NOBA Nordic Baltic contemporary art platform

The exhibition reflects on the intertwining of life and death, the mystery of the human inner world, and the creative power of grief. Dedicated to the memory of Reet Varblane (1952–2023) — an influential art historian, curator, and critic whose work profoundly shaped the Estonian art scene. The exhibition pays tribute to Reet’s life and creative legacy, featuring documentation from her final major curatorial project Baton from Kütiorg to Kadriorg. Force. Spirit. Power, which she was unable to complete.

„What if we didn’t think of death as a final and irreversible end, but as a dynamic process where life and death are intertwined? What if grief was not only the pain of loss, but a creative force that would open the way to memories, connections and new beginnings? What if we thought of the relationship with the dead as a living and meaningful one, where the departed remain among us through stories, dreams, rituals and actions,” ask the curators of the exhibition, Ulla Juske and Jana Huul. This is the kind of dialogue in which the art historian, curator, mother, grandmother, friend and colleague Reet Varblane lives on.