After their successful appearance at the Venice Biennale in 2024, Edith Karlson's sculptures traveled to Dresden, where they formed part of a large joint German-Estonian art exhibition. That show is also due to come to Kumu galleries along with the sculptures in the near future.

"Now they are at Kumu so that Estonian people can see them, and from there, they will go on to Finland. I don't know what will happen after that," said Edith Karlson.

The artist explained that when creating the sculptures, which are 5 meters high and weigh several hundred kilograms, she also had to think carefully about their transportation.

"You have to consider it. When I first started out, I would rush into things and only think about them afterwards. That backfired badly. People learn from their mistakes, and nowadays I measure the doors first and find out how much weight can be put there. These things need to be clarified from the outset," Karlson told ERR.

"That does not rule out the possibility that something could still be a little wrong. A centimeter went wrong, and so on," she added.

Karlson noted that it is also necessary to think through where to cut the sculptures in half so that they can be taken apart and then put back together during the transportation process.

"And I never do it alone, because I'm too foolish for that. I usually have the help of exhibition technicians Tõnu Narro and Mihkel Lember, who bring an engineering approach that is very much needed," Karlson said.

Narro explained that it is not possible to rebuild boxes around such large sculpture parts as it would not be possible to transport them. Therefore, after each new installation, they also have to deal with transport-induced scratches.

"Every time we put them up, we go over all these scratches separately. That takes a day or two," said Narro.

"Installers who have to put up other artists' works are nervous and move the works very carefully and delicately. Then the artist always comes and throws the works around between their greasy hands, chucks them in the air and drops them. We have a joke among ourselves that if something happens, then nothing happens. Something is always being figured out," added Karlson.

Installing sculptures in the Kumu atrium was much easier than at the Venice Art Biennale.

"Even the floor was under heritage protection there. We couldn't even dream of using anything like a forklift. Everything had to be done with extreme sensitivity and gentleness. Installing such large objects in those conditions was a challenge, but we succeeded and didn't break anything," Narro said.

Karlson added that participating in the Venice Biennale has brought her a lot of new opportunities. "It's interesting because I didn't approach it that way myself, but it's a fact that it has brought me more work."

In their new temporary home, the sculptures look very small, according to the artist. "But I'll get used to it."

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