EKKM extended team and board. Photo: Joosep Kivimäe.
In 2026, the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) will celebrate its 20th season. Having operated cyclically in an unheated industrial building, the EKKM became a museum seemingly by chance. Through a playful and punk attitude, the crumbling building was turned into an exhibition space, with the idea that it would never be finished at the core of its institutional identity. Although typically self-organised art initiatives are short-lived, in its 20 years EKKM has secured its position both in the Estonian art field and in the public space of Tallinn.
The jubilee season will be launched with the return of the Köler Prize! The exhibition of the works of the nominees (11.04–05.07.2026) will feature five Estonian artists – Anna Mari Liivrand, Darja Popolitova, Hanna Samoson, Keiu Maasik and Taavi Suisalu – who will each create a new work, based on which an international jury will select the winner of the main prize and the visitors will decide the recipient of the audience prize. In 2026, the main prize of €15,000 will be sponsored by the indie video game studio ZA/UM. The €5,000 audience award will be awarded by the law firm COBALT. The Köler Prize exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, a film and a spectacular awards gala.
In summer (24.07–27.09.2026), EKKM will turn the museum inside out to celebrate its anniversary outdoors with a collectively curated exhibition. The museum is more than its building; it is growing out of it, flowing into the courtyard, garden and urban space. The exhibition, which takes a look at both EKKM and its wider role as an art institution, is inspired by the image of a corn. An inconvenience that cannot be ignored, and which is at the same time a sign of the body’s defence mechanism, expressing resistance and care. Corns are in constant contact with the different points of the outer world, demonstrating their ability to react and adapt. Similarly to EKKM, the exhibition will take the form of an organism that is constantly deteriorating, renewing and changing and that is subject to the whims of seasons and weather while practising continued survival. Artists from Estonia, Finland, the USA and elsewhere are participating in the exhibition: Alexei Gordin, Bogna Luiza Wisniewska, Finnegan Shannon, Flo Kasearu, Mari Möldre and Margus Tammik, Taavi Piibemann, among others.
The jubilee exhibition turns the EKKM building into a temporary monument for the museum’s activities and the art it has accommodated for the last 20 years. During the exhibition, on 4 September EKKM will celebrate its 20th birthday with the launch of an extensive jubilee publication compiled by Evelyn Raudsepp, EKKM’s curator and project manager, together with Marten Esko, EKKM’s former manager, and designed by Ott Metusala. The book launch will culminate with a celebratory garden party worthy of the anniversary.
EKKM will conclude its 20th season with an international group exhibition (10.10–13.12.2026), which will make a long-distance call to Southwest Asia and highlights Palestinian artists, among others. The exhibition is being curated by Evelyn Raudsepp and will be developed in collaboration with curators for whom Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora are both a professional field of work and a deeply personal concern. Instead of trying to convey complex and poignant experiences or speak for others, the exhibition will take shape through video interviews: through observations and reflections that emerge in personal and intimate conversations. The exhibition shifts from hearing to listening: from generalised news feeds and statistics to the stories and lived experiences of individuals, where art and culture emerge as carriers of resistance and resilience, memory and imagination.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, throughout the year the museum’s visual identity will feature a jubilee logo, designed by EKKM’s graphic designer for 2026, Rasmus Einman. The jubilee logo is a nod to the past years and the museum’s colourful history, as well as a reminder of the several turning points during which the museum was threatened with closure: who else but EKKM could make a gallows joke while thanking the Estonian art community and the museum’s previous managers who always held their ground for the survival of EKKM. The logo captures EKKM’s ability to adapt and change, its courage to experiment and freedom to symbolise different values for the museum’s diverse audience.
Main events of EKKM’s 20th jubilee season:
10 April: opening of the Köler Prize exhibition
24 April: Screen Tests for the Köler Prize 2026 film premiere at the Sõprus cinema
12 June: Köler Prize gala
23 July: opening of the jubilee exhibition
4 September: jubilee party and the launch of the jubilee publication
9 October: opening of the third exhibition
Jubilee logo. Design by Rasmus Einman.