Seeing through art: creatives visualise ‘translucency’ in Tallinn
The 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial's headline exhibition is a cross-disciplinary exploration of optics and the ambiguity of translucent materials

There are many ways for one to see art, but a cross-disciplinary show in Tallinn, Estonia is dedicated to seeing through it. Well, partially. Translucency, which occupies the strange middle ground between opacity and transparency, is an elusive starting point for a show.
In the main exhibition for the 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial, artists and designers are exploring the creative and critical potential of translucency. ‘Translucency is neither one nor the other but can be approached as a metastable state full of potential energy. It is not dichotomous; it is a chiastic movement through pluralities and nuances of visibility and lack thereof,’ says Danish glass artist and exhibition curator Stine Bidstrup.
Exhibition view/ Wang & Soderstrom, Flatscreen, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
Staged within the Kai Art Center, the show includes 21 artists from the Nordic countries, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Estonia, the UK and the US. Much like the phenomenon of translucency, the show is all about the liminal spaces between two poles: presence and absence, private and the public, individuality and collectivity, time and temporality.
The exhibition spans disciplines, techniques and materials, from glass, textile art, garments, photography, sculpture, installation, ceramics, jewellery, video, furniture, 3D printing and digital design. Participating artists include Sissi Westerberg, Linda Aasaru, Andrew Bearnot, Erin Dickson, Ditte Hammerstrøm, Heidi Bach Hentze, Sandra Kosorotova, Eeva Käsper and Helen Lee.
Exhibition view/ Sissi Westerberg, Uthangt, ’Translucency’, 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021
In tandem with the main exhibition, the triennial is also staging an extensive satellite programme that includes jewellery and glass art, site-specific installations, and events across the arts.
As Bidstrup continues: ‘Translucency promotes ambiguity, a sense of mystery and complexity that allows multiple understandings of what a space, an object or an idea can be. Translucency creates depth by taking advantage of the natural assumption of a destination beyond and behind a perceived surface. Perhaps above all, the use of translucent materials enables a kind of uncertainty, a vagueness that reinforces the need to seek out visibility.’
Exhibition view, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
Exhibition view, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
Exhibition view, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
Exhibition view, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
Exhibition view, 'Translucency', 8th Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at Kai Art Center, until 15 August 2021.
INFORMATION
The 8th Tallinn Applied Art triennial’s main exhibition ’Translucency’ is at Kai Art Center until 15 August, 2021. kai.center
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
A new Athens gallery is a celebration of old and new, a stone's throw from the Acropolis
New Athens gallery Melas Martinos by Local Local is a contemporary art space, a stone's throw from the Acropolis, in the Greek capital's Monastiraki neighbourhood
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: live updates from the Wallpaper* team
From 7-9 July, Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 arrives in Paris. Follow along for a first look at the shows, presentations and other fashion happenings, as seen by the Wallpaper* editors
-
Boundaries between art and life dissolve in Katherine Hubbard's intimate documentation of her mother's illness
In 'The Great Room', Katherine Hubbard merges caregiving for her mother with an unflinching documentary of the process
-
What is recycling good for, asks Mika Rottenberg at Hauser & Wirth Menorca
US-based artist Mika Rottenberg rethinks the possibilities of rubbish in a colourful exhibition, spanning films, drawings and eerily anthropomorphic lamps
-
San Francisco’s controversial monument, the Vaillancourt Fountain, could be facing demolition
The brutalist fountain is conspicuously absent from renders showing a redeveloped Embarcadero Plaza and people are unhappy about it, including the structure’s 95-year-old designer
-
See the fruits of Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely's creative and romantic union at Hauser & Wirth Somerset
An intimate exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Somerset explores three decades of a creative partnership
-
Technology, art and sculptures of fog: LUMA Arles kicks off the 2025/26 season
Three different exhibitions at LUMA Arles, in France, delve into history in a celebration of all mediums; Amy Serafin went to explore
-
Inside Yinka Shonibare's first major show in Africa
British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare is showing 15 years of work, from quilts to sculptures, at Fondation H in Madagascar
-
Inside Jack Whitten’s contribution to American contemporary art
As Jack Whitten exhibition ‘Speedchaser’ opens at Hauser & Wirth, London, and before a major retrospective at MoMA opens next year, we explore the American artist's impact
-
Frieze Sculpture takes over Regent’s Park
Twenty-two international artists turn the English gardens into a dream-like landscape and remind us of our inextricable connection to the natural world
-
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self’s colourful ode to the landscape of her childhood
Tschabalala Self’s new show at Finland's Espoo Museum of Modern Art evokes memories of her upbringing, in vibrant multi-dimensional vignettes