Kristina Õllek

Kristina Õllek works at the threshold of photography, video and installation, often making use of microbial and chemical processes. Guided by research and speculative thought, her practice moves through aquatic ecosystems, geological matter and human-altered environments. Over the past decade, her work has descended into deep-sea ecologies, drifted along the North Sea coast and been submerged in the hypoxic zones of the Baltic Sea. Õllek thinks with aquatic organisms – cyanobacteria, filter feeders and other more-than-human agents – approaching them as living archives of polluted waters. Her images refuse to remain fixed, while at once, they stand as crystallisations of photographic sculptures encrusted with sea salt, shaped by time and chemistry. Attentive to how new technologies reshape perception and the boundaries of image and space, Õllek’s work unfolds through ecological, hydrofeminist and interspecies imaginaries.

Kristina Õllek (b. 1989, Tallinn, Estonia) is a visual artist living and working in Tallinn. She holds a Master’s degree in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2016) and has expanded her practice through studies at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and at Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin. Õllek has twice received the Estonian Academy of Arts Young Artist Prize (2013, 2016), and she was a recipient of the national artist’s salary from 2023 to 2025. Between 2013 and 2018, she co-founded and contributed to the artist-run space Rundum, supporting collaborative and experimental art practices.

Õllek’s recent solo exhibitions include As the Earliest Carrier Emerges with Kert Viiart at Grand Palais in Bern, Switzerland (2025), Cyanoceans with Tuomas A. Laitinen at Kai Art Center in Tallinn, Estonia (2024), and Waters of Hypoxic Slime & Tropic Lime at Kogo Gallery in Tartu, Estonia (2023). Recent group exhibitions include For All At Last Return at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, United Kingdom; Down Deep. Living Seas, Living Bodies at State Art Gallery in Sopot, Poland (2025–2026); From Amber to the Stars at M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Arts in Kaunas, Lithuania; the 16th Small Sculpture Triennial 2025 in Fellbach, Germany (2025); Ghosts of Impossible Present at State of Concept in Athens, Greece; Dryads of Cosquer at La Traverse in Marseille, France (2024); and New Visions – The Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, Norway (2023). Kogo Gallery has presented Kristina Õllek’s works at the Minor Attractions art fair in London, United Kingdom (2025).

Õllek’s works are part of the collections of the Art Museum of Estonia, Winterthur Fotomuseum, the European Central Bank, the New York Public Library and various private collections in Europe.