Shifting Sand brings together Ingmar Järve, Mariann Metsis, Kati Saarits, and Angela Maasalu in an exploration of memory’s mutable nature, drawing on Svetlana Boym’s concept of reflective nostalgia. Through their distinct practices, the artists engage with historical narratives, personal loss and domestic rituals, allowing fragmented elements to surface and shift. The works in this exhibition suggest that memory is fluid, continually reframing our relationship to the past and its impact on the present.

Ingmar Järve’s work emerges from a dialogue between the imposing legacy of Soviet monumental art and the ephemeral radicalism of street art. Through his use of metal relief techniques, Järve alludes to the visual language of Soviet-era public art, which emphasized themes of labor, solidarity, and the grandeur of historical narratives. This form of art, often seen adorning the facades of public buildings, was intended to impose ideological messages, to command submission rather than inspire dialogue. Järve’s decision to adopt these forms carries an inherent irony: as a street artist by background, he reclaims this historically charged medium, traditionally associated with state power, and uses it to challenge and subvert the narratives it once upheld. His works do not seek to memorialize, but rather to provoke critical reflection on how we, as a society, engage with public space, power structures, and the values these spaces embody.

Mariann Metsis delves into the complex interplay between personal loss, existential grief, and the disorienting effects of urban alienation. Her use of blurred, diffuse imagery captures a sense of fleetingness, of losing oneself in the overwhelmingness, while simultaneously longing for the familiar. Metsis also draws attention to the marginalization of women and animals, exploring themes of violence, subjugation, and the ways in which patriarchal systems dehumanize both. Her figurative work which is often centered on the female form, speaks to the complexity of identity and resistance in the modern world. Metsis paints not just figures, but the specters of violence and absence that trail behind them.

Kati Saarits draws attention to a piece of forgotten history through her sculptural work, which draws inspiration from lifestyle magazines, some of them dating back almost 100 years, which included DIY craft manuals. Saarits focuses on the humble, yet symbolically rich, medium of tableware and fabric—domestic objects that carry within them the weight of history and importance of daily ritual. These works can be viewed as symbols of resilience and creativity in the face of material scarcity, drawing attention to the way domestic acts can be a space of both conformity and quiet rebellion. Her work highlights the tension between utilitarianism and expression, between the past and the present, underscoring the ways in which personal and cultural memory can be reclaimed, reshaped, and reinterpreted. 

Angela Maasalu’s paintings feel like the quiet, half-remembered fragments occupying a world where time folds in on itself. Her figures, often hazy and spectral, seem to exist in a space where stories from childhood, folklore, and the deep recesses of personal experience merge into one another. It’s not about clarity, but about the way certain images stick to you, refusing to leave, and you can’t quite pin down why. It feels like the works here aren’t about what you remember, but how you remember, how things slip away and come back in unexpected ways, always changing, always just out of reach.

Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Embassy of the Republic of Estonia in Riga

Angela Maasalu is an Estonian artist living and working in London. She studied painting and art history at the University of Tartu (BA, 2012), and painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2015), as well as at UAL Central Saint Martins in the UK (2013–2014). In 2017, 2019, 2023 and 2024 Maasalu was nominated for the AkzoNobel Art Prize (formerly Sadolin Art Prize). Winner of Estonian Cultural Endowment prize 2024 for exhibition “A Fool with a heart of glass” at Tartu Art House. She has had solo exhibitions in Tallinn, London, Shanghai and Irákleios, Greece. Most recently exhibited at a group show in Munich at Paulina Caspari gallery titled “I would not think to touch the sky with two arms”

Ingmar Järve (also known as GUTFACE) is an artist coming from eastern Estonia. His first big art influence was at age 6 by his father who was tattooing people in their family kitchen with self-made tattoo guns. In his teens, he got himself into the local street culture with skating and later bmx, tagging, and graffiti. Over a decade later, he now lives in Tartu and is trying his luck as a freelance artist, illustrator and graphic designer. During the past years, he has been touring around Europe with the street art festival Stencibility’s exhibition “Hello Mister Police Officer '' and in April of 2024 had his first solo exhibition “STREET GNOMES” at Circus network gallery in Porto, Portugal.

Mariann Metsis (b. 1991 Tallinn, Estonia) lives and works in London, UK. Metsis received her BA from the Slade School of Fine Art having previously studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art. Metsis’s oil paintings examine the performance and re-enactment of psychological processes and the artifice inherent in societal structures. Metsis has had solo exhibitions at Galerina in London and Hoib Gallery in Tallinn and her work has been included in group exhibitions in Paris and Berlin. In December 2024 Metsis will have a solo exhibition at Deborah Schamoni Munich.

Kati Saarits (b. 1992) is an artist whose work is defined by a sensitive approach to materiality and an intuitive, hand-driven process in creating her installations. Saarits explores the intersections between applied and visual arts, focusing on transitional spaces between functional objects and sculptural forms. Her research centers around tableware and table settings, exploring how society, industrial processes and heritage have shaped the functionalities and materials found on the kitchen table. Saarits holds a bachelor’s degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts in Installation and Sculpture and has furthered her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and in the carpentry program at Tallinn Construction School. She is currently pursuing an MA in Crafts Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts.