Silver Tsäko ^{Emerging artist}

Artist's country of origin: Estonia

Silver Tsäko is a sculptor and recent graduate of the Sculpture Department at Pallas University of Applied Sciences, where he earned his degree with honors in 2025. His practice centers on socially engaged sculpture, often using DIY techniques and repurposed materials to explore themes of queerness, youth, and embodied experience.

During his early years of study, Tsäko participated in several large-scale public space projects, including a three-meter sand sculpture of a blue whale and a reclining tiger carved from snow—an homage to Eduard Wiiralt’s iconic print. He has been actively involved in community and educational initiatives, contributing to a junkyard playground with NGO Kids Outdoors and helping build a dragon-shaped playhouse from recycled cartons at Tartu Nature House. These formative projects reinforced his understanding of sculpture as a tactile, empathetic, and socially responsive medium.

In 2023, Tsäko studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli through the Erasmus+ program, expanding his practice in an international context. The following summer, he joined a production team working on Androgynos, a large bronze sculpture installed in front of a hospital in Estonia, gaining hands-on experience in mold-making and bronze casting.

His work has been featured in several group exhibitions, including those organized by the Sculpture Department at Pallas and the pop-up show Euroopa kuuripealinn (Europe’s Shed Capital) during the 2024 Supilinn Days in Tartu. For his bachelor’s thesis, he co-curated Vaatamata kõigele oleme me olemas (Here, in spite of it all), an exhibition that wove together older and new works into a unified installation focused on queerness, vulnerability, and material tension.