The Museum Night’s theme, Dreams in the Night, invites visitors to reflect on the issues that communities and people associated with the museum dream about, and what the museum of our dreams would look like. Within this framework, both now and in the future, the non-profit Estonian Museum Association, which is the main coordinator of Museum Night, will focus on the socially important topics that museums deal with on a daily basis and which help them to contribute to society and the environment.

Kumu Art Museum

On Museum Night, Saturday, 20 May from 18:00 to 23:00*, the following Kumu exhibitions will be open to visitors: Landscapes of Identity: Estonian Art 1700–1945; and Conflicts and Adaptations: Estonian Art of the Soviet Era (1940–1991), and the following project space exhibitions: Baltic German Modernist Erna Kreischmann: A Room of Her Own, and Jonna Kina: Four Sculptures in Fifteen Pieces. Guides will introduce the works in the exhibition halls.

Programme

18:00-22:00 Orientation game in the Kumu courtyard
18:00-22:00 Creative workshops for children and adults in the Kumu Education Centre
18:00-22:30 Video art from the Art Museum of Estonia collections, on the 5th floor of the Kumu Art Museum
19:00-20:55 30-minute tours of the Art in the Comfort Zone? exhibition. Pre-registration required.

Pre-registration required.
In Estonian: 7.00 pm. Register here!
In Russian: 7.40 pm. Register here!
In English: 8.20 pm. Register here!

Jonna Kina. Four Sculptures in Fifteen Pieces.

• This film by the multidisciplinary Finnish artist Jonna Kina deals with the creation, destruction and role of a museum as a preserver.

Baltic German Modernist Erna Kreischmann: A Room of Her Own.

• Erna Kreischmann (1885–1929) was an innovative artist of Baltic German descent who lived and worked in Pärnu for most of her life.

Permanent exhibition Conflicts and Adaptations. Estonian Art of the Soviet Era (1940–1991)

• exhibition introduces early local art in the context of Estonia’s multi-ethnic history, in which Baltic-German, Russian and Estonian traditions intertwine. The focus is on the role of art in society and its impact on the self-images of the various communities.The themes of the exhibition include the connections between Baltic-German and Estonian visual culture, the meaning of pictorial imagery in the young Estonian nation, the dreams of modern life, the voices of women artists, the art of the “Silent Era” and wartime, and the story of the formation of local identity landscapes. In addition to the fine arts, the impacts of hobbyists, education, commercial graphics and design on the creation of visual identity are explored.

Art in the Comfort Zone? The 2000s in Estonian Art

• exhibition continues from where The X-Files [Registry of the Nineties], an exhibition from 2018 that summarised the art of the 1990s, left off. The keywords of the new decade were economic boom, professionalisation and internationalisation, which have since been collectively referred to as normalisation. The exhibition examines how these developments were expressed in the art created during that period, and what the most important artistic positions and thematic statements were.
  During the Museum Night, the exhibition can only be visited when accompanied by a guide. Throughout the evening, video art from the collections of the Art Museum of Estonia will be screened in the lobby of the 5th floor. The videos have been specifically selected for the Museum Night.

On Museum Night, the following exhibitions will be closed: Thinking Pictures; Lembit Sarapuu: Reality and Actuality, and The Future Is in One Hour: Estonian Art in the 1990s.

The Kumu Reval Café will be open until late in the evening.
*Admission to the museum is on a first-come, first-served basis until 22:30.
Visitors to Kumu can park in the car park on Valge Street (for free).

Kadriorg Art Museum

We dream about an open and accessible museum where everybody can experience and enjoy art the way they want.
Curators and professional guides will be present at the museum to answer your questions about the exhibited artworks.

Programme

18:00 Programme Tangible Heroes at the museum for people with impaired vision.
NB! From 18:00–19:00 The museum will only be open to people with impaired vision to ensure a quiet environment more suitable for concentrating (for pre-registered groups).
18:00 Guided tours of Kadriorg Park (free of charge):

Kadriorg of the Artists. The art historian Kerttu Männiste talks about the artists who lived in Kadriorg at the beginning of the 20th century and the art life that took place there.
A Dream of Harmony: The Park as an Earthly Paradise. The art historian Aleksandra Murre talks about the planning and construction of Kadriorg.
Biodiverse Kadriorg. Elle Pent (from Kadriorg Park) talks about the landscape architecture and the vegetation of Kadriorg Park.

