SELECTED CREATIVE WORK

This page gives an overview of some of my works at the intersection between art and anthropology.

BLING EXHIBITION AT THE ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

2024-2025

BLING is an exhibit featured in association with the Estonian National Museum's exhibition "Who Claims the Night?"
(lead curator Karin Leivategija)

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Curator: Terje Toomistu 

Lead artist: Eva Reiska

Artists: Andrus Aaslaid, Otto Kaarel Altroff, Sophie Dragunevits, Pille Heido, Martti Helde, Elina Litvinova, Mari Meentalo, Lauri Miller, Ivo Naries, Okeiko, Maari Soekov, Villem Vatter 

Photographers: Otto Kaarel Altroff, Tanel Murd, Ruudu Rahumaru, Sten Roosvald, Ivar Savin, Terje Toomistu, Tanel Toomsalu

Sound design: Ivo Naries, Villem Vatter

Light design: Oliver Kulpsoo 

Spatial design idea: Adele Thele Kuusk 

Assistant to the lead artist: Pille Heido, Kadi Liivik, Ivo Naries, Elo Nirgi, Auli Uiboupin

Textile installation: V2GI (Auli Uiboupin, Eva Reiska)

Photo booth: Tanel Murd

Graphic design: Okeiko

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Photographs featured here by Sten Roosvald

IN BETWEEN II : THE NAME OF US IS LUBORG

2021

“In Between II : The name of us is Luborg” is a multi-layered stage experience of contemporary dance, 

music and poetry. 

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“In Between II : The name of us is Luborg” is a travel to the dystopian post-apocalypse future. We follow two Cyborgs, who are amongst the few descendants of the only community of augmented humans that survived. They are living in the cult of disinfection, rubber gloves, and chemical stimulants. But at the very moment when the last relic of the old Earth falls into their hands, everything suddenly changes…

This multi-layered performance brings forth a poetic critique of the contemporary neoliberal narrative of masculine high brow transhumanism. The performance suggests that capitalism and techno-fetishism ultimately lead to eco-disaster and pandemics, where we all fall as victims to genocide, ecocide, and fragmentation. 

The figure of the Luborg – a grandchild of the space-faring Astronaut and the child of the near-future Cyborg – is the future creature of Earth, who gestures towards the sensitive hybrid of poetry, technology, and beauty of mortality.

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Artistic Leader/Choreographer : Fuji Hoffmann

Dance artists : Hanna Kahrola & Oriane Paras

Dramaturg/Writer/Voice : Terje Toomistu

Graphic artist : Mihkel Loomus

Composer : Ilja Gusarov

Supported by : Kokko1721 residency, Finland, Tårnby Torv Festival / Andreas Liebmann, Denmark, Liikelaituri, Finland, Massia Residency

Grants by : Arts Promotion Centre Finland / Nordic Culture Point / City of Tampere / The Cultural Endowment of Estonia

TRAVELING EXHIBITION – SOVIET HIPPIES: THE PSYCHEDELIC UNDERGROUND OF 1970S ESTONIA.

2013-2018, co-curated with Kiwa

Multi-disciplinary traveling exhibition. Presented at Estonian National Museum (March-August 2013), Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden (September-October 2013), Uppsala Konstmusem, Uppsala, Sweden (February-May 2014), Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June-August 2014), Red Gallery, London, U.K. (September 2016), Galerie KUB, Leipzig, Germany (September-October 2018).

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The 1960s hippie movement of the West had a profound and lasting impact on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Affected by perceived Western freedoms and inspired by various spiritual traditions, a counterculture of flower children developed in the Soviet Union. Disengaged from the Soviet official ideology of proclaimed atheism, authoritarianism and Soviet morals, the Soviet hippie movement expressed itself through rock music, the cult of love, pacifism, travel and spiritual journeys, and a self-styled fashion considered unacceptable for Soviet citizens.  

