We Have a Land of Words

Exhibition design: Anu Vahtra
Advisors: Amer Shomaly, Lara Khaldi, Yasmin Huleileh, Yazan Khalili
Curated book selection in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts library

The group exhibition We Have a Land of Words [1] is making a long-distance call to Southwest Asia, and approaching a complex subject by moving from generalised media narratives and ideological frameworks to the stories and lived experiences of individuals. Curator Evelyn Raudsepp shaped the exhibition through video interviews with Palestinian curators, drawing on the observations, experiences and reflections that emerge through personal conversations.

Stories from the Southwest Asia reach Estonia largely through mediated forms: conflicting news reports, statistics, and a relentless audiovisual stream of violence. We Have a Land of Words seeks to interrupt this distance by foregrounding human experience and creating possibilities for more direct forms of contact. The exhibition brings together works by several internationally acclaimed artists whose relationships to the region are inseparable from their artistic practices. Their personal stories, infused with documentary elements, reveal how political and repressive structures reach into the details of everyday life.

The exhibition design by artist Anu Vahtra works with the historical layers embedded in EKKM’s spaces, continuing, in the museum’s anniversary year, to foreground its raw and flexible backbone – a space willing to engage with society’s uncomfortable pressure points.

The exhibition’s public programme supports and expands upon the stories and experiences presented in the exhibition through events that bring the exhibition’s themes closer to us and connect them to the local context. Co-curated by Anita Kodanik and Sanna Kartau, the program brings together collective imagination and poetic resistance through reading evenings, gatherings, film screenings, and conversations in collaboration with various artists, researchers, and institutions, extending the discussion beyond the museum’s walls.

We Have a Land of Words is grounded in the idea that when political reality reaches an impasse, collective imagination can act as a poetic counterforce and an active process through which we can envision both the past and the future differently – rewriting historical narratives, preserving cultural memory, and means of imagining social relationships beyond the limits imposed by political reality. If we have the possibility to create a land out of words, what kind of world do we want to build together?

لنا أرض من كلام

الفنانون:

Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme، Dahaleez Collective، Dénes Farkas، Forensic Architecture، Jumana Manna، Keithy Kuuspu، Larissa Sansour، Laura Põld، Mona Hatoum، Yasmeen Al Daya

تصميم المعرض: Anu Vahtra
القيّمة: Evelyn Raudsepp
اختيار الكتب للمعرض بالتعاون مع مكتبة الأكاديمية الإستونية للفنون.

المقابلات القيّمية:

Amer Shomaly، Lara Khaldi، Yasmin Huleileh، Yazan Khalili

الداعمون: الصندوق الثقافي الإستوني، وزارة الثقافة الإستونية، مدينة تالين

يُوجّه المعرض الجماعي «لنا أرض من كلام» نداءً عابرًا للمسافات إلى جنوب غرب آسيا، ويسلّط الضوء، من بين أمور أخرى، على فنانين فلسطينيين معترف بهم دوليًا، لا تنفصل مساراتهم الشخصية وتجاربهم المعاشة في المنطقة عن ممارساتهم الفنية.

ينتقل المعرض من السماع إلى الإصغاء، من التغطيات الإخبارية المعمّمة والسرديات الأيديولوجية إلى أصوات الأفراد وقصصهم وتجاربهم المعاشة.

وفي الوقت نفسه، يوجّه المعرض نظرةً نقدية ذاتية إلى السرديات الثقافية التي نُظر من خلالها إلى فلسطين في إستونيا، وإلى كيفية تغيّر هذه السرديات مع مرور الوقت.

يستند «لنا أرض من كلام» إلى فكرة أن الخيال الجمعي يمكن أن يشكّل قوةً شعرية مضادة، ووسيلةً لتخيّل علاقات وآفاق مستقبلية تتجاوز الحدود التي يفرضها الواقع السياسي.

تظهر فلسطين هنا في آن واحد بوصفها موقعًا ملموسًا وفضاءً تخيليًا، وساحةً لصناعة العالم يجري فيها التفاوض حول شروط مستقبل عالمي مشترك.

إذا كانت لدينا إمكانية أن نصنع أرضًا من الكلام، فأي نوع من العالم نريد أن نبنيه معًا؟

The exhibition’s public programme supports and expands upon the stories and experiences presented in the exhibition through events that bring the exhibition’s themes closer to us and connect them to the local context. Co-curated by Anita Kodanik and Sanna Kartau, the program brings together collective imagination and poetic resistance through reading evenings, gatherings, film screenings, and conversations in collaboration with various artists, researchers, and institutions, extending the discussion beyond the museum’s walls.

* EKKM Reads is an informal reading group. Together with an invited artist, thinker, or researcher, participants have the opportunity to slowly experience and interpret texts selected by the facilitator. The “blind date” format means that participants do not need to familiarize themselves with the texts beforehand – they are read and discussed on the spot. Three EKKM Reads sessions will take place as part of the We Have a Land of Words exhibition (two in English): October 22 at 18:00 with the Ukrainian researcher Vlada Vazheyevskyy and December 3 at 18:00 with the Palestinian writer Heba Hayek.

* Special screening at Kai Cinema on November 4 at 18:00 will feature Kamal Aljafar’s film “With Hasan in Gaza,” which garnered international acclaim in 2025.

* Special screening at the Sõprus Cinema on November 30 at 18:00 will bring to the big screen the documentary “Foragers” (2022) by exhibiting artist Jumana Manna, which depicts the Palestinian practices of gathering edible plants and the tensions associated with them. The screening will be followed by a discussion moderated by Vivek Jain. Admission is free!

The screening events are part of “The Image Insists,” a curatorial program by artist and researcher Vivek Jain. Within this framework, screenings held at various locations envision cinema as an assembly that offers an opportunity for remembrance and collective resistance.

* Panel discussion on November 25 at 18:00 (in Estonian) in the lobby of the Estonian Academy of Arts, five creatives at the height of their careers come together to discuss risk, creativity and civil duty. What risks have they taken and what has it taught them? Is risk real or rather a story we tell ourselves? What does avoiding risk cost?

* On the last week of the exhibition on the evening of December 10, EKKM together with IDA radio will host a concert-party at IDA bar, offering an opportunity to meet and celebrate resistance to colonial aggression in a more casual and physical form.