“Between Two Branches”: Metamodern Voices of a Post-Soviet Rural Town Võru

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Philosophy, Theory and Critique Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the post-communist Eastern Europe has been often represented from the outsiders’ perspective as a hopeless region that is forever haunted by the lingering remnants of the Soviet era. This paper explores the emergence of certain cultural discourses articulated in artistic, architectural, and social spaces in rural Estonia. More specifically, the paper argues that the metamodern (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010) expressions in rural Estonia’s art, architecture, and social movements serve as alternative spaces where the post-Soviet, postmodern urban hegemony and nihilism can be resisted. The utopian hope for a progressive country life expressed in these platforms keeps rural Estonians searching for something they may never find, which is why they never stop the search for it, and act as if (the better) rural life does exist.

Author

• Kerli Kirch, University of Miami