Riin Maide and Nele Tiidelepp - Etudes with imaginary performers

The artists add: “Our practice is focused on everyday experiences and their translation into various means of expression. Traces of activity or the meaningfulness of their absence can be alternately read in the sonic, formal and textual space. The soundtrack to driving down the Riga hill in an old BMW on a Friday night; travelogues from the farthest place you can go without leaving Europe and a model of the house you have grown out of without knowing it. These embody bright moments through their specific qualities.”

To acknowledge the disappearance of something is still to say that it could exist.

Riin Maide (b 1997) has acquired a bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Estonian Academy of Arts, majoring in graphics, and furthered her education in the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theater at DAMU in Prague, majoring in scenography. In 2020, she received the EKA’s Young Artist Award and the Edmund Valtman Scholarship. Site specificity, ephemerality and graphic imagery are important in her work. Through playful installations and theatrical environments, she deals with memory and presence.

Nele Tiidelepp (b 1998) is an artist and writer who graduated the installation and sculpture department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her practice is motivated by spontaneous reactions to the environment and materials. Tiidelepp has won the Noor Tartu competition, EKA’s Young Artist Award, SIIL Prize and Millenium Prize, published texts in the journal “Värske Rõhk”, the newspapers “Müürileht” and “Sirp” and participated in exhibitions and art events in Estonia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and Finland.

Thanks: Saara Liis Jõerand, Cristo Madissoo, Tom Brennecke, Martin Tiidelepp