This exhibition is an artistic experiment: presenting a research process as an installation. What can you do and what would you do with a random collection of photographs? The exhibition was commissioned by Estonian Art Museum Kumu for a project space at the permanent exhibition Landscapes of Identity: Estonian Art 1700-1945, curated by Linda Kaljundi and Kadi Polli.

Kapajeva experiments with different ways of opening up the potential of the often undervalued, under-researched and marginalised heritage of every-day photography.
With this in mind, the artist introduces stories of people, photographers and their assistants who are often invisible or considered unimportant to mention. In the age of automated face recognition software – partly developed by historical archives, but even more so by state and military institutions and international corporations – her project demonstrates the benefits of ”slow recognition”. Gradual identification of the photographers and the people portrayed by them reveals new perspectives on Estonian (micro-)history, By focusing on the faces of the photographed people, their stories and some other forgotten facts which she learned from these images, Kapajeva shows her appreciation for each person and every individual story in our history.  

The artist was very interested to bring this exhibition to Võrumaa because many photographs are from the region. Thus, she hopes that the visitors might feel the joy of recognition when they find people connected to Võru County among the researched subjects. Through a single familiar photo other loose photos make them feel at home.

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