In Estonia, the so-called Soviet West, access to Finnish television and foreign radio broadcasts was the key source of divergence. Young minds were enthralled by illicitly distributed Anglo-American rock and the knowledge that their contemporaries in the “free world” were rocking in the spirit of “Make Love, Not War.” The stagnation that accompanied Brezhnev’s rule (1964-1982), combined with the events of 1968 in Prague, did not leave much hope for political progress nor the feeling of individual freedom. Thus the generation that grew up in the late 1960s regarded the world as a big lie and decided to deal with their own things. 

The hippie movement in Soviet Estonia was not a clearly defined phenomenon, but rather a distinctive flow of the era, an explosive youth culture with a perception of life that could unite vagabonds and academics. However, the mere trend toward hippie fashions, long hair and great rock concerts was enough to make the Soviet authorities severely concerned. In the eyes of the KGB, the hippies were contaminated with degraded Western influences, posing a real danger to the regime and the moral construction of Homo Sovieticus. 

In the shadow of strict rules and harsh repressions, a colourful crowd of artists, musicians, freaks, vagabonds and other long-haired drop-outs created their own world, an underground system that connected those who believed in peace, love, and freedom for their bodies and souls. 

Kiwa & Terje Toomistu

Exhibition curators

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For bookings and various collaborations, please contact me. 

The exhibition is part of the wider multi-media project, including a documentary film, soundtrack release on a vinyl and a forthcoming book. 

SOVIET HIPPIES SOUNDTRACK RELEASE ON VINYL

2018

11 carefully selected songs from the Soviet psychedelic underground 1971-1982 that appeared in the documentary Soviet Hippies (2017). Several songs that are included in the album have never been released before. Pressed on colored vinyl, gatefold folder with archival photos, lyrics and liner notes by Klemen Breznikar (It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine), Terje Toomistu and Mart Kalvet. Comes with a digital downloadable copy. 

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This tender, sincere compilation is a testament to the idea that the psychedelic scene on this side of the Iron Curtain was essentially a cargo cult — a grassroots pop movement stitched together from snippets of Western rock gleaned from forbidden radio transmissions and bootlegged photographs of foreign posters and magazines, a concoction of urban myths and subversive practices such as vandalizing public phones and stripping them for parts of DIY electric guitars, as well as of occult beliefs morphed by forced psychiatric “treatments” and the use of obscure hallucinogens. 

Nevertheless, being a part of it was always, always a political statement, too. And you can clearly hear it on these recordings, some of which have never before been released, or have seen very limited release. The bravery it took to write, perform, record, distribute and preserve these quaint, delicate hymns of protest and prophecy under the yoke of a repressive, inhumane regime is there – between, behind and around the occasionally raw but always inventive shoestring productions. 

To the uninitiated, the music of Soviet Hippies may at times sound derivative, like a 3D-printed copy of a living Buddha, but in tandem with the soulful and meticulously crafted documentary, these songs will surely convince you that they’re also eternal manifestations of the human will towards freedom, wisdom and transcendence.

 – Mart Kalvet

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Compiled by Terje Toomistu.

Mastering by Peeter Salmela.

Cover design by Ilya Bogatyryev. 

Licensing by Anton Veeremets (Apollo Music).

Production assistance by Ahto Külvet (Psühhoteek).

Produced by Terje Toomistu under label Cece Music.   

Distribution in the Baltic states by Cece Music.

Supported by Estonian Author’s Society. 

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The vinyl release is part of the wider multi-media project, including a documentary film, traveling exhibition and a forthcoming book. 

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The last remaining copies of the vinyl are available at Shiny Beast record store. 

Listen to the whole album on Youtube. 

NOVEL SEVEN WORLDS (CO-WRITTEN WITH BERIT RENSER)

2009

Twisted psychedelic novel by two Estonian authors Berit Renser and Terje Toomistu.

This South-American coming-to-life story, built across the seven imaginable worlds between realistic and unbelievable, mundane and astral, takes the reader into the emptiness of deserts, depths of jungles and a mind-blowing boat trip across the Amazon river. The power of the three magical plants and shaman's singing pushes the main characters to question the perceived reality and urges to find new worlds within.

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The book was released in Estonian in 2009 by Petrone Print and maybe will be available in English one day. 

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Illustrations by Andres Rohtma.