A research project by the Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University explores how to deal with complex heritage while creating new qualities in public space and preserving the important role of controversial heritage as a carrier of history. The first case study of the project is the Tehumardi Memorial in Saaremaa.
Dedicated to the night battle of Tehumardi, the memorial was a joint creation of sculptors Riho Kuld and Matti Varik and architect Allan Murdmaa in 1966, while the cemetery next to the memorial was built in 1975. The Tehumardi memorial was brought to the public’s attention in 2022, when, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the appropriateness of Soviet-era war monuments in the Estonian public space was called into question. In 2024, the War Graves Commission granted an application by Saaremaa municipality to open the war graves and reburial of the presumed remains of the Tehumardi Memorial Complex, which inevitably raises the problem of the preservation and conservation of a modernist memorial complex of high artistic and landscape architectural value.
The project will be accompanied by a contemporary art programme, where artists Anna-Mari Liivrand, Taavi Piibemann, Johannes Säre and Kirke Kangro offered a creative solution for the conceptual reinterpretation of the Tehumardi memorial.