Photographs and Stories About Clothes and Their Wearers
Text Timo Raussi Photos Arttu Karvonen
At the Pärnu Museum of New Art, a Finnish–Estonian photography exhibition “If clothes could talk…” or ”Kui rõivad räägiksid…” will open on Saturday. Its creators, stylist and costume designer Alli-Liis Vandel, photographer Arttu Karvonen, and curator Linda Aura, spent a year travelling around Estonia and Finland interviewing and photographing elderly people who had interesting stories to share about their lives, as told through clothing. The result is an exhibition of 30 portraits and the stories of the garments seen in them, complemented by an audio artwork installed in the hall, composed of the voices and story fragments of the interviewees.
According to the exhibition’s artistic team, the images and stories of people with life experience create a new kind of dialogue between generations and cultures. On both sides of the Gulf of Finland, in many elderly people’s wardrobes hang garments such as a wedding dress from their youth or a sweater knitted by an aunt, which contain memories that have become treasures over a long life journey. Thus, the name of the exhibition also symbolises and supports the idea that the story of even an old coat, dress or hat can be worth hearing.
“I see clothes as messengers that carry a message through time. Nowadays I wear sweaters that belonged to my mother and father, and which they wore when they were my age. Part of their history is woven into the yarn of these sweaters, and it now intertwines with mine,” says the creator of the exhibition concept, Alli-Liis Vandel, born in 1990. In recent years, Vandel has participated in costume design for, among other things, the Finnish television series “Sekunnit”, as well as other TV and film projects across Europe.
Born in 1990 in Hirvensalmi and having lived in Tallinn for the past 15 years, Arttu Karvonen is a professional photographer and visual artist. Currently working especially in advertising, fashion, event and portrait photography, as well as visually documenting concerts of heavier metal music, Karvonen graduated as a photographer in 2016 from the Estonian Academy of Arts.
The “Kui rõivad räägiksid…” photography exhibition and audio work will be on display at the Pärnu Museum of New Art from 25 April to 17 May, after which it will move during June to Oulu as part of the European Capital of Culture programme. In Pärnu, the exhibition can be visited at the museum, which is located in a former bank building on the edge of Independence Square, open from Wednesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00. More information about the exhibition and the museum is here.
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