1229 | 507 | Reframing Narva: Reflections from artists in residence at a post-industrial border town

The town of Narva in Northeast Estonia can be described as a four-fold border town between the East and the West: the border between Estonia and Russia, European Union and Russia, NATO and Russia, it also lies on the divide between catholic and orthodox worlds. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022 has been receiving increased attention due to its location. Around the same time, Narva also adopted a new tourism slogan: “Narva — Europe starts here”. As Russian is spoken as mother tongue by 97% of Narva’s population, Europe(anness) does not necessarily have a positive connotation here. Yet, Narva is not a Russian city, as sometimes referred to, but a mix of different ethnicities and backgrounds, often suppressed by stereotypes. _x000D_
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Narva Art Residency (NART) in Kreenholm, a former industrial district, has been welcoming artists since 2015 and has recently evolved into one of the most active cultural spaces in town. On the one hand, upcycling industrial areas through artistic projects is a real estate strategy that can lead to gentrification, excluding some communities from the area. On the other hand, artists often draw attention to untypical practices that can be used to make sense of the society and empower minorities. They produce site-specific projects that frame local realities through their own cultural lens and methods. _x000D_
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This research is informed by auto-ethnography, participant observation and interviews conducted with the artists of 2022 after their experience in NART. Their various approaches and creative methods to map the city and to get to know its dwellers advocate the potential usage of artistic practices of doing research in in dense and tense settings, empowering local communities and providing alternatives to stereotypes about a post-socialist city.

Saara Mildeberg
Tallinn University

ID Abstract: 507

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