Estonian Association of Architects / award for a small object 2018 nominee
Location
Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum, Ahtri 2, Tallinn
Took place
Exhibition at the Museum of Estonian Architecture 27 Jan – 25 March 2018
Spatial installation and photos
Paco Ulman
Curator
Carl-Dag Lige
Graphic design
Koit Randmäe
Sound
Tanel Paliale, Holger Loodus
Photos
Paco Ulman

  345
TAGASI

The exhibition reminded me of the film “Loveless“ by Andrey Zvyagintsev that I had seen recently. The action in the film largely takes place in anonymous, vague interim spaces in a large city similar to the wasteland featured at the exhibition in which the leading part is played by the wild, powerful and careless nature while small people with their tragic lives and searches for love are merely in supporting roles. Scrubland is a powerful metaphor for depicting the inner landscape of lost people. The author of the film has followed people’s activities as if a documentalist from a distance and without interference, and also Paco Ulman observes people in a landscape from a distance without showing them but nevertheless registering the trail of their activities with the severity of a documentalist. The details caught in the photos trigger the imagination and the wastelands become meaningful places.
Katrin Koov, President of the Union of Estonian Architects

I had the material for the exhibition already earlier and it became the basis for refining the concept further. The installation emerged from the understanding that the main hall of the museum required a new dimension. It is difficult to design anything in the given room, the ceiling seems to hang low and dominate the space, and our aim was not to give in to the notion.

The greatest challenge was definitely the perception of scale and proportions. As the volume was high and narrow, I constantly felt the need for drawings and 3D models to check how the installation and exhibition could work in the actual space.

 

All in all, the whole process and result were pleasurable. There was enough time and freedom to play with some ideas. As to the result, I’m glad that we managed to keep the installation and exhibition simple and free of everything excessive.

 

Paco Ulman