A bucket or the Baltic Sea ?

 Princess Algieba visiting the Livonians in Courland (LV) 2001. (NB! 809 KB)
The photograph by Jaan Pärnamäe.

    Travelling clothes of paper and travel photographs taken from a suitcase have been hung on a cord to dry. There is text on the paper costumes in different languages from the Baltic Sea area.  The man's clothes are clearly declamating with one language. On the woman's dress, there are mixed sentences in different languages dripping from her back.
    On the photographs hung to dry, taken in the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, you cannot see the travelling man.
    Anyway, on the map you can see that someone has travelled on and around the Baltic Sea. Have the bearers of the clothes fallen into the sea since they have hung their clothes on the cord to dry? Didn't they manage to reach the other shore? Even the communication in different languages between the woman and the man doesn't seem to have been successful.
    Or is it a question of consecrating to a task with water? Consecrating to a language, a group?
    Will an Estonian fall into his own, small sandbox bucket or will he be pushed into the Baltic Sea while trying to cross it on his "way" to Western Europe? Is it a question of consecrating to... the European Union?
    Except the paper costumes, photographs and drawings, the exhibition shows a book on these travels around the Baltic Sea, written and illustrated by Kaarina Ormio.
 

     The exhibition is a picture of an Attempt to Meet. If you really want to meet the Other, you have to be ready to make an almost impossible jump, as if you would try to jump over the Baltic Sea. Probably you can fall down in a terrible way, but a Meeting can maybe happen, anyhow.
    Saying it in a more trivial way: both the exhibition and the book deal with difficulties in communication.
 

     The exhibition is based on the joint project "Prince Betelgeuze, Princess Algieba and Princess Bellatrix Travel Around the Baltic Sea" since 1997. The Prince (alias Jaan Pärnamäe) lives in Estonia, Princess Algieba lives in Finland and Princess Bellatrix (alias Elin T. Sørensen) lives in Norway.

      The exhibition is open 28.8.-10.9.2003.
 

Language correction Jan van Grootel.