From Tallinn to Paris
Estonian artists will create the World’s longest runway from Tallinn to Paris
Young Estonian artists Karl Joonas Alamaa and Lisette Sivard together with their team will create the performance “MANIA GRANDIOSA. From Tallinn to Paris”, which will take place this summer, from July 4th until July 8th 2023. With a length of 100 kilometers and a duration of five days, the runway will start from Tallinn Airport and end in the Estonian village of Pariisi, located in northeastern Estonia. In the Estonian language, the name of this small village “Pariisi” is equivalent to the metropolitan city of Paris. The endurance performance is like a pilgrimage to the mecca of fashion, which thousands of people undertake every year in the hope of finally reaching the goal.
The models will be hiking on the fictive runway for five days in a row, wearing identical ensembles designed as hiking haute couture which will be created especially for the journey. Along the way, costumes change as nature and the journey alter them, thus becoming physical symbols of the performance. The journey will be broadcasted, captured, and most importantly, created in collaboration with local communities.
“MANIA GRANDIOSA. From Tallinn to Paris” is a statement on the art scene and the ideals, as well as on values of a small North-Eastern European country. Due to the history of the Baltics, the mentality of being suppressed and the need of working hard to be seen is still very present: the mindset that “determination leads to the goal” and the only sure way to find satisfaction and happiness is through hard work.
If we add to the aforementioned the hunger for achievement and the desire for competition that is widespread in the fashion and art scene, the work takes on the complex and everyday components of the cultural creatives of a small country and ties them together into a self-ironic-critical whole. The longest, the hardest, the greatest – because by acting like that one should get far. What if instead of the fashion capital and cultural metropolis, a country home awaits after a difficult ordeal?
The project raises several questions – What are the dreams we are dreaming of? Are they really ours or are they constructed by the environment that we have surrounded ourselves with? What happens when dreams transform? What if the desired becomes distant? If and when does the journey end?
Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Nautica center
