This article was initially written for representatives of the Estonian Centre Project, who wanted information about our “visional planning” for a sustainable future, to think what we currently have, how we operate and how we would be operating in the future, what space requirements we need and the technology required. The requested meeting, that was scheduled to be on March 7 at the Estonian House Cafe never took place, since the Estonian Centre members Maris-Ann Vanaselja and Maret Liik never showed up as promised. We therefore agreed to present our basic requirements in this article, as it may also be of interest to a wider Estonian public.

TEMKK collects, stores, and documents the collection of art belonging to Estonian House. Presently the collection consists of about 300 items of art, sculpture and photography. We have a large archive in the storage room of the collection of art and the activities of TEMKK from its beginning. The collection is a historic record of Estonian art and artists who lived and worked in the Toronto area as well as North America from the late 1940’s to the present. Some donations have been made of art from Estonia and Estonian art in Sweden. The collection is basically made up of donations.

Our mandate is also to decorate the walls of Estonian House by selecting the best and most interesting works of the collection for display and store the rest in the storage room. TEMKK has free rooms in the Estonian House to hold its meetings, exhibitions and special cultural events.

For requirements we need free space for the archive and art collection. For exhibitions we have free use of the Osvald Timmas Gallery (väike saal) and the restaurant (kohvik) for smaller exhibitions and special events, and access to walls for displaying the the best and most interesting works of the collection. The hall between the restaurant and washrooms downstairs is used for photographic exhibitions. Some of our shows last longer than three weeks. We also have free use of class-rooms for meetings, seminars and/or discussions.

Our needs, in addition to the exhibition space, would be enough public walls to display the permanent collection of the best and/or most interesting works, climate-controlled appropriate storage for art works, a small administrative area, with access to the internet, for filing, documentation and administration, access to a public auditorium/meeting space for 70 - 100 people, for performance art, lectures, films and media presentations, with up-to-date lighting and media equipment, also to record talks, events, and performance art for posting on the internet, physical equipment modelled on the Small World Music Centre in Toronto. (See http://smallworldmusic.com/the..., as well as access to a workshop/teaching area and a small public area for a bookstore or gallery store.

We will need an exhibition hall like the gallery room in EM (väike saal) where we can have exhibitions for 3-4 weeks, like the Peeter Sepp exhibition in 2016. where the paintings stayed on the walls when other events happened in the room. We plan similar exhibitions to introduce the best and most interesting works of Estonian art to a wider public. We also need a room like EM kohvik where we can use the walls for various shows and space for projects and films to discuss cultural concepts.

All this is possible in the Estonian house.

Prepared by Eda Sepp, Art Historian, BA, MA, Phil M.

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