Evelyn Raudsepp

Evelyn Raudsepp is the curator and project manager at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), a self-initiated contemporary art institution in Tallinn, primarily functioning as a public, non-profit exhibition space and an unabashedly idiosyncratic art museum. Raudsepp is working collaboratively with the team on the museum’s program, as well as curating the performance programme and fostering international collaborations. Her curatorial position centers on inviting artists and curators to move beyond conventional practices and working methods. Through her performative curatorial approach, she proposes cross-disciplinary projects and experimental formats with a strong collaborative element.

Raudsepp’s projects include curatorial collaborations Rooms in Rhymes (2025), Trigger (2024), and Greatest Hits (2022) at EKKM; interdisciplinary project Body Space(d) with artist duos from performing and visual arts at Tallinn Art Hall (2019); collaborative group exhibition (Hyper)emotional: YOU at EKKM (2017); and Artishok Biennial at Theatre NO99 (2016).

We Have a Land of Words: Curating Across Distance and Violence

Most studies of difficult knowledge focus on post-violent contexts and post-conflict reconciliation. But what can we do during ongoing acts of violence and the violation of human rights? How do we carry civic and social responsibility through our roles as curators, while walking the thin line between politics, activism, funding cuts, and public institutions?

I’m sharing a case study of making the exhibition We Have a Land of Words, focusing on Palestine, and how “we”, as a curatorial collegiality across borders, has become almost inevitable in order to make this project happen.

As I’m stepping into unknown territories – professionally, geographically, politically, culturally – the personal urgency I feel as a citizen won’t let me not tackle this matter. The challenges of communication and representation therefore come strongly to the fore. How do we engage with knowledge and experiences that are not our own? Using the long-distance call as a method and metaphor, the exhibition is taking shape through video interviews with Palestinian curators and through observations and reflections that emerge from personal and intimate conversations.

As the algorithms of digital information are manipulated, first-hand knowledge and direct human contact become increasingly valuable. Calling a colleague in a conflict area without travelling, and using digital innovations to preserve, share, and reconstruct art, may sometimes become the only way to make exhibitions in these contexts. This way of sharing words that are not spoken, or are under threat of erasure, is a tiny act of resistance in itself.