GARDEN BED OF EDEN

At Haus Gallery, a one-room exhibition is open where photographic artist Peeter Laurits introduces the concept behind his new creative surge. Five works are on display, each combining visual and conceptual elements that lead the viewer into a larger space for reflecting on life and the self.

This small exhibition, titled Garden Bed of Eden, is a prelude to a larger one that will take place this winter at Haus Gallery. The question of Adam’s navel cuts sharper than ever before. Creation myths define our relationship with nature. What we believe about birth influences how we cope with death and the uncontrollable forces of life.

My art pulses at the border of the visible and the invisible, the explainable and the inexplicable. I use photography to give a visual form to imagination and thought. I strive to make other life forms and modes of existence perceivable. To feel a pulse, to dream, to touch with the body, to sniff, to caress, to taste, to exchange lights (metaphorically), to experience the full interplay of biodiversity. To turn the eye and the mind toward the world of other life forms and to learn to imagine them from within. In the 1990s, I moved to the forest to become part of biodiversity.
My interests orbit around primitivity and posthumanism. In the Anthropocene, we radically rethink our way of life, acquiring new habits, dreams, and beliefs. We are searching for a new contract — a new way to coexist with all that lives.

Peeter Laurits (b. 1962) studied at the University of Tartu, Leningrad State University, the Estonian Institute of Humanities, and the International Center of Photography in New York. His primary techniques are photography, video, and digital graphics. Laurits has enriched the expressive possibilities of photography and expanded its role within Estonian culture. In the 1990s, he was part of Estonian art group DeStudio, engaging in media-critical artistic experiments, but soon turned toward deep ecology. In 1996, he moved to live in the forest and founded the Kütiorg Open Studio. Currently, his creative focus lies on posthumanist ethics. Laurits has held solo exhibitions across the world, including in London, Berlin, Moscow, and Chiang Mai. His works are part of museum and private collections. In 2017, he was invited as a visiting professor of liberal arts at the University of Tartu, and from 2020 to 2023, he curated the international science and art symposium Biotoopia.

Introduction: Piia Ausman, Haus Gallery’s gallerist and curator

Main Body: Artist Peeter Laurits