Tallinn Applied Art Triennial took place as an international exposition for the third time. Being the disciple of a tradition of Applied Art Triennials of the Baltic States, event of year 2003 could also be considered the 10
th triennial exposition already.
The exposition bearing the title Bare Boundaries has not been imposed any self-censorship and has left itself opened for a definition by the audience.
Instead of a traditional exposition involving all fields of applied art without any geographical limitations and with an open registration, the Triennial Society decided to compile the exhibition from the works of the award-winners of the previous triennial held 3 years ago and the artists of their choice.
The four award-winners Eija Mustonen (jewellery, Finland), Claus Domine Hansen (ceramics, Denmark), Audrius Janušonis (ceramics, Lithuania), Aigi Orav (ceramics, Estonia) were asked to select to the exposition one representative of the same field and two of a different field in addition to one’s own works. The freedom to choose and to see beside oneself others than familiar artists only intrigued and inspired the winners of triennial.
The symbiosis assembled by them turned out an international mixture of ceramics, textile artists, glass artists, jewellery artists, industrial designers and sculptors.
All in all, there were participating 18 artists from Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands.
The title Bare Boundaries served within this context primarily as a common foundation for a multi-layered discussion about the positions of applied art and design. In order to initiate a wide-based debate on the most crucial issues in the discipline, the participants were asked to answer questions about their self-definition. Their answers were available at the exhibition as well as in the catalogue.
Ketli Tiitsarcurator
Exhibition design by Terje Kallast and Urmas Luure
