Exhibition

Year: 2026

ARS Project Space (Tallinn, Estonia)

In May 2025, Jaanika visited the Italian Alps. The landscape itself encouraged the artist to keep her balance, which didn’t allow her to see further than the next slope. It was low season for tourism, so no ski lifts were operating to ease her journey upward. Jaanika was alone with the mountain as she continued her way forward. The glacier at the foot of the mountain had melted and in order to come into contact with ice and snow, she had to climb even higher. This was her first direct encounter with glaciers: until that moment, she had only experienced them through the sounds, videos, literature and photographic material of others—all these contained descriptions of glacial ice, its essence and foreseeable fate. The expansive, solid and mountainous landscape made her feel small, yet the desire to reach what seemed unattainable remained.

Glaciers are considered to be unpredictable, dangerous both in real life and as a symbol. They might be seen as the historic archive of atmosphere, giving us hints of past climates and exposing the ways we are all connected to our ancestors and the generations that follow us. We are bound together by a shared destiny and responsibility. Scientific methods may describe and interpret the mountain, but the actual experience of it can feel sublime and ordinary at the same time.

The glaciologist Jemma Wadham perceives glaciers as characters who have their own personalities and destinies. René Daumal has written about an imaginary expedition to an imaginary mountain, Mount Analogue, inviting us to interpret it as a symbolic and spiritual journey. Reaching for the sublime is a universal human desire. The mountain climber is not simply a hiker or an adventurer, but a truth seeker whose journey seems almost predestined. In Peerna’s exhibition, the mundane is brought together with the divine, the scientific with the sublime.

The exhibition features a large-scale installation, melting ice, ink works on wax paper and a meditative space imbued with John Grzinich’s soundscape. 

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Sound design: John Grzinich

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

Photo documentation: Roman-Sten Tõnissoo

Video documentation: Valdek Laur 

Technical support: Aksel Haagensen, Mattias Veller

Support  Cultural Endowment of Estonia, ARS Art Factory, Estonian Artists’ Association