I am a researcher, writer, editor and organizer. Originally from Estonia, for the past 10 years I have lived in the Netherlands. I currently divide my time between Tallinn and Rotterdam. My research expertiese is related to contemporary and modern art, memory and trauma, practices of curating and narrating cultural difference.
Growing up in a family with origins in Estonia, Russia, Latvia and Poland has given me an appreciation of difference and consciousness of its workings in everyday life. I have studied art history and cultural theory in Estonia, Germany and Finland, and gained a PhD in cultural analysis in The Netherlands.
I have published articles and books, most recently “Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums” (2018) and “Archives and Disobedience. Changing Tactics of Visual Culture in Eastern Europe” (2016, with Tanel Rander). Over the past years, I have organised several long-term collaborative projects acting as a project leader, moderator and a host, including “Communicating Difficult Pasts”. Currently I am affiliated with the Estonian Academy of Arts as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, researching and conceptualising processes of decolonisation in museums and visual art, issues related to curation and mediation of the difficult past in the context of Baltic and post-soviet histories.