merevaik / amber
together with Anna Mari Liivrand
Haapsalu Linnagalerii, 2017

The exhibition "Amber" was a continuation of the creative dialogue between artists Anna Mari Liivrand and Kati Saarits, starting with project “Fool’s Gold” (2016). When the latter was dealing with desires, illusions and overabundance in contemporary society, referring to situations where the main focus is put on an external, effective solutions, then the exhibition in Haapsalu was based on amber primarily in the context of tourism and folk art. The conceptual framework of the exhibition is therefore formed by souvenir trade and souvenir shop aesthetics, handcraft practices and different collecting traditions.

Amber is an amorphous mineraloid with a polymeric structure, which has been formed gradually from pine wood
resin. The world’s richest amber sites are located in the Kaliningrad Oblast, and on the Polish and Lithuanian
coasts. As an important commodity, also called "Northern gold", amber was transported for thousands of years
from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, Central and Southern Europe and Egypt. Amber trade is still active
today, and despite the fact that it is a highly precious gemstone, it has acquired a strong connection with souvenir
trade, and is therefore occasionally seen as a “cheap product” among locals. The Baltic amber is one of the most
famous in the world. In the Old Town of Tallinn there are more than half hundred amber stores, but there are no
industrial amber sites in Estonia – the amber sold here comes from Lithuania or Kaliningrad. So, if the main role
of the souvenir is to recall the travel experience and a particular cultural place in a tangible form, then in the
context of Estonia, amber has become meaningless – as an imported souvenir, it is like an alienated memento
that has no connection with the local cultural space. In the context of such amber tourism, questions arise as to
how to interpret the objects of mediated folk culture and what kind of meanings amber acquires as a result of
repeated neoliberal exploitation.
At the exhibition “Amber” topics such as the commercialization of foreign folk culture, souvenir trade, folk art and
kitsch are coming to the forefront. Artists are interested in the symbolism, craftsmanship and ostensible usability
associated with souvenirs. Handcrafted object as unique item, which is in opposition with industrial mechanized
production by its nature, is not in line with the cult of souvenirs that are mass produced and widely distributed
today. Thus, artists explore craft practices and traditional working methods in the context of tourism, combining
them with contemporary design elements and techniques. Through various handcraft techniques, Saarits
analyzes the meaning of applied art in the context of contemporary art discipline. Using often (in contrast to
amber) daily, even “low” materials like concrete and denim, she redefines the value hierarchies of materials. This
is accompanied by an original set of garden sculptures, through which the artist wants to decode the sculpture as
a medium. For artist, the garden sculpture is a disappearing format, and based on this, the inspiration for her
work have been findings of garden and park sculptures that carry the so-called consumer function (like collecting
the water for birds). Liivrand deals with amber mainly as material that is associated with sedimentation, freezing
and fossilization processes. The artist is attracted by the high scientific value of amber and its ability to preserve
biological organisms, which in turn provides recordings of some of the oldest ecosystems through history. The
plastic drops exhibited at the exhibition are like frozen time moments caught in space, which are in a dialogue
with the mixed drawings. Through the latter, the artist is engaging with topics like stratification, sedimentation and
human culture’s attempts to preserve selected memories.

exhibition text by Brigita Reinert