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Fotografiska Tallinn celebrates its 1 year anniversary this month

This month Fotografiska Tallinn celebrates its 1 year anniversary. The opening year included 14 exhibitions, 1117 pieces of artwork and more than 400 000 guests.

Fotografiska Tallinn, with roots in Stockholm, was opened last year in June in Telliskivi Creative City. As a versatile meeting place, Fotografiska has brought to Tallinn the world’s best photography as well as music and cultural events, environmentally friendly and sustainable food, design and open way of thinking. The opening year included 14 exhibitions, 1117 pieces of artwork and more than 400 000 guests, amongst many other things.

“The opening of Fotografiska Tallinn was a marathon-like process that required purposefulness, consistency and endurance. Adrenaline was high at all times, and it gave a massive working ability – I felt like I didn’t need to sleep at all. Looking back now, it’s hard to put this journey, with so many layers and levels, into words,” recalled Maarja Loorents, co-founder of Fotografiska Tallinn and Exhibition Lead, the busy and exciting period just before the grand opening.

“From the very beginning Fotografiska aimed to take its visitors on a worldwide journey through exhibitions, food experiences and music, without actually having to go far from home. As Fotografiska is more than just exhibitions, this was perhaps one of the biggest challenges that we faced during our first year. Therefore I would like to thank all our visitors who quickly welcomed us here in Tallinn,” told Margit Aasmäe, Fotografiska Tallinn’s co-founder and CEO. “I believe that every visit to Fotografiska is unique thanks to its multilayered concept. Even so when the visitors happen to revisit Fotografiska, with the same exhibitions displayed on the walls,” continued Aasmäe.

During the anniversary month Fotografiska takes a look back to the past year as well as celebrates current exhibitions with special events and tours. Starting from this week it is possible to visit an open-air exhibition in the city centre of Tallinn and nearby. With the open-air exhibition we bow down to all the artists who have enriched Fotografiska Tallinn with their artwork. Inside Fotografiska Tallinn’s walls visitors are more than welcome to come see the current exhibitions: Bryan Adams’ Exposed, Sebastião Salgado’s documentary exhibition Gold, Finnish legendary artist Tom of Finland’s The Darkroom and Lina Iris Viktor’s dark and golden “Dark Testament”. 

Interesting facts from Fotografiska Tallinn’s first year:

  • 14 artists and 14 exhibitions, with 10 of them displayed in 2019
  • 10 artists came personally to Tallinn to open their exhibition, 3 of them revisited Estonia for the second time as well
  • Photography art reached Fotografiska Tallinn from almost all continents in the world, specifically from Estonia, Finland, The United Kingdom, Norway, The United States of America, China, Canada and Brazil
  • 1117 pieces of artworks were displayed on Fotografiska Tallinn’s walls
  • Approximately 5000 square metres of wall surfaces were painted for the opening of all exhibitions
  • The visitors’ record was born on September 7th, 2019 when 1570 persons visited the exhibition rooms
  • More than 400 000 visitors have entered Fotografiska Tallinn
  • The most popular article in the gift shop is the wall poster and the top 3 are Pentti Sammallahti’s “White hare”, Anja Niemi’s “The Starlet” and Alison Jackson’s “Queen on the Loo”
  • Fotografiska’s restaurant is amongst the 6 Estonian restaurants with the smallest footprint on the environment
  • 1,8 tons of compost has been developed in the composter from the minimal food waste that occurs in the restaurant
  • 180 happy plants grow in the rooftop garden planted in the compost
  • 0 rolls of plastic nor food bags have been used during the food preparation
Riine Tiigi

Marketing Manager