Killu Sukmit’s exhibition deals with feminist folklore in fairy tales. In the 17th century, Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy coined the term conte de fée (fairy tale). The earliest fairy tales served as feminist critiques of patriarchy, exposing behaviors that oppressed and degraded women. D’Aulnoy and other female authors of the time mixed elements of pseudo-history, autobiography and adventure in their stories.
Stories by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and the family policy platforms of conservative parties also offer an endless trove of patriarchal fairy tales. The original versions of these so-called classic fairy tales often feature particularly brutal violence against women. These tales were drawn from real life and intended to serve as moral lessons, but justice within them is notably biased. It seems that in order to change these macho fairy tales, real life itself must change first.
The works in Killu Sukmit’s exhibition Talks with a Tiger tell stories of an emancipated wind, a great grandmother who was a sound artist and a 12th-century feminist activist tiger. Was the Venus of Milo posing as a warrior, a mother holding a child or spinning yarn? Cinderella embodies all of these roles as she peers through the looking class. The exhibition primarily features embroidery, also including sound.
The works draw inspiration from a variety of fairy tales, including Madame D’Aulnoy’s Cunning Cinders and The Hind in the Wood, Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s The Orphan’s Hand-Mill and Goldspinners, Donald Bisset’s Talks with the Tiger and Other Tales, Italo Calvino’s Miss North Wind and Mr. Zephyr, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, Emil Kolozsvári Grandpierre’s The Magic Flute and The Princess Dancing on Razors, and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Killu Sukmit is an artist and musician, with a background in graphic arts. She co-founded Kraam, an artist-run space (with Minna Hint), and was one of the organisers of Ladyfest Tallinn. Sukmit has participated in groups such as the Valie Export Society, The Elfriede Jelinek School of English Language, and Feminismiehitaja (Feminism Builder). Her recent solo exhibitions include K’s Garden (Kraam artist-run space, 2019), Artist and Her Work (Tartu Art House, Monumental Gallery, 2021), and Pudu and Bread (Pärnu City Gallery, 2022). She has played drums for bands such as Dr. Dorothee & Why, Extrafine, Paul Cole & Ring My Bell, and Punane. Since 2012, she has been part of the duo Hello Killu (with Hello Upan). She was awarded the Estonian Cultural Endowment Annual Art Award in 2001 (with Mari Laanemets) and in 2019 (with Minna Hint).
Thanks: Urve Sukmit, Kaarel Kressa, Robin Kressa, Hello Upan, Carlea Holl-Jensen, Rachael Marr, Melissa Ashley, Deborah Frances-White, Anna Mari Liivrand.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions at Draakon gallery are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
