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“A lot of peopl
in creative
fields saw an
opportunity”
three have been renovated and turned into studio
spaces and offices. Inside, the walls are decorated with
art curated by the Soo Soo Gallery (
4 Soo, tel: +372 642
2043, soosoo.ee
), a contemporary art institution that
rents space nearby. By 2013, it seems likely one of the
factories will be turned into a theatre. There’s also a
thriving café, F-Hoone (
tel: +372 680 1114
). A favourite
with an eclectic local crowd of designers and film-
makers, it has the kind of shabby-chic interior much
beloved of Berlin dive bars; DJ events in the back room
regularly bring in big crowds.
The impetus behind this movement isn’t nostalgia
for the past, but rather a desire to escape it. Gregor
Laur, of the Estonian Academy of Arts, says the
seemingly simple concept of creative freedom is
relatively new for Tallinn’s artists. “For so long, ‘west’
was a dirty word. Artists got very excited when they
realised they could now imitate the West,” he says,
pointing to the fact that Western art flooded the
market there for several years. Then, after Estonia
joined the EU in 2004 – one of the few Eastern Bloc
countries to do so – the trend reversed, and Tallinn’s
artists went abroad, bringing back fresh inspiration.
The global economic crisis has also had a huge
effect. In the case of Telliskivi, it’s saved the area fr
total destruction. “In 2007, a real-estate investmen
fund bought this area,” explains Kaarel Oja, execut
manager of the Telliskivi site. “The original plan w
for them to take all these buildings down, but then
real-estate market crashed. It was clear that, for th
next five or six years, there’d be no point in buildin
anything new and a lot of people working in creativ
fields saw an opportunity.”
Alas, as the economy improves, the bohemian lif
that has grown up around these old buildings may
cease to be – so the clock is ticking. “If the owner h
another idea of what to do with this building one d
then we’re out,” says Jaanika Kuklase, director of t
Polymer project, in philosophical tone. “We don’t k
how long all this will last, so we just live day to day.
So the message is clear: if you want to sample thi
very different side to Estonian life, do it now.
Clockwise frombottom
left,
Jaanika Kuklase,
director of art space
Polymer Kultuuritehas;
the old typesetting room
in the former Polymer toy
factory; Telliskivi’s
F-Hoone café has a Berlin
dive-bar vibe; art covers
the walls and is in every
corner of the Telliskivi
Cultural Centre
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