Artist
Kristina Ollek
Kristina Õllek (b.1989, Estonia) is a visual artist who lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. She is working in the field of photography, video and installation, with a focus on investigating representational processes, geological and ecological matter, and the human-made environment. In her practice she frequently uses situations when fact and fiction, synthetic and natural, copy and original intertwine with each other and become a hybrid object / matter to obtain new and reconsidered meaning.
Her works are often site-sensitive, analysing the exhibition location and format, questioning modes of presentation and installation politics, viewing it from different perspectives — from a historical museum to online space.
Kristina Õllek has graduated from Estonian Academy of Arts (BA degree in 2013, MA degree in 2016; at the Photography Department, Fine Arts). She has also studied at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (2016) and Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee (2012). She’s been the laureate of the Estonian Academy of Arts Young Artist Prize 2013 (BA) and 2016 (MA). In 2019 she received the Art Proof Production Grant. Her works have recently been shown in various international group and solo exhibitions in Estonia and abroad. Her works can be found in private and public collections.
Filter Feeders, Double Binds & Other Silicones
Filter Feeders, Double Binds & Other Silicones (2019 – ...) is Kristina Õllek’s ongoing project, that is based on research and personal observations around anthropocentric influences on marine ecology, its filter feeder organisms: mussels, oysters, the expanding population of jellyfishes; and the toxic cyanobacterial blooms. Kristina Õllek lived 2018-2020 in the Netherlands, and during this time she developed her interest on the North Sea coastal area and filter feeder organisms that act as filters for polluted water and are therefore also considered to be engineers of the ecosystem. On the Dutch coast, aquacultures such as mussel and oyster farms are a prominent industry, with Zeeland at its center: a province largely below sea level and one of the most man-made regions of The Netherlands. In 1953, the most devastating flood in Dutch history took place there—de Watersnoodramp—after which the Delta Works hydraulic engineering project were constructed, turning the landscape into an artificial and alienating territory. This area also faces another environmental problem – salinity, which is a growing issue in the Netherlands due to rising sea-levels, where the groundwater is in danger of being infused with sea water. For her latest works part of the series, Õllek has been working with growing sea salt crystals on photographs and frames, lending her work another physical layer, in addition to other materials used such as sand, oyster shells and silicone. In the installation comprising photographic and sculptural elements, Õllek thinks together with the North and Baltic Sea, providing insight into the changing composition of coastal ecology and marine chemistry.
The selection of artists - comprising Kristina Õllek, Kristīne Krauze-Slucka, Sergey Melnitchenko, Vika Eksta and Konstantin Zhukov - encompasses diverse approaches to the medium of photography in terms of form and technique. Their practice ranges from documentary to camera-less photography, though they share a passion for exploring relevant social themes; the selected projects mirror the social, economical and ecological phenomena to which we are all subjected today. We firmly believe that these artists will contribute to the artistic community of FUTURES with the rich diversity of their approaches.