Karl Joonas Alamaa ^{Emerging artist}

Artist's country of origin: Estonia

Karl Joonas Alamaa, a tailor by background, is an artist and fashion designer who has studied fashion at Estonian Academy of Arts and costume design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. They are a laureate of Eduard Wiiralt prize, nominee of Hõbenõel 2021. They have participated at Tallinn Fashion Week with several multimedia works and collections. Alamaa has also presented their works at the ERKI fashion show. In addition, they have given performances at the Zuidpool Theatre in Antwerp, at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava in Tallinn, and organized an action with a giant Rainbow flag at the Theatre Square in Tallinn. They have shown their works at the exhibitions in Estonia, Finland and Belgium. Alamaa works with several media, from installation and performance to creating costumes and collections. Their work contains the mundanity of being human and the dissection and contestation of social constructions, including dealing with the interrelationship between gender and the body. It is often characteristic of them to approach topics through sensitive and controversial points of recent history, working with the complexes and cultural history of the Baltics and Eastern-Europe. However, while Alamaa’s work contains dealing with social and cultural pain points, a subtle humor and critical absurd is not missing from the works.