FOREST IS BROTHER IS SISTER IS WOUND

Kaire Rannik & Liina Siib
Hobusepea Gallery
01.10.–01.11.2026

The exhibition FOREST IS BROTHER IS SISTER IS WOUND by Kaire Rannik and Liina Siib looks at questions of representation and ways of seeing landscapes and forests through changes that have taken place in one particular location. The artists chose as their sites of observation the former industrial village of Joaveski on the Loobu River and the Nõmmeveski waterfall, accompanied by the ruins of a power station. The exhibition takes the form of an installation, embodying visual imagery, sound recordings and imprints made during fieldwork that capture the interplay between the abandoned industrial environment and the surrounding ecology.

Centred around a wood pulp mill, Joaveski emerged as an industrial settlement on Estonia’s northern coast, on the border of Harju and Lääne-Viru Counties, in the forests of Lahemaa, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Spruce trees brought in from the surrounding forests were used to produce wood pulp, while logs were also floated along the Loobu River to Joaveski. Limestone was quarried from the Joaveski waterfall for the construction of the mill’s buildings, transforming the four-metre-high waterfall into a six-tiered cascade. To generate additional electricity, a power station was built on the nearby Valgejõgi River at Nõmmeveski. At the heart of the exhibition lies a study of how a century of human activity in the Joaveski area has shaped our perception of the place. The artists share a personal connection to this region and to the Loobu and Valgejõgi Rivers.

Photographs depicting Joaveski and Valgejõgi provide a context for the study of the forest space and the industrial landscape. The narrative is enhanced by excerpts from Ingeborg Johansen’s 1972 story Joaveski which recounts the relationship between a sister and a brother amidst the management and operations of the Joaveski wood pulp mill in the 1920s. The sense of place and time of the landscape are made tangible through physical traces: wood and cardboard, together with resin-tapping marks carved into trees in the Loobu forest, and their impressions emerge as recurring elements in the installations.

According to Gaston Bachelard, water is an element of transition. Water helps transport the wood, provides energy and power for the mill, cools the machinery, is part of the wood pulp and ultimately evaporates as steam from the generated cardboard. The spring waters are powerful enough to destroy bridges and dams. In addition to the sounds and photographs of icy water, the gallery features an artist’s book with loose sheets, expressing Ingeborg Johansen’s sentiments in a contemporary context. The text, set in letterpress and also by using a monotype press, enters into dialogue with traces marking the meeting points of different eras.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Thank you: Ingeborg Johansen, Karl Adam Johansen, Juuli Ingliskokk, Ilmar and Laine Siib, Elfriede Johanna Mäll, Villi Jahilo, Jaan Kruusvall, Indrek Leht, Ly and Enn Eeriksoo, Külli Talivere, Andrus Õis, Riho and Solveig Kirsipuu, Eero Kirsipuu, Tiiu Sammelselg, Sten Berglund, Keio Berglund, children of Joaveski, Tarmo Klotsmann, Hans Gunter Lock, Charlotte Biszewski, Jörgen Loot, Danila Rygovskiy, Praveen Kumar Sharma, Lars
Wikström, Kristina Hedman, Andres Ojari, Hannamari Welling, Paul Rannik,
Marten Prei, Emil Halttunen, Jukka Halttunen, Andres Toodo, Tanja Muravskaja, Peeter Maksing, Joosep Kivimäe, Tiiu Jalakas, MTÜ Joaveski Külaselts, MARU Ehitus, TYPA, RMK, Kehra Paberivabrik, EKA Sound studio, Department of Graphic Art and Digital printing lab of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Zelluloos, Fotomeister, www.papptoru.ee, Velwin OÜ, Estonian Tube Productions OÜ and Keila Social Centre.

Kaire Rannik is a visual artist and a jewellery designer whose diverse practice ranges from large-scale installations to small objects, with a particular interest in form and materiality. She studied metal art at the Estonian Academy of Arts from 1989 to 1999 and jewellery design at Pforzheim University in Germany from 1993 to 1995; in 1999, she graduated with a master’s degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has participated in exhibitions since 1994. Rannik has contributed to the organisation of major international art events, including several applied arts triennials, and has designed exhibitions at the Tartu Art Museum, the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, the Tallinn Art Hall and the Kumu Art Museum. She was a member of the artist group F.F.F.F. from 1996 to 2005 and has been a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 1996.

Liina Siib is a visual artist, film maker and educator based in Tallinn. Her practice is driven by the manifestations of how people’s everyday practices and social spaces are experienced and performed. Across various mediums of film, video, photography, installation and
performance, Liina Siib looks into characters, spaces and mundane situations that often go unnoticed, silenced, or ignored. Her works bring together field observations with archival sources and historical accounts together with psychoanalytic approaches and contemporary art and film theory. In 2011, her project A Woman Takes Little Space represented Estonia at the 54th Venice Art Biennale.