Category Archives: Exhibitions
REET SALONEN/ ELIS LIIVO
05.06. – 30.08.2026 on the WINDOWS of A-Galerii. All exhibitions in A-Galerii are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Reet Salonen
DOWN UNDER
The exhibition DOWN UNDER stems from jewelry artist Reet Salonen’s long-standing fascination with Oceania. Over the course of her travels during the past six years, she has drawn inspiration from the landscapes of New Zealand, the “great red land” of Australia, and the exoticism of Samoa, as well as from the unique cultures and people of these places. Her most recent works were completed this year, immediately following a trip in February to Melbourne and Western Australia. The exhibition brings together the essence of these distant continents in a direct dialogue with chosen materials. In Salonen’s words:
“In creating these works, I have drawn impulses from flights across the oceans and the Great Barrier Reef, from the underwater world there, and from long road trips through Australia, New Zealand, and Samoa. Subterranean themes also played an important role: mineral resources, copper mines, gemstones, and Australian gold. The exhibition also features the brooch Half of My Heart, which incorporates a rare zebra stone purchased in Perth, found naturally only in the Kimberley region of Western Australia near Kununurra.
My travel memories have settled into a holistic symbiosis of experiences, into a creative practice in which I do not seek to produce a direct copy of a specific object, but rather to convey an intuitive reflection of accumulated impressions.
All of the jewelry pieces in the exhibition are unique works. In them, I have used materials found, purchased, or received as gifts during my travels, and primarily silver, copper, and brass as metals. To me, Australia is best characterized by copper, it is reddish like the earth there itself.”
Reet Salonen (Mängel-Juuse) is a jewelry artist, designer, gallerist, and painter born in Pärnu and currently based in Helsinki. She holds a degree in industrial design from the Estonian Academy of Arts. As a metal artist, she is a bold experimenter whose creative method is rooted in direct engagement with materials. Salonen has participated in numerous international solo and group exhibitions and has received significant professional recognition for her work. Her pieces are included, among others, in the Finnish National Art Collection, and she is a member of both the Estonian Association of Metal Artists and the Finnish Jewellery Art Association. This exhibition marks the artist’s first solo jewelry exhibition in Estonia.
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Elis Liivo
SUBSTANTIAL STRENGTH – SACRIFICE
“Something hidden within us lays the foundation for both what is desired and what is unwanted. How often do we stop to think about what this force is and why it was created? Yet without it, none of our good deeds or less noble acts, considered decisions or foolish mistakes, would ever come to pass.
We are born with this something, a substantial force, that often resists conscious control. And perhaps that is for the best, because when inner balance exists, this force sustains everything essential in life: love, care, the desire to surpass oneself, and the search for meaning beyond mere existence. The possibility of sacrificing oneself for something greater, something that outlives our physical condition. Through this, we remain connected to our ancestors and future generations, giving existence both power and purpose. To be connected to another, to be understood, to be influenced by something higher, to exist and simply be in this world as a creator and, when necessary, also a destroyer.
But where does this force truly come from? The power to create from embryonic nothingness and, in the end, to dissolve all that has existed only to rise again, endure, and hopefully continue into infinity.
Everything that exists belongs to everyone and originates from within ourselves, and because of this, life becomes a chain reaction of something none of us can rationally put into words. Yet change can begin by directing one’s will toward something better and more enduring, sacrificing for it the strength bestowed upon us from above. Human greatness lies in the ability to direct one’s life force where it serves both oneself and others alike. Every strength is eventually exhausted, yet what remains is a trace of what once existed, measured against the transience of time.”
The works in the exhibition SUBSTANTIAL STRENGTH – SACRIFICE are dedicated to labour and perseverance. The ancient-style women’s jewelry created by Elis Liivo draws from old beliefs according to which jewelry empowered its wearer through the clinking and chiming sounds it produced when worn. The artist has empowered the works with her own hair, seeing it as an energetic material that maintains both a conceptual and physical connection to the pieces even after her death. Also presented are rings from the collection Erosion, illustrating the coexistence of what exists and what disappears, forces that simultaneously create and undermine.
Elis Liivo (1990) is a conceptual jewelry artist originally from Hiiumaa, a small Estonian island. Through themes of identity and heritage, Liivo explores emotions and personal experiences, examining the often invisible layers of human existence, their fragility and strength alike. She studied in the Department of Jewelry and Blacksmithing at the Estonian Academy of Arts from 2021 to 2025 and furthered her studies at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, as well as through an internship at the Spanish company Crisopeya. Liivo is the founder of the jewelry brand ZYLELY. She has participated in several international exhibitions, including the Lisbon Jewellery Biennial, Munich Jewellery Week, and the Transylvania Jewelry Festival. In 2026, her solo exhibition at A-Galerii’s WINDOWS and the group exhibition Genius Loci 7 at Reigi Pastoraat will take place.
MAIA HELLMAN (SWE)/ ANNE REINBERG
ACTIVATED BY LIGHT
Three materials, one process. Each disperses differently.
