Karl Joonas Alamaa

• Six Boats of Unearthed Memories
• Tutor: Rolands Peterkops, Piret Puppart, Anu Samarüütel-Long, Judith ter Haar
• Installative collection
• photos: Alissa Snaider model: Sirel Tammisto

“Six Boats of Unearthed Memories” which is initially forming a single integral form, is a meeting place of numerous experiences, gradually opening up into six acts of Estonian and Eastern Europe’s history. The collection deals with the cultural memory that has been experienced by nearly six generations of people of the forementioned region, from the present day to the reign of Alexander II of Russia.

Ruins and wrecks can be the beginning of building something new. Through them, I want to express something that we are not always able to talk about, though it happens around us, namely a sense of helplessness. On the Swedish island of Gotland, there’s a custom of leaving unusable old boats to decay on the coast, honouring the boat for its merits. Once an archeologist Dr. Mirja Arnshav from Stockholm University found a boat that was different from other boats fading away on the coastline. Meanwhile she discovered that there were more, similar to the one she found. After a closer inspection of their design she understood that many of those boats weren’t Swedish. These were the abandoned boats that had made the journey from Estonia in 1944.

The boat, a central motif in this work, is a metaphor for our failing society. We cannot keep our promises to create a system to alleviate injustice and assist those in need.