Artist Ingrid Allik with colleagues from Estonia and Finland at the Räpina Paper Factory

Project “ArCo3 – Artists in Collections, Communities and Collectives” presents: artists create a new landmark for Räpina's public space, that interprets long history of local paper manufacturing through landscape design and different artefacts.

The Räpina Paper Factory has been operating since 1734 and is therefore the oldest constantly functioning factory in Estonia. Although many associate it with folios of coloured drawing paper, the main focus of the company is the production of edge protectors for the international market. By the way, the Räpina Paper Factory was eco-friendly before this approach became popular: they collect scrap paper for their products, which they then recycle using contemporary technologies which have been developed throughout the years.

What could be a better art of survival than noble heritage combined with contemporary technologies? The artist Ingrid Allik with colleagues from Estonia and Finland took an artistic residency during summer 2023 at the paper factory and the Räpina Creative House. She has used a similar approach in her earlier works, interpreting ceramics and clay from a new angle and plucking influences from Japanese cultural space. By taking over a strip of grass, which is currently quite useless as it is located between the parking lot and the entrance, Allik and her fellow artists established a deliberate and festive “gate”, also functioning as a space for stopping and investigating. This new landmark in the urban space combines landscape design and elements created by the artists which are characteristic of the history of producing paper in Räpina. Through such actions as mixing clay and paper dust left over by the factory, constructing new elements out of the edges produced by the factory and exhibiting packs of scrap paper, Allik composes an environment which invites the viewer to discover, touch and even climb on different materials.

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The project “ArCo3” is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme and has grown out of the initiative “Artists in Collections (ArCo)”, which has been mixing together contemporary art and cultural heritage since 2018. The participants in the project “ArCo3” are the Tartu Observatory of the University of Tartu in Tõravere (artist: Karel Koplimets), the Järvselja Training and Experimental Forestry District Foundation in Kastre County (artist: Uku Sepsivart), the riverboat Lonny at the damn on the Ahja River in Taevaskoja (artists: Sigrid Viir and Līga Spunde) and the Räpina Paper Factory (artist: Ingrid Allik, with colleagues from Estonia and Finland).

The ArCo curators and project managers are Maarin Ektermann and Mary-Ann Talvistu.
Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

If you want to grab a bite or need a place to stay, see what the Tartu 2024 hospitality network offers in the area: https://tartu2024.ee/recommendations-rapina