Boxing is violent by nature, hypermasculine and performative to the core. Full of adrenaline, energy and strength, the combatants in the boxing ring fight in a theater of danger, pain and exhaustion. Violence is central in a patriarchal society, and boxing as a sport enables to civilize and celebrate it through rules of conduct, consent, consciously chosen flamboyant attire and choreography. At the same time, according to the stereotypical gender-based conventions, boxing symbolizes everything that one must not represent when growing up as a girl in society.

Through delicate drawings, soft and fluffy installations and text-based works, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar is exploring the common ground between boxing and performing gender, looking for beauty in play, an opportunity to express oneself, act out, and transform one's life despite societal expectations. Manipulating sports equipment and training spaces through humor and unique use of materials, they reflect on the experience of coming of age as a queer individual, reclaiming agency in the binary world of political fictions and making space for multiplicity.

As part of the exhibition’s public programme, a three part collective zine-making workshop will take place, hosted in collaboration with the artist Nadya Tjuška. The workshops are based on discussions on personal experiences and gender performativity, through which a collective zine will be made through different exercises for illustrating and creative writing. The workshops take place on Thursdays at 18.00 on August 22nd, August 29th and September 5th. Participating in the workshops requires pre-registration here.

Maria Izabella Lehtsaar is a non-binary artist based in Tallinn, who works primarily with under-represented queer experience and narratives, often playing with the boundary between reality and fantasy. Their work often narrates spaces, hidden symbols and coded meanings in queer and lesbian material culture. Maria's works catch the eye through softness, which loudly touch on the subjects of gender performativity, construction and political fictions that create a binary and lonely world. They blend pop culture aesthetics and sensitive monochrome graphics, combining them in practice with textiles, drawing and poetry. Their use of various mediums bend the familiarity with layered meanings.