Text Johanna Heinonen
Photos Urmo Raus, Marie Virta,
Kaupo Kikkas, Hendrik Relve,
press material
The latest photography exhibition at the Pärnu Museum of New Art (MoNA), The Wild (Estonian: Metslased), explores the connection between nature and Estonian identity. Are Estonians a forest people? How are trees and forests connected to Estonians’ national character, memories, and lives? “Alone we are trees, but together we are a forest,” the late Estonian president and ethnographer Lennart Meri once said.
The Wild exhibition delves into the connection between humans and nature through the works of three photographers: Hendrik Relve, Kaupo Kikkas, and Mark Soosaar. The exhibition features images of rare trees, forests, and landscapes, some of which have already disappeared, yet captured over the decades. The exhibition’s photographs tell stories not only about the beauty of nature, but also about its vulnerability, and how the past still lives on in images, memories, and even in new generations grown from the cones or seeds of fallen trees.
