Knotted long-piled carpets or rya rugs are an integral part of Nordic identity. As an artistic expression, rya became known in Estonia in the 1930s, and in the second half of the 1950s it became one of the most favoured and most modern textile techniques there had been for some time. This exhibition features the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design’s unique collection of rya, the focus of which is the 1960s to 1970s, but it also goes beyond that period.

As a technique, rya provided an opportunity to deviate from the strictness, limitations and mandatory techniques of the earlier, post-war period, and to become freer, more picturesque, and more abstract in design. The driving force behind the cultivation of this technique was the legendary core of textile artists formed by Mari Adamson, Leesi Erm, Ellen Hansen and Mall Tomberg.

While at first compositions of a regular and symmetrical nature could be discerned in their work, followed by generalisations of the human figure and natural motifs, they later, especially in the second half of the 1960s, took the opportunity to play with large decorative paint surfaces and to create abstract designs. This visually rich heritage reflects the modernity and contemporaneity of 1960s art in general. It reached the public both through popular applied art exhibitions and through presentations and designs created by artists published in the press.

A series of monumental rya rugs from the 1970s comes from Bruno Tomberg, who had by that point already conducted his first experiments with this technique. In the second half of the 1980s, the rya technique was brought back to the exhibition scene in a changed way by Anna Gerretz, who provided this inherently traditional technique with a new language.

The exhibition features nearly 70 unique rya rugs that have reached the museum’s collection as purchases from contemporary applied art exhibitions. They are accompanied by several designs that have been preserved, providing an opportunity to get acquainted with the creative process behind the work.

“Focus” is a series of ETDM exhibitions that concentrates on some of the phenomena that have been in the shadows for a long time or have only just been discovered in the museum’s collections.

Curators: Helen Adamson, Kai Lobjakas
Design: Jaana Jüris
Graphic designer: Tuuli Aule
Realisation: Valge Kuup
Exhibition team: Ketli Tiitsar, Kristi Paap, Toomas Übner, Silvia Pärmann, Dagmar Siida, Kristi Everst
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia