Pille-Riin Jaik

Political and poetic storytelling in troubled monumental landscapes

With my project i wish to research the complexity of post-colonialism in Balticum and in general analyze (national) narrative constructions and different strategies of political and poetic storytelling about landscapes. I want to deal with this subject in an artistic and theoretical way through research, written word and new series of video works based on two examples in Estonia: Kaali meteorite crate and Paldiski harbor.

In my theoretical research i wish to follow different leads of post-colonial writers who deal with alternative ways of storytelling – e.g. Trinh T. Minh-ha, Gloria Anzaldúa, Layli Long Soldier, Ursula K. Le Guin, Leslie Marmon Silko –  to reflect on different strategies (e.g. code-switching). But also dwell more directly into theory about landscape and imperialism (Hannah Arendt, Silvia Federici, Simone Weil). In addition i want to cover historical attempts of re-contextualisation in the Baltic-Hungarian landscapes (f.e Ethnofuturism, Hungarofuturism, Estonian writer and former president Lennar Meri who tried to propose a new national origin story). 

Based on a combination of these researches i wish to dismantle, hack and root out some common myths in Baltic landscapes and try to generate a more complex understanding of this area. In addition i wish to reflect on storytelling as a political strategy and explore different experimental methodologies behind it.