A survey exhibition of Anna-Stina Treumund’s oeuvre and activism opens in Kumu

On 5 September, the most comprehensive survey exhibition ever of the oeuvre of the feminist artist and activist Anna-Stina Treumund (1982–2017), How to Recognise a Lesbian?, will open to the public in the Kumu Art Museum. The exhibition and the accompanying book map her activities as a photographer, artist and activist. The curators of the exhibition are Piret Karro-Arrak, Magdaleena Maasik and Triin Tulgiste-Toss (1987–2024).

Anna-Stina Treumund was the first artist in Estonia to clearly link her artistic position to her lesbian experience. Her art projects were of groundbreaking importance for the Estonian art scene and the feminist movement in the 2000s and 2010s, and they remain deeply impactful even today.

“During her creative career, from the early 2000s until 2017, Treumund dealt with topics of gender, sexuality, family and self-discovery, through which she developed a mature queer feminist visual language. She searched for her own community and foremothers, read Estonian (art) history with a queering eye and worked with such topics as BDSM and female sexuality. She included her friends, family members and lovers in her artworks, which has enabled researchers to map the networks of Estonian queer communities while studying her legacy,” said the curator of the exhibition, Piret Karro-Arrak.

The exhibition Anna-Stina Treumund: How to Recognise a Lesbian? introduces a large part of the artist’s creative legacy: it includes her works from various museums and private collections and from collections owned by her family. Some of the works have never been displayed before.

The display includes videos, installations and archival materials, in addition to Treumund’s well-known photos, e.g. Rehearsal for My Wedding (2009), Drag (2009) and Origin of One Possible Orgasm (2014), and the series Woman in the Corner of Marju Mutsu’s Drawings (2010) and Lilli, Reed, Frieda, Sabine, Eha, Malle, Alfred, Rein and Mari (2012).

The artist’s oeuvre was inseparable from her activism: by using ironic humour she would often draw attention to issues of concern in society and to marginalised communities. Treumund was one of the initiators of the feminist cultural festival LadyFest Tallinn and the Facebook group Virginia Woolf sind ei karda! (Virginia Woolf is not Afraid of You!), which has evolved into the largest feminist internet forum in Estonia. The design of the exhibition uses different skin tones, referring to Treumund’s racism-critical public space project Nahk/Skin (2015). Visitors have the opportunity to watch Piibe Kolka’s 46-minute documentary You Will Get Nowhere With Just Art: Conversations with Anna-Stina Treumund’s Political Family, which sheds light on the artist as an activist.

In addition to works by artists who influenced Treumund, such as Marju Mutsu and Kai Kaljo, the exhibition also sets up a dialogue between Treumund’s works and those made by the young contemporary artists Elo Vahtrik and Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, from Estonia, and Janina Sabaliauskaitė, from Lithuania, who continue the exploration of queer and feminist topics in their art practices.

The Kumu Art Museum has undertaken to consciously highlight women artists and the history of feminism and the LGBTQ+ community. “Anna-Stina Treumund’s personality and legacy play a key role in discussions about depicting lesbian sexuality in Estonian art in the 2000s and 2010s, searching for identity, and creating a visual language and discourse space that befit those searches. The artist’s central role in Estonian queer feminist art history was already evident in the survey exhibition Art in the Comfort Zone? The 2000s in Estonian Art in Kumu (2021), which was preceded by the acquisition of several works by Anna-Stina Treumund for the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia,” said Kadi Polli, the director of the Kumu Art Museum.

The exhibition and research project Anna-Stina Treumund: How to Recognise a Lesbian? came about when the need to deal with the museum’s collections and the history of contemporary art was acknowledged. The idea for the project was generated by the keeper of the collection of contemporary art at the Art Museum of Estonia, Triin Tulgiste-Toss (1987–2024), who was the initial curator of the exhibition.

The exhibition is complemented by public and educational programmes. The opening programme on Saturday, 6 September, includes a tour of the exhibition guided by the young participating artists, and starting at 1 p.m. the panel discussion The F-Word: 14 Years Later, with Brigitta Davidjants, Dagmar Kase, Aet Kuusik, Johanna Ross and Mare Tralla, will take place. The exhibition is also supplemented by a series of eight lectures and workshops on activism held in the Kumu Art Museum under the title School of Activism. The first session of the School of Activism will be part of the opening programme, when Martin-Rasmus Kass (Fridays for Future), Kristin Tõnisson (Progressiivne liikumine) and Anette Mäletjärv (Heterokringel) will discuss the current state of civic activism in Estonia. The discussion will be moderated by the art worker Laura Konsand.

The abundantly illustrated book that accompanies the exhibition includes articles on Anna-Stina Treumund’s oeuvre and activism by Piret Karro-Arrak, Redi Koobak and Kaisa Eiche.

The exhibition Anna-Stina Treumund: How to Recognise a Lesbian? will remain open in the Contemporary Art Gallery on the 5th floor of the Kumu Art Museum until 11 January 2026.

Curators: Piret Karro-Arrak, Magdaleena Maasik and Triin Tulgiste-Toss (1987–2024)
Exhibition design: Marge Monko
Graphic design: Lilli-Krõõt Repnau
Layout: Tuuli Aule and Kätlin Tischler-Süld
Technical team lead: Andres Amos
Coordinator: Johanna Jolen Kuzmenko
Consultant: Rebeka Põldsam
Public and educational programmes: Maari Hinsberg, Frederik Klanberg and Maria Lota Lumiste