Contemporary Art Biennial
September 5–October 31, 2025
The 8th edition of Tallinn Photomonth, Estonia’s contemporary art biennial, will take place from September 5 to October 31, 2025, activating sites across the capital. This year’s main programme features three exhibitions, each shaped by distinct curatorial approaches to image-making in an increasingly visual world. Opening the programme at Kai Art Center is a duo exhibition by Estonian artists Tanja Muravskaja and Sirje Runge. Other exhibitions include a public installation of photographic works in Tallinn’s urban space and a collaborative exhibition of Estonian and Finnish photographic artists at Hobusepea and FOKU galleries.
“The main programme of this year’s Tallinn Photomonth presents three distinct exhibitions, each exploring the evolving significance of photography in a world saturated with images. Photography permeates everyday life, yet art offers a space for reflection—an opportunity to cultivate visual literacy, which has become a crucial tool for navigating our image-driven world,” explains Kulla Laas, director of the biennial.“ Across its 2025 edition, Photomonth highlights the medium’s potential to elicit emotional, philosophical, and political resonances, inviting audiences to engage photography not only as a technology of representation but as a catalyst for new ways of seeing and sensing.”
The biennial will open at Kai Art Center with On Fragile Grounds, a duo exhibition by well-known Estonian artists Tanja Muravskaja (b. 1978) and Sirje Runge (b. 1950). Curated by Mėta Valiušaitytė (Lithuania/France), the exhibition stages an intergenerational and intermedial dialogue between the two artists, anchored in a shared exploration of materiality and perception. The curator states,
"Centering fragility as both a conceptual and material lens, this intergenerational dialogue between the two artists invites viewers to inhabit the in-betweenness of matter and thought, light and shadow, creation and dissolution. Sirje Runge, one of the most prominent Estonian artists of the post-war period, is a seeker whose practice unfolds as a luminous inquiry into light, color, and matter. Tanja Muravskaja, best known for her incisive photographic and video works on identity and power, has recently turned to exploring reflection, perception, and the elemental properties of the photographic image. Together, Runge and Muravskaja remind us that the force of art often lies in its ability to hold contradictions, embrace impermanence, and transmute the fleeting into something enduring."
Public art has become a defining feature of Tallinn Photomonth. This year’s exhibition in public space, curated by Kati Ots (Estonia) and Trine Stephensen (Norway), explores how photography can operate not only as a visual image but as a sculptural element that shapes space and intervenes in our experience of it. In an urban environment saturated with an overwhelming amount of stimuli, the project seeks ways in which art can offer moments of relief and open new perspectives on what we see and experience daily.
For the first time, the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU) collaborates with the Finnish Association of Photographic Artists (VTL) as part of the biennial. The joint exhibition, presented across Hobusepea and FOKU galleries, brings together works by artists from both countries, selected by a binational jury of professionals. The exhibition poses the question of what photography means within contemporary art today, highlighting how artists continue to challenge and expand the medium’s conceptual and material boundaries. From experimental techniques to unconventional formats, the exhibition offers a cross-section of urgent themes and approaches currently shaping photographic practices in the region.
The collaboration aims the long-term exchange between Estonian and Finnish artists working with photography, focuses on co-creation and shared curatorial approaches. The exhibition will be accompanied by a regional gathering and public panel discussion for professionals in the field. The initiative will continue in Finland in 2026.
In addition to the main programme, Tallinn Photomonth will host an expansive satellite programme and a series of public events designed to deepen engagement with photography and visual culture. The full list of participating artists and the extended programme of the biennial will be announced in the coming months.
Artistic Director of the 8th Tallinn Photomonth: Kulla Laas
Project manager: Liisi Kõuhkna
Communications manager: Marion Leetmaa
International communications: Alexia Menikou
Graphic designer: Kert Viiart
Partners and supporters: Kai Art Center, Estonian Artists’ Association, Finnish Association of Photographic Artists (VTL), Cultural Endowment of Estonia, City of Tallinn.
Organised by: Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU).
