their life together, to exhibit recent works, to identify the common ground of their partnership and to affirm their continued creative potential. The exhibition mainly features work from recent years, but there are also references to earlier layers.

Sirje Eelma and Rait Prääts have lived in the same house for 50 years. For the same length of time, the couple have been active on the art scene: Sirje as a graphic artist, Rait at first mainly as a stained-glass artist, later moving increasingly to sculpture. Since 1999, they have had a total of 15 joint exhibitions in Estonia and Finland under the title “In the same house”. Each exhibition is put together according to time and place, and the fact that the artists do not compete with each other in terms of technique or space has always helped to keep the union together. It has been 10 years since the last joint exhibition.

“The common element of the exhibition at the Tartu Art House is a meditation on the passage of time. There are references to the past and, through the stones and sculptures, to the future. Both of us will be presenting our own themes and established handwriting, but our intertwined lives and time in its various layers will also be highlighted,” the artists explain.

Sirje Eelma (b. 1950) graduated from the Estonian State Institute of Art as a fashion designer. She worked as a costume designer at Tallinnfilm from 1975-1983 and since then has worked as a freelance artist. She has been a member of Estonian Artists’ Association since 1983 and has exhibited since the mid-1970s. She has exhibited both in Estonia and abroad, in solo and group exhibitions. Eelma has been awarded prizes in international printmaking exhibitions on several occasions, in Japan, South Korea, Latvia etc.

Rait Prääts (b. 1952) studied at the Estonian State Art Institute from 1970 to 1975. He has participated in exhibitions since 1975 and has been a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 1984. From 1993 to 2003 he worked as a lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts and from 1995 to 2008 he organised the festival KUNSTISUVI. Since 2003 he has been a freelance artist.

Graphic design: Laura Prääts and Ülar Linnuste (Joonstuudio)
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Artists’ Association.

“ Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it.”
/ Andrei Tarkovsky /

The author says:
“I’m trying to find the recipe for harmony. For this purpose, I’ve developed a world made up of fantastic creatures, swinging in beams of light, casting shadows and reflections. These entities have but one language to express their emotions – that of colours. Joy, pain or arousal get projected as hues and shades of their skin.
Since glass is the medium giving them form, they’re partially transparent, seemingly immaterial, submerged in water – as if they’ve been transported from some lost continent, like Lemuria.”

Kairi Orgusaar graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts, painting department (B-A. 1995) and glass department (M.A. 2002). She’s been participating in exhibitions home and abroad since 1996. She’s a triple laureate of the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s regional award. Her works can be found in the Ernsting Stiftung Alter of Herdingi collection, Germany, in the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, and in private collections. In 2002, she founded her studio OÜ Kunivorm, and is the founder and board member of the Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art since 2010.

Kairi Orgusaar is an artist working primarily with painting and glass. Her powerful sculptural glass forms and installations take on a poetic, delicate appearance with the addition of light. She is mostly intrigued by topics both intimate and timeless, but won’t turn her back on simple play and fantasy. She keeps returning to the theme of environment, and its interaction with the subject; harmony and dissonance, connections and influences.

Design: Kati Kerstna
Thank you for assistance:
Cultural endowment of Estonia and its Rapla County Experts’ Group, Tartu Art Hall, Merle Kannus, Herbert Orgusaar, Tiina Kõrtsini