Also at 18:00–19.00 guided tours in Russian will take place. Information on the museum’s Russian website.

19:00–23:00 Investigation game Find the Dreams. Prizes for the most attentive!
19:00–21:00 Activity room Palace of Dreams on the second floor of the museum: board games and drawing, art studio and historical costumes in a stylish interior.
20:00–20:50 Special Museum Night edition of the dance performance I Was Here. The travelling performance visits different rooms of the Kadriorg Palace.

I Was Here is about physical and mental/spiritual communication and touch. Olga Zitluhina, a Latvian choreographer and the author of the concept, acknowledges that life moves very fast and questions whether we are able to actually touch or if the only physical communication we know is through touch screens.

Permanent exhibition

• The permanent exhibition of the Kadriorg Art Museum introduces the highlights of the foreign art collection of the Art Museum of Estonia: mainly Western European and Russian paintings, sculptures and decorative arts from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

Visible storage gallery for the sculpture collection

•  In the new visible storage gallery on the ground floor of Kadriorg Palace, visitors can explore artworks from the Western European and Russian sculpture collection, including over 250 works dating from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries.

Exhibiton Stylish Things: Furniture and Decorative Art from the Collections of Estonian Museums will be closed on Museum Night.

Mikkel Museum

On Museum Night, the exhibition Karl Morgenstern: A Scholar’s Collection and part of the permanent collection (European painting and applied arts) are open. Curators and professional guides will be present at the museum to answer your questions about the exhibited artworks.

Programme

18:00–21:00 Creative work for families in the museum’s Collection of Dreams on the second floor.

Karl Morgenstern: A Scholar’s Collection

• This exhibition showcases some of the prints and engraved gems from the collection, highlighting the main themes of the collection and the wide-ranging interests of a scholar influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. Particular prominence is given to glyptic art. Morgenstern’s interest in engraved gems arose partly from his teaching work at the University and partly from his enthusiasm for ancient art.

Permanent exhibition

• The core of the museum’s permanent exhibitions is made up of Johannes Mikkel’s collection, in which European and Chinese ceramics and porcelain are displayed alongside West European painting.

Niguliste Museum

The building of the Niguliste Museum is closed due to renovations. Despite this, we will offer Museum Night activities outside the museum. Under the historic linden trees, a craft workshop will be open during the whole evening, and at certain times 30-minute open-air guided tours on the history of the Niguliste Museum, which is located in the former St Nicholas’ Church building, will take place.

Participation free of charge.

Programme

19:00 Open air guided tour on the history of St Nicholas’ Church (in Estonian)
20:00 Open air guided tour on the history of St Nicholas’ Church (in English)
18:00–23:00 Open air craft workshop at the Niguliste Museum (in Estonian / in English)

Adamson-Eric Museum

Fifteen-minute guided tours of the exhibition Material Change: Design and New Technologies, workshop for young creators.

Programme

18:00–23:00 Circular economy workshop for young creators (in Estonian / in English)

The children’s area offers worksheets introducing the basics of the circular economy and teaching how to create a nature-friendly design project or how to “fix” a sweater with moth holes following the idea of visible repair: decorating the mended place instead of hiding it. The resulting works can be displayed at the exhibition in the museum.

18:00 Short guided tour of the exhibition Material Change (in Estonian)
19:00 Short guided tour of the exhibition Material Change (in English)
20:00 Short guided tour of the exhibition Material Change (in Estonian)

Permanent exhibition

• Exhibition Adamson-Eric: Modernism and Diversity offers an overview of the works of Adamson-Eric (1902–1968): paintings, ceramics, leather works, jewellery, textiles, furniture, etc. His works are characterised by refined taste, a subtle sense of colour and elegant wit. Adamson-Eric developed as a painter in the liberal academies of Paris but he was also profoundly influenced by the Northern environment and the traditions of Estonian folk art.

Material Change: Design and New Technologies

• The exhibition looks at how Estonian contemporary artists and designers employ new materials and technologies. On display are, among other pieces, interactive and smart textiles by Kärt Ojavee and Johanna Ulfsak, carbon-negative mushroom furniture by Siim Karro and 3D-printed rings by the jeweller Darja Popolitova.