Patricia Piccinini‘s solo exhibition The Instruments of Life

Piccinini studied economics and philosophy and came to art through drawing exhibits in collections of medical and science museums. Her focus is on humans’ relationship to one another and with other species, both within family throughout their life as well as within the ecosystem as a whole. Piccinini is also inspired by themes of fecundity in the broadest sense – the potential of life, empathy and the connection between species. The creatures in the exhibition hall, equally cute and grotesque, remind us how genetically close humans are to other species, how greatly we depend upon one another and the responsibility we have for everything we create.

Piccinini’s solo exhibition The Instruments of Life includes sculptures created between 2005 and 2019 and her new video work The Awakening (2020), dedicated to the body as a site of production, exploring themes like rebirth and renewal. Patricia Piccinini shared her thoughts, “I’m really excited to show my works for the first time in Estonia in collaboration with curator Anna Mustonen and the wonderful all-female team at Kai. Usually, accompanying my shows and meeting and interacting with the people that engage with my work is one of the joys of my life. Sadly, I won’t be able to be there in person this time but I can’t wait to see what people make of it, and I hope that lots of great discussions and experiences result out of the exhibition.”

Patricia Piccinini was born in 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. In 1972 the artist’s family moved to Australia, where Piccinini grew up. Today she lives and works in Melbourne. Piccinini holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Australian National University in Canberra and a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, where she has been a professor since 2017. Patricia Piccinini’s exhibition We are Family was Australia’s official representation for the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.

Anna Mustonen is an independent curator and curatorial director at daata.art. Mustonen has fifteen years of experience in both the public and private sectors, having worked at museums such as Tate Modern (London) and Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn), and at internationally renowned galleries Victoria Miro (London) and Haunch of Venison (London). In 2019 Mustonen curated the major exhibition Distant Land by Pentti Sammallahti for Fotografiska Tallinn and Stockholm, and she was the curator of Patricia Piccinini’s solo exhibition Between Shadow and the Soul at Taidehalli, Helsinki in 2020.

This exhibition is supported by the Finnish Institute and the Folk Culture Centre.