A new international group exhibition opened at Tütar Gallery in Tallinn on Thursday, examining how control can feel safe while also becoming restrictive.
“Safe Traps” brings together works that treat control as a refuge that is as much a cage as it is a stronghold.
Curated by Maria Helen Känd, the show focuses on the tension between allure and a haunting sense of estrangement, where comfort turns into unease and familiarity into the uncanny.
“Contemporary Western society is built on the quiet conviction that both the self and the world around us can be managed and regulated,” the description states, noting that control promises safety, soothing people’s fear of the unknown, while dependence, entanglement and submission feel oppressive.
“At the same time, a part of us always remains inaccessible and unconscious,” it continues. “As such, the more we cling to the need for control, the more we rely on conceptions of ourselves and a world that does not actually submit to our will.”
“Safe Traps” invites viewers to reflect on a different logic: “one in which the act of control, and our craving for it, reveals itself as the actual trap and the very mechanism that confines us.”
The exhibition features works by French artist and researcher Anaïs Goupy, Latvian artist Līga Spunde, and Estonia’s Ruudu Ulas and Madlen Hirtentreu.
“Safe Traps” will remain open at Tütar Gallery through June 21.
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