Trigger

Trigger was born as a reaction to the current times, to the situation where we are forced to witness the chaos and elevated tensions of political crises. The overwhelming flood of news in the globally shared information sphere has led us to an emotional exhaustion  that enforces some to act while causing others to shut down and withdraw. The incomprehensible processes keep the frustration on a slow burn, constantly simmering under one’s skin. In addition to therapy and self-care, one might feel the need for a release of adrenaline and a bodily shake-off of this accumulated tension.

In a context where the narrative of a holistic and functional worldview is already broken, the exhibition does not nurture hope for healing. Instead, it seeks a charge that allows emotional ventilation through metaphorical and poetical means. Emotional engagement does not simply provide a way to escape reality; shared cultural experiences also support our social cohesion and openness. In this way, Trigger celebrates the transformative power of art to heighten and refine our sensibility.

Trigger is the first collaborative project of EKKM’s curators Evelyn Raudsepp and Maria Helen Känd. Rooted in the tension between affect and aesthetics, the curators sought ways of expression that, similarly to music, dance or performing arts, would balance intellectual engagement with sensory and physical stimulation.

The exhibition is marked by a pulsating industrial rhythm, a longing for the tactility of vigorous materials, the energy of choreographic self-expression, and piercing visual stimulation. The curators have included video and sound works, site-specific installations, paintings and kinetic sculptures into a dramaturgy that unfolds on the three floors of the museum. The bodily experience is further enhanced by objects that break with the tradition of fashion and jewelry design, as well as performances that take place throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Trigger invites to engage with the raw, intense and transformative.

READ MORE ABOUT THE WORKS AND ARTISTS:

(LA)HORDE is a collective founded in 2013 and bringing together artists Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel. The Marseille based collective are the directors of the Ballet National de Marseille since 2019. They produce choreographic pieces for the stage, videos involving dance, performances and visual works. Using multiple media, they develop scenarios and actions rooted in contemporary issues, set in several narrative spaces. Their choreographic works have been shown at the Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), at the 15th International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice, at De Singel (Antwerp), and elsewhere. Their performance installations and videos have been exhibited in art venues such as the the Julia Stoschek Foundation (Berlin), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Le Palais de Tokyo (Paris), HangarBicocca (Milan), Fondation Cartier (Paris). They are part of the permanent collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Adrian Kiss (1990) graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and is currently pursuing his MFA at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. He has branded his artistic production internationally with large-scale textile-based works and installations, an achievement for which he was selected for inclusion in the trendsetter publication of Phaidon Press, Vitamin T: Threads and Textiles in Contemporary Art (2019). In addition to winning the Derkovits Scholarship in 2021 and 2022, he was shortlisted for the Esterházy Art Award four times, and the STRABAG Art Award in 2023. In 2018, he was an artist-in-residence at Art in General, New York, NY.

Bárbara Sánchez-Kane (1987) lives and works in Mexico City. Under the figure of the macho sentimental, Sánchez-Kane resists the traditional notions of mexicanidad and its relationship with the feminine and masculine. Whether through fashion, performance, painting, or installation, all of her works present the anxieties and fears of daily life to question pleasure and domination within a hegemonic masculine society. Notable solo exhibitions and performances include “New Lexicons of Embodiment” at kurimanzutto, New-York (2023); “Sánchezkaneismo” at kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2022); “Prêt-à-Patria”, as part of “Siembra”, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2021), and others.

Cevdet Erek (1974) studied architecture at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. He completed his post-graduate Sound Engineering and Design and Music studies at ITU MIAM Center for Advanced Studies in Music. Erek’s works have been presented widely, including Documenta, Sydney Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, and San Fransisco Museum of Art. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Kunsthalle Basel, Art Institute Chicago, and Arter. He conceived and exhibited “ÇIN” for the Pavilion of Turkey at the 57. Venice Biennale in 2017. He is a faculty member at İTÜ MIAM and İTÜ TMDK and a part of the band Nekropsi. He lives and works in Istanbul.

Darja Popolitova (1989) is a contemporary jewellery artist, lecturer and PhD student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her practise is driven by an ironical view of the contemporary world, which fuels her to blend craft and video with fiction. She finds that the  haptic and symbolic nature of jewellery is a generous medium that allows her to conceptualise ideas. Her work has been honoured with numerous awards and scholarships such as the Annual Award of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia (2020) and the Adamson-Eric Scholarship (2018). She is one of the recipients of the artist’s salary paid by the Estonian Ministry of Culture in 2023–2025. Popolitova has taken part in various exhibitions, including at art spaces like the Smack Mellon Gallery in New York (2022), the Arnhem Museum in the Netherlands (2020) and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York (2019). She lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia.

Hanna Antonsson (1991) has a degree in Fine Art Photography from HDK-Valand. She uses kinetic sculpture and photography with bird taxidermy as her primary method. The encounter and contrast between animal and machine, organic and industrial interest her and are expressed in various types of sculptural and photographic hybrids. Antonsson has recently shown her work at LISTE Art fair Basel and Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, participated in the duo exhibition “until soil unites” at CON_ in Tokyo and exhibited the solo show “didn’t see it coming” at Galleri BOX in Gothenburg. She lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Jacolby Satterwhite (1986) is celebrated for his prolific conceptual practice that engages a wide range of media to create layered and exuberant 3D animated films, immersive installations, sculptures, electronic dance tracks and performances. Satterwhite draws on diverse influences that include modernism, gaming, queer theory, mythology and Black culture. An equally significant influence is his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose ethereal vocals and diagrams for visionary household products serve as the source material within a decidedly complex structure of memory and mythology. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and festivals internationally, including most recently The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall Commission in New York (2023); at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2023); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2022); Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, PA (2021), and others.

Mihkel Maripuu’s (1987) oeuvre is characterized by a multidisciplinary practice involving various media and containing a physical and aural platform beside the visual one. He works with the nature of post-internet in contemporary art, neo-materialism and other subcultural phenomena, as well as the singularities of the digital era that have influenced the development of the contemporary visual language. He dissects the distinct attributes of technology and organics and the principles of their shared existence. Mihkel Maripuu has graduated from the Painting Department of the University of Tartu (BA) and the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA).

Oona Doherty (1986) is a Dance Artist based in Northern Ireland. She studied at The London School Of Contemporary Dance, University of Ulster and LABAN London. BA Honours and Post Graduate in Contemporary Dance Studies. She has been performing Dance Theatre internationally since 2010 with companies such as: TRASH (NL), Abbattoir Ferme (BE), Veronika Riz (IT), Emma Martin /United Fall (IE). Doherty’s work has been recently performed at festivals around Europe including Ravnedans Festival Norway, and the Dublin Dance Festival. Doherty has been teaching dance theatre workshops in Europe since 2012. She is an ISSAC Associate Artist.