On Oct 29 at 18.00 we invite you to Rõdugalerii to the opening of TYPA’s residency artists, Pavel Rotts’ exhibition RETAIN:!
For the exhibition, Pavel collected old Soviet documents abandoned in former collective farms around Tartu and processed them into handmade paper. This paper was then used to make imprints of surviving traces of wartime bombardment on buildings in the city.
The works use a paper-squeezing technique derived from archaeological and epigraphic documentation. Discarded administrative records are transformed into records of the physical surfaces of the city walls, documenting Tartu’s wartime history.
Among the documents Pavel found was a circular concerning the postwar reconstruction of Tartu after the bombings.
Pavel is an Ingrian Finn. During and after the Second World War, members of his family moved through Estonia before being deported to northern Soviet Karelia. For a period, their lives passed through Tartu, where his great-grandparents worked at the auxiliary farm of the Tartu Beer Factory, now A. Le Coq.
While searching for traces of this family history, Pavel learned that most employment records are destroyed once their retention period expires. This became the starting point for the project: who decides what is preserved, what is destroyed, and what kinds of memory paper can carry.
About the Artist
Pavel Rotts is a multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki, working across performative installation, sculpture, and artistic research. His practice explores collective memory, microhistory, the trauma of war, and questions of identity and displacement.
Find him on Instagram
Rõdugalerii is open Wed-Sun, from 12.00-18.00. It is located at Kastani 42, in Aparaaditehas courtyard from door nr 7 on the second floor.
The exhibition will be open until 19th of November.
The project is supported by Kone Foundation, Oskar Öflund Foundation, Pelago Bicycles and A. Le Coq Beer Museum.