During the residency I will be working on a video performance that combines still frames from public archives with spoken word. On stage I relate to the heritage of Estonia through a ghostly lens. I call out the stories of those who managed to weave and sing their way through the oppressions that have havoced this land. I draw inspiration from Saidiya Hartman's ways of re-telling intimate black histories in her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. And drag remains of pagan rituals into my practice of film-making.
“The text I’ll read to you now is a dialogue between me and an image. A photograph found from the National Archive of Estonia that I visit through a portal accessible via muis.ee. I go there to search for things that have not been documented. Stories fallen out of the reach of folklorists and foreign archivists; objects that have not confirmed the vision of the state. I am searching the margins for traces of resistance, the untameable ways of sounding that could not be flattened out on images nor captured in text, but continue to live in our shared consciousness as fictive tales.”
Mia Tamme is a visual researcher & an experimental film-maker based in Tallinn, Estonia. She blends ethnographic research, social design and autofiction to connect with marginal communities. Mia digs into the knowledge of heritage passed down on the grounds of Estonia, and scans how folk objects and tales continue to shape individual and social identities.
https://www.miatam.me/
https://www.instagram.com/miatamme/
The residency is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia
