Mare Tralla is Estonian queer-feminist artist, organiser and activist currently working and living in Edinburgh. Mare Tralla’s professional art career started in Estonia in the early 90s, where she became one of the leading interdisciplinary artists of the younger generation. Drawing from her personal history and everyday experience her practice was in direct critical response to how the transition period of East-European societies affected women. She was one of the very few conducting a feminist revolution in the field of contemporary art in Estonia. She employs and combines variety of media, from video, photography, performance and painting to interactive media, she also often utilises traditional crafts like knitting in her practice. Since 2011 she has run a one-woman craft business Natty Peeps as a means of earning living by slow-production, as an investigation and research into value of (women’s) labour, sustainability and ethics, as a critical response to the ever present pressures of ‘progress and economic growth’. As an activist she was involved with Act Up, London, especially with
Catwalk4Power, No Pride in War coalition and LGSMigrants. Her recent socially engaged performative projects deal with queer experiences, gender issues, HIV stigma, investigate sustainability and economics. Her curatorial practice include: the first Estonian feminist exhibition Est.Fem (1995 co-curated, with Eha Komissarov, Reet Varblane), a touring Estonian-British feminist exhibition “Private Views” (1998-99), accompanied by a book “Private Views: Spaces and Gender in Contemporary Art from Britain and Estonia” (eds. Angela Dimitrakaki, Pam Skelton, Mare Tralla, WAL, 2000), the programme chair for ISEA2004 in Tallinn, wearable technology event for Gateways, KUMU 2011; “Act Up- Art Up”, Ritzy, London 2016. As an educator, she has worked at the Estonian Academy of Arts; as visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of Westminster, she has given many workshops and talks internationally.
Her recent text contributions can be found at “Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms”, ed. Katy Deepwell, Valiz, Amsterdam, 2020; “Watched! Surveillance, Art and Photography “,Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016; “re.act.feminism a performing archive”, eds. Bettina Knaup and Beatrice Ellen Stammer, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nürnberg, Live Art Development Agency, London 2014; ‘quite queer’ ed. Claudia Reiche, thealit Frauen.Kultur.Labor, Bremen 2014
Recent exhibitions include: ‘Same Subject Continued’, solo exhibition at Edinburgh Palette (2023); ‘Consequences. Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age’, Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh (2022), ‘Covid Plants – Free the Vaccine’, public interventions, London, 2020; ’Woman&Woman’, City Gallery, Pärnu, 2020; ‘A-tishoo, A-tishoo, We All Fall Down’, EKKM, Tallinn 2019; ‘Maschinendivas’, Schaumbad, steirlseherbst’19, Graz (2019), ‘Give Up the Ghost. Baltic Triennial 13’, Kim?, Riga (2018), ‘Things’, Tamaraprojects, London (2018); ‘Bastard Voices’ launch of Baltic Triennial 13, evening of performances, South London Gallery, London (2018); ‘Women‘, Threshold Artspace, Perth, UK (2017-2018); ‘Amor’, Oi Futuro, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (2016); ‘Love At the Edge’, Gallery Arsenal Power-station, Białystok, Poland (2015); “1995”, EKKM (Museum of Contemporary Art Estonia) Tallinn (2015); “Aferlife of Gardens”, Art Museum of Estonia KUMU, Tallinn (2013), “Girls Next Door” Visby Art Museum, Sweden (2013), “Hetero.q.b”, Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (2013), “re.act feminism 2”, Academy of Arts, Berlin (2013), Tallinn Art Hall & Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona,(2012), ‘Untold Stories’ Tallinn Art Hall (2011), ‘Gender Check‘ Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2010) & MUMOK Vienna (2009), ‘Angled towards the other‘ Pamenkalnio Galerja, Vilnius & City Gallery, Tallinn (2011), ‘Crazy Love‘ Tartu Art House, Tartu (2011), ‘Retrospective video exhibition’, Threshold Artspace, Perth, UK (2011)
