Estonian Literary Museum to Feature Exhibition by Australian Graphic Artist of Lithuanian Descent

TALLINN – As part of the Estonian Book Year, the Estonian Literary Museum will open an exhibition on Friday titled "Mythology and Material Dialogues: The Rebirth of Baltic Heritage Stories on the Other Side of the World." The exhibition will showcase artist's books and lagerphones created in a unique technique by Jazmina Cininas, an Australian graphic artist and educator of Lithuanian descent.

A significant part of Cininas's creative work is connected to Estonia. In 2017, she spent three months in Tartu as a guest artist in the residency program of the Estonian Printing and Paper Museum, now TYPA, where she researched Estonia's rich werewolf folklore. This experience left a deep impression on the artist, and in subsequent years, she has visited Estonia repeatedly, delving deeper into its cultural and folkloric landscape.

The exhibition's artist's books are created using a collage technique, incorporating Soviet-era encyclopedias, publications, and packaging that the artist collected during her residency and subsequent visits to Estonia. Each piece is a unique, one-of-a-kind creation, and these book-form artworks interpret Baltic heritage motifs through themes of hybridity, transformation, self-discovery, and migration.

In addition to the artist's books, the exhibition displays a selection of lagerphones – traditional Australian percussion instruments decorated with Baltic nature motifs, made using beer bottle caps. As a member of the Melbourne-based Lithuanian folk group The Lost Clog / Pamesta Klumpė, Cininas initially began making these instruments as visual props, a self-ironic reference to the group's hybrid cultural roots. The exhibition features lagerphones created both in Australia and during a 2024 residency at the Kaunas Picture Gallery in Lithuania.

Jazmina Cininas is a Melbourne-based artist and lecturer who has taught printmaking and book arts at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University's School of Art for nearly three decades. In 2014, she earned her doctorate from the same institution with her research, "The Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame," which focused on the depiction of female werewolves in cultural history.

Cininas's linocuts and artist's books have been nominated in over 80 art competitions and are part of nearly 50 art collections, including those of the National Gallery of Australia and Museums Victoria. Her work can also be found outside Australia, in institutions such as the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the TYPA centre in Tartu, and the MARKK Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg. Her collaborative lagerphone project, "The Sparrow Made Some Beer" ("Varblane tegi õlut"), was awarded the Australian Folk Music Awards' "Community/Cultural Project of the Year" in 2022.

This exhibition has been organized in collaboration with the Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum. The exhibition will remain open until the end of May.