The tiles on show have been subjected to sandblasting, a process that accelerates what time does slowly. The abrasion strips back the surface, revealing how different materials yield at different rates: glass becomes thinner and thinner with each stroke, growing more transparent as it weakens; ceramics, seemingly solid, remains porous and receptive; iron holds its ground longest.
Among them, clay occupies a particular position. Unlike metal, which can be melted down and reborn, fired clay cannot return. It has no second life as raw material. Once transformed by heat, it exists only as what it is, accumulating damage, holding memory, moving in one direction only. Ceramic is perhaps the most honest of materials: irreversible in the truest sense.
Sandblasting does not destroy these objects so much as hasten their becoming, pushing each material further along a path it was already on. Corrosion is not an ending, it is a process that was always already underway.
Maia Hellman is a Swedish-Portuguese maker working across ceramics, metal, and glass. She holds a BFA in Metal Art from the University of Gothenburg and is currently completing a master’s degree in Craft Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her artistic practice focuses on moments when materials reveal their true nature through wear, time, and processes of transformation. Influenced by both Scandinavian and Baltic contexts, her work is grounded in careful observation and hands-on making.
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FOLDS AND TRACES
The jewellery in the exhibition FOLDS AND TRACES is shaped through folding, marking, and the application of heat, both working methods that generate surface relief and structure. Departing from strict repetition, the emphasis shifts toward the material’s own response within the process of making. The exhibition considers the point at which control meets chance, and how their interplay gives rise to form. The works are not cast, but folded and formed entirely by hand.
Anne Reinberg is an Estonian jewellery artist. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2005 with a BA in jewellery and blacksmithing. With an earlier background in computer graphics, she has been exhibiting since 1996. Her work combines silver, wood, and crystals, revealing the patterns embedded in natural structures and the mathematical principles that shape them. Reinberg is a member of the Estonian Metal Artists’ Association.
Exhibitions in A-Galerii are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment
KEIU KOPPEL (EST)/ MICHAEL SCHOORL (NLD)
On Friday, January 23 at 6 p.m., exhibitions by Keiu Koppel (EST) and Michael Schoorl (NLD) opened in the windows of A-Gallery.
ON THE VERGE
Jewellery artist Keiu Koppel’s new works are inspired by houses of cards. Through poetic, masterfully crafted objects, the exhibition raises the question of how long the more and less real constructions created by people can endure. In the exhibition ON THE VERGE, the notions of instability, longing, and tension take form.
Value and a sense of safety last
as long as nothing unexpected happens.
As long as the table is level.
As long as no one breathes too deeply.
Collapse is not a bang.
It is the moment a hand hesitates in mid-air.
When everyone understands,
but no one wants to believe yet.
How long does what we call real life hold?
And what happens when we stop playing along?
Could the same hunger arise—
the one we have avoided at all costs?
Keiu Koppel (1988) is an Estonian jewellery artist who graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts, specializing in jewellery and blacksmithing. Her work is marked by a versatile use of materials and a distinctive visual language that brings together poetic ideas and the form of wearable jewellery. Koppel’s pieces combine traditional craftsmanship with a contemporary artistic approach. She lives and works in Tallinn, creating both wearable author jewellery and conceptual works.
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FOLDING FACADES
In FOLDING FACADES, Michael Schoorl presents a series of sculptural house-like forms installed in the windows of A-Galerii. Like a second skin, houses shape how we live, how we withdraw, and how we allow others in. Schoorl treats architecture as a language through which individuals and societies speak to the world, using domestic structures to reflect ideas of freedom, intimacy, and belonging.
The works that fold with precision into nearly solid blocks of metal function as interactive conversation starters. At first glance they resemble architectural miniatures, yet their shifting scale and weight quickly disrupts that assumption. The sculptures are forged from steel sheets, brazed together and connected by carefully crafted hinges. Schoorl draws an analogy to books: objects that can contain endless stories, conceal or reveal meaning, and are often judged by the cover. Each piece is designed to be taken from the shelf, explored, and folded back into a compact form. Layers of paint and patina create tactile surfaces that support the narrative of each piece.
Schoorl uses material and technique not to present fixed truths but to move between fiction and reality, much like memory shifts through retelling. By embedding stories into everyday-like objects, Folding Facades proposes emotional value as an alternative to disposability, encouraging care, repair, and attentiveness to the objects and built environments.
Michael Schoorl (1997) is a Dutch artist working with metal, wood, and architectural-scale sculptural forms. His recent work centers around houses and depictions of buildings that explore how craft, memory, and narratives can create emotional attachment to environments. Schoorl studied metal art at HDK–Valand, University of Gothenburg. In 2024 he additionally took a course in the Estonian Academy of Arts and soon will return there for a residency. He has exhibited across Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. Alongside his artistic practice, he runs De Nietsfabriek, a studio dedicated to sculptural fabrication, restoration, and custom work in wood and metal.
Exhibitions in A-Galerii are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.