Sillamäe, in Ida-Viru County, is not like other places in Estonia. "For decades, local residents lived separated from the surroundings, as if the town were on a different planet," explains Tampere University anthropologist Francisco Martínez.

During the Soviet era, "Sillamäe was surrounded by barbed wire and visitors needed a special permit to get in," Martínez says. "In 1947, the area was given the code name 'R-6685.' The 'Kombinat No. 7' plant and the Paint Factory (Красильная фабрика in Russian) began enriching uranium, which was later used in the first Soviet-made nuclear bomb."

Now, times have changed. But, according to Martínez, Sillamäe still maintains "a distinct sense of urbanity, with its rational planning and the monumental stairs inspired by those in Volgograd."

"There's also the ore and uranium waste that will remain there for centuries, as well as the mineralogical activity that continues to this day, with the processing of rare earth materials, imported from 'third world countries' and later used in our iPhones and electric cars," he says.

In Martínez's experience, the people now living in the city are somewhat unique too. They "don't consider themselves (to be) simply Estonian or Russian. They are 'Sillamäeans' instead – a sort of liminal identity – like 'Narvians' in Narva. A condition that is not simply based on language or demographics."

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This month, a new art exhibition curated by Martínez opens at SILLART, Sillamäe's fast-developing creative hub. While the city itself provides plenty of opportunities to explore these identity issues, "Ex Libris" is inspired by one location in particular – the library left behind when Sillamäe's School No. 1 closed down in 1999.

The four-story building on Mere puiestee (Primorsky Boulevard in Soviet times) where the library is housed was built in 1953 by prisoners of war. In its heyday, a sculpture of a pioneer greeting children stood at the building's entrance, while the interior walls were adorned with portraits of political figures, scientists, and writers.

All those things are now gone. But the library remains – full of dust, unread, falling apart and going through a process of semiotic estrangement. Many of the books still on its shelves were donations sent from other libraries all around the world – Leningrad or York, Maribo or Hamburg, Turku or Toronto.

And while those books are still very much present, they do not always make sense in the present day. Nonetheless, their ideas and aesthetics continue fermenting. Whether understood as a burden or simply a delayed gift, the library that once belonged to Sillamäe School No. 1 remains available for novel relations of exchange to take place.

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At first glance, the location chosen for "Ex Libris," might not seem like the most obvious setting for an art exhibition. After all, the school building itself is currently undergoing large-scale renovations. Eventually, it will become the privately-owned cultural hub SILLART, complete with a restaurant, offices, lofts, a gallery, and a beauty parlor.

However, after discovering it by chance when doing research for a previous exhibition – 2023's "Keeping Things in the Dark" –  something about this place just "kept on lingering in my mind," Martínez says.

"(Artist) Anna Škodenko, (SILLART's) Semjon Krasulin and I visited the bunker of the school and strolled around the semi-abandoned building. I remember feeling a mix of curiosity and adrenaline, not fully understanding what kind of time machine this was," he says, of his first encounter with the library.

A few weeks later, Martínez returned – this time accompanied by another artist, Viktor Gurov. They were only there to pick up some shelves for "Keeping Things in the Dark," which, at that time, was being exhibited at the Sillamäe Museum, but the idea to do something at the library was already starting to gather momentum.

It wasn't until the festive season however, when Martínez and Gurov were enjoying a glöggi (mulled wine) together at Tallinn's traditional Christmas market, that things began to pick up speed.

"When Viktor said he would like to organize another exhibition about storytelling, I mentioned the library," Martínez says. Gurov's response was telling: "In Sillamäe, again?"

At first, they considered a project involving just the two of them. The idea being to focus on asemic writing (a wordless open semantic form of writing - ed.) created by an unknown artist on documents belonging to the National Library of Estonia.

Martínez had been "reading a lot about waste, gifts, and parasites" and so, the original plan involved putting together an exhibition that also incorporated those themes.

However, he says, "somehow, the library demanded more."

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And so, they decided to invite a few friends to take part too – "complementing our perspectives and developing some other nuances." 

Soon, the series of artists they called upon were all intruding on the library at Sillamäe's former School No. 1, each re-appropriating its materials in their own parasitical ways. The project was named "Ex Libris" – its title taken from a Latin term, which originally referred to anything that comes out of books.

For one of the more unusual exhibits, Martínez selected five books from the library and matched them with a series of perfumes, inspired by the reading experience.

"I'm a reader of old and new books and they have a distinct smell," he says. The context in which you read also has a smell, as does the plot of the book itself. On top of that, the things we imagine and think about when reading may also be connected to specific smells, he explains. "Reading is not simply a process of decoding signs, but an embodied activity."

Thus, after reading the books, Martínez decided to approach a specialist lab that produces different fragrances – "perhaps the only one existing in Estonia." However, making a perfume is rather expensive and time consuming, he admits. So, in the end, he opted to make use of pre-existing ones, relying on valuable assistance from Marina at Tallinn's Fragrance Gallery to help match each of the books to appropriate fragrances.

"The sense of smell has also not been used or represented enough in contemporary art," he says, "despite its capacity to influence decisions and reasoning in a rather direct way." Smells can evoke feelings of attraction or disgust for instance, without any filters, he points out.

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Putting on an art exhibition can be challenging at the best of times. When "Keeping Things in the Dark" opened at the Sillamäe Museum, for instance, one local even presented Martínez and the artists involved with a pig's heart, after taking exception to something she'd seen about the exhibition on TV.

However, so far at least, nothing remotely close to that has happened when setting up "Ex Libris."

"We have had total freedom in the process," Martínez says, of the exhibition, which due to the ongoing renovation work elsewhere in the building, is taking place on the old school's second and fourth floors – in two of the halls awaiting their own repairs at a later date.

In fact, there has even been an unexpected bonus to having so many construction workers around – some have even been drafted to help install the artwork.

The only minor comment they received, when they were playing around with ideas related to waste and parasites, was not to make SILLART look too bad, he adds, pointing out that, the cultural hub project has big ambitions to develop further in the future.

"The context in which you organize things has a force of its own, especially when you embed your work within that setting and collaborate with locals," Martínez says. "That's why it's so important to organize cultural activities outside of Tallinn."

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"Ex Libris" opens at SILLART in Sillamäe on Saturday, May 4 and will remain on display until July 7.

The exhibition was curated by Francisco Martínez and designed by Viktor Gurov.

The works featured in the exhibition were created by artists Anna Škodenko ("May 5, 1993"), Eléonore de Montesquiou ("Kannuka Kool / Kesk tn."), Evgeny Fedorov ("Beginnings and Endings"), Francisco Martínez ("Good Fortune" and "Olfactory Reading") Sanna Kartau ("Hands Full of It, Mouth Full of It."), Varvara & Mar ("For Your Eyes Only") and Viktor Gurov ("Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Asemic Writing").

More information is available here.

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