Kanni Labi "The Daily Pics"

I was born in 1971 and my first cameras took black and white pictures my father and I developed in the bathroom. The next boost to my photo hobby took place when Estonia was already free, in the age of “soap box” film cameras and Kodak films. In the meantime, I had graduated from Räpina Horticultural School, worked as a gardener and started to study Estonian philology at the University of Tartu. In addition to Sunday-photography, the Sunday-painting was added to my hobby circle. By extension, in 2006 I defended my doctoral dissertation on the language of old Estonian folksongs, in which I described the supreme expressiveness of the centuries old, still undeveloped and unwritten Estonian language, and the richness of the imagination of the old Estonians who used it. Since 2000, I have worked on different positions in the Estonian Literary Museum. At present, I am mainly involved in the editing of the journal of humanities Methis and in the project initiated by the “king of Estonian folklore” Jakob Hurt in the end of the 19th century, compiling the series of scientific publications of Estonian old folksongs, Vana Kannel (The Old Zither).

This exhibition was born out of the need for contact-free celebration of a milestone in my personal life and was first exhibited at the Literary Museum in the autumn. The title, Päevapildid, literally ’day, or light pictures’, had the meaning ’photographs’ in older Estonian. So, this is a selection of pictures from a few days, as I have experienced them in recent years. However, I felt that the artistic level of my photographs alone is not sufficient, thus the exhibition as a whole also needs a text. In my previous, first photo exhibition, I drew parallels between the pictures and the texts of old Estonian folksongs. However, this time I stayed with the present day. Those days, when I was entertaining myself taking photos somewhere in Estonia or Europe, could mean something completely different to other people in other places. So, I took the dates of the pictures and looked around the world for more influential or interesting events that took place on those days. Any correlation between the images and captions is random, each viewer can create them for themselves.

Information from the wider world is only a mouse-click away nowadays and finding common ground to the horizons of our pre-newspaper ancestors is not a simple task. As we now know, it is not easy for the human psychology to adapt to this change. To alleviate the complications, learning the art of being-here-and-now is widely recommended. Photography is a very rewarding tool for it.

Kanni Labi

More information: Risto Lehiste, risto.lehiste@ut.ee