Pankaj Tiwari TENT: School. Rehearsals for Solidarity
During the year of Kumu Art Museum’s 20th anniversary the common thread throughout the museums public programming is the ambition to bring people together. Togetherness though is also a skill to be practiced and, in that spirit, Kumu’s courtyard will welcome artist Pankaj Tiwari’s “TENT: School for Performative Practices” during the month of May. Organised within the tent and around it is a programme of Rehearsals for Solidarity.
The programme is born out of an urgency to find common ground during a time when war, geo-political and ecological crisis are continuously intensifying. Challenges facing our shared lives have become so big that to meet them only collaborative action has the potential to be affective. At the same time our politics and societies have become increasingly more polarised which diminishes our abilities for collaboration. This is the core of what Rehearsals for Solidarity aims to tackle, to find common ground and learn to be in that uncomfortable space of negotiation and collaboration with people of diverse backgrounds.
The ten day programme of Rehearsals for Solidarity are organised in collaboration with artist Pankaj Tiwari, Kumu Art museum, Kumu Youth Club and students from the Estonian Academy of Arts. The programme consists of performances, workshops, readings, lectures and more. Each of the events in some way adds to the vocabulary and skill of collective, collaborative practice.
“TENT: School for Performative Practices” itself is a new institution founded by artist Pankaj Tiwari. As an institution without walls, it is inclusive through its immediate architectural foundation.
Pankaj Tiwari is a contemporary artist, performance maker, writer, and curator from Balrampur, India. He is currently based in Amsterdam and holds a Master’s degree in Theatre & Curation from DAS Theatre Amsterdam. Since 2026, he has been working as a trajectory artist with the international arts centre CAMPO in Ghent.
Friday, 08.05
Pankaj Tiwari’s Open Lecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts titled “I will not wait for the institution to change; I will build a new one.“ The lecture introduces the ways and reasons for why TENT came to be.
Saturday, 09.05
15:00 Opening of the Rehearsals for solidarity programme in the tent, followed by an informal dinner during which Pankaj Tiwari will introduce his practice and the programme organised in the tent at Kumu.
Sunday, 10.05
13:00 Rehearsing for solidarity workshop. Through different written, embodied and playful exercises, participants explore various starting points for solidarity, togetherness.
15:00 Follow-up intervention by Pankaj Tiwari and an informal dinner
Monday, 11.05
aTENTative practice
- On Monday students of the Estonian Academy of Arts will open their satellite programme aTENTative Practice.
13:00 Collective cushion making workshop. Instructions, materials, and tools will be provided. The cushions created during the workshop will be used to build a cosy reading nook for a library to be fitted into the tent. The library will remain accessible throughout the programme of Rehearsals for Solidarity. Everyone is invited to explore its contents for quiet encounters and playful exploration.
16:00 PERFORMANCE: “OOOcarina” by artist Ming Zhu. This performance invites you to slow down and attune. To consider your own breath, your body, and the ground beneath you. To sense the subtle threads that connect air, clay, and time—and to reflect on what binds us to the land, and what quietly pulls us apart. Come as you are. Listen, rest, and enter a shared space of resonance.
Tuesday, 12.05
18:00 Food as practice. Pankaj Tiwari has said that everything he makes for the market is fraud, and that his real practice is cooking and eating together with people. Inspired by this idea, we organise a cooking workshop to explore how shared meals form the foundation of any community.
Wednesday 13.05
aTENTative practice
12:00 Mending & washing. Centred around the notion of care, the space within and around the tent, the museum’s “backyard”, becomes activated through a shared act of washing and mending. This leads to the formation of a clothing line. Garments worn during the labour of washing are then hung on a laundry line, forming a temporary display in the courtyard. Visitors are warmly invited to contribute their own work of everyday clothing, also becoming authors in this evolving collective composition.
19:00 Football. After dinner lets play a modified football game taking place on the small hill by the courtyard. The game will be an exercise of teamwork, working together to move the ball uphill.
Thursday, 14.05
18:00 Reading circle on nonviolence. Inspired by Kazu Haga’s book “Healing Resistance. A Radically Different Response to Harm” we explore how living according to the principles of nonviolence can be an antidote to a violent world.
Friday, 15.05
13:00 Drawing connections, finding common ground. The workshop is inspired by Fred Moten’s idea of authorship not being anything other than a con. Thus finding common ground is central to practices of solidarity, resistance and resolving conflict. By consciously going through the motions to practice this joyfully and creatively, we enact a process where finding common ground comes more naturally in moments of conflict or tension. Using drawing and writing as a tool, we will work to draw on our connections and map out our common grounds. As the session progresses relational entanglements, interwoven and overlapping, unfold. In this, the author is dissolved and the edges blur; we find ourselves within a web of collective thought.
17:00 Intervention by the Kumu Youth Club, “Stretching our emotions.” Through a series of exercises, games, and collaborative activities, participants experience a spectrum of emotions designed to help clear the mind for the spring and summer ahead. In an increasingly confusing world, the Kumu Youth Club offers tools for keeping a cool head.
Saturday, 16.05
13:00 Negotiation skills workshop. Pankaj Tiwari’s recommendations for collaboration in an age of ideological purism.
18:00 Museum Night. Food will be served in the tent and conversations on cultural education will take place. In addition, Belgian choreographer Michiel Vandevelde will perform a piece made in collaboration with local participants. To sign up for the dance find more information here.
Sunday, 17.05
15:00 Open-air cinema in collaboration with Lasnaidee. Film TBA soon!
Monday, 18.05
aTENTative practice
TENT Raadio: New week starts with a brand new concept TENT Raadio. The radio show consists of interviews, experimental sound pieces, performance, thinkpieces, advertisement and of course radio hosting. Interviews with local and international artists will be broadcast live from the TENT to discuss the relationship between the artist and the institution.
TENT Raadio will be available for streaming online at https://oh.eka-gd-ma.ee/
Tuesday, 19.05
aTENTative practice
12:00 Zine making. By combining texts, drawings and photographs formed throughout the program, a zine will be made to conclude the experience of the Rehearsals for Solidarity programme.
16:00 Collective cooking. Cooking a recipe where everyone takes an equal part in chopping the ingredients. That means: everyone who is there chops for example one onion, one carrot and one piece of garlic. All the chopped ingredients go into a pot together. Many small portions make up a big meal! We’ll eat and enjoy the meal together!
Wednesday, 20.05
To conclude, we reflect on the role of culture and art in building social cohesion. Can we truly create change, and how might we put it into practice? The evening ends with a celebration. More TBA soon!
The programme is made in collaboration between artist Pankaj Tiwari, Kumu Art Museum, Kumu Youth Club, the Estonian Academy of Arts and Lasnaidea. The initiative is partly funded by Tallinn City.
Initiator of TENT: School for Performative Practices: Pankaj Tiwari
Programme curator Rehearsals for Solidarity: Frederik Klanberg
Participating artists and collaborators: Pankaj Tiwari, Michiel Vandevelde, Jake Shepherd, Yvette Bathgate, Sarah Riley, Ming Zhu, Ronja Siitonen, Hanna Vinter, Éric-Olivier Thériault, Yvonne Schlageter, Lotta Karolina Räsänen, Nora Lember, Berit Jaamul, Elis Kannik, Margret Lina Kesa, Sandra Sinimets, Mart Vainre, Polina Ljaseva.
