Thrifters and Transformers

From afar, one can spot a room whose paned window is overtaken by entanglements of fibre. It appears as a strange substance forming an unravelled veil, a fluid system of threads that coalesces into abstract lace. Upon entering the space, one discovers multiple formations, resembling the one in the window, descending from different parts of the ceiling and holding within their bodies ornament-like shapes, or perhaps an alien language yet to be deciphered. In the middle of the room, a tree formed from fragments of carpet has arisen and beneath it lies a female figure with a bowl, her interior revealed, while her crystallised heart hangs near the entrance. Around this mystical scene, processes of metamorphosis unfold as plant forms emerge from the walls, transforming into visceral, human-like body parts before returning once again to vegetal states. This is the world unfolding at Kogo Gallery, where three artists, Anna Malicka, Noushin Redjaian and Kadri Liis Rääk, come together to create a room of their own: a women’s space woven from layered memories, sedimented meanings and material traces.

Thrifters and Transformers brings together artists who, in a sensual and intimate manner, reshape the world’s matter through resources drawn from nature, cultural history and tradition, collective memory and embodied knowledge, as well as found objects and materials awaiting a second life. Their shared artistic trajectory foregrounds both the physical and symbolic potential of materiality, while queering ideas associated with design and fashion. At the core of their practices lies an interest in liminal states, where unconscious impulses and sensory experience become entangled with accumulated knowledge and lived experience.

Anna Malicka, who sometimes endearingly refers to herself as a moth, introduces the liquid lace inhabiting the exhibition space. Described as fibre graffiti and free-standing lace, these works unfold as embodied abstract drawings and unconscious scribbles akin to asemic writing. Made from gathered leftover threads, they weave together thrifted imagery of children’s drawings, calligraphic handwriting, murmurs of cracks in urban environments and ornamental motifs borrowed from metal railings, blurred with fragments of a personal diary. Evoking both vernacular domestic lace and the traces left on city walls, Anna Malicka’s practice navigates noisy self-reflection by allowing the unconscious mind, her alter ego – the “chaotic I” – and the sewing machine to operate as a form of witchcraft. Her works suggest a nervous pulsation or the residue of a storm, while also opening spaces of stillness where creation becomes both an escape and an act of care.

In an unconscious stream of thought, a landscape emerges by Noushin Redjaian, built from patchworks of carpets from Iran, Afghanistan, the Indo-Modern sphere, the Nepal Himalayas and Turkey, interwoven with memory and protected by crystals. In the gallery, she has planted a Tree of Life that draws together mythologies from Western culture, Kabbalah and broader symbolic traditions. The tree itself remains silent; instead, the woman beneath it, representing Mneme (unarticulated memory), conveys its stories through an act of care, offering water to sustain it. Redjaian explores the entanglement of soma, mneme and memoria, tracing relations between body, consciousness and the preservation of experience. Hands recur in her works as a motif of both care and craftsmanship, echoing the layered cultural history of carpets. Minerals are introduced as protective matter, treated like primordial inscriptions that crystallise memory into form.

The third layer is cultivated by Kadri Liis Rääk, who explores human–nature entanglements in states of flux. By sourcing and transforming both natural and synthetic materials and merging ancient craft techniques with contemporary practices, she creates works that resist fixed identities. Her sculptures shift between fleshy, human-like forms, vegetal structures and other morphologies, generating both visual and tactile intensity. Biomorphic, sensual and at times unsettling, they evoke encounters with nature experienced at close range, while their anthropomorphic qualities destabilise perception, blurring the boundaries of what is seen and felt. These works open liminal spaces where bodily experience, personal reflection and encounters with both foreign and Estonian landscapes are translated into sculptures and drawings that remain in a constant state of becoming, hovering between the familiar and the strange, and inviting engagement through imagination, sensation and touch.

Throughout the exhibition, the artists’ practices merge into a patchwork landscape of mythological scenes and symbolic gestures, everyday noise, the search for womanhood, and entanglements between nature and the human. Embroidery, craft, fairy-tale imaginaries, vulnerable bodies and forms of nature – historically framed as “feminine” and therefore diminished – coalesce into an empowered field. By gathering inherited knowledge, overlooked traditions and diverse materialities, the artists generate a visceral and transformative presence. The space they create resists conventional hierarchies of time, function and order, opening instead an entangled and expansive mode of being, grounded not in erasure, but in transformation.

BIOS

Anna Malicka (b. 1995, Riga, Latvia) is a Riga-based artist whose practice centres on handicraft, creating tactile, imaginary spaces that explore the untamed and unconscious – her chaotic “I” – through scribbled texts, embroideries and upholstered surfaces. Malicka holds a BA from the audiovisual department Motion. Image. Sound (2020) and an MA from the interdisciplinary department POST (2023) at the Art Academy of Latvia. Her recent projects include the solo exhibitions Paper reCollection at Gallery 427 in Riga and Dowry Chest (((pure lady))) at kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga (2025). Malicka was nominated for the Annual Art Award of Latvia in 2025 and received the Linstow Art Award (2024) and the Helen Scott Lidgett Studio Award (2023/2024). She is part of the artist collectives PR0_Bi$TR0 and Latvānija.

Noushin Redjaian (b. 1988, Graz, Austria) is a Vienna-based artist whose multifaceted practice combines materials and contexts drawn from her cultural surroundings and the natural world. Redjaian studied Graphic Art and Printmaking (2015–2016), Transmedia Art (2012–2015) and Fashion (2010–2017) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has also trained in carpet and textile restoration. Her recent projects include the solo exhibitions Tree of Life at Galerie Ernst Hilger (2026), where love goes at Galerie Kandl and Cherish at Ve.Sch Kunstverein in Vienna (2025) and a group exhibition Weaving the Present at Neue Kunstverein Wien (2026). Redjaian received the Young Artist Award at Bildrecht & Parallel Vienna (2023–2024) and the VCC × viennacontemporary Collectors Prize (2024). Noushin Redjaian is represented by Galerie Ernst Hilger.

Kadri Liis Rääk (b. 1990, Tallinn, Estonia) is a Tallinn-based artist and junior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts whose work explores touch and tactility as modes of experiencing bodily space and embodied perception. Rääk holds a BA in Film Scenography (2014) and an MA in Contemporary Art (2019) from the Estonian Academy of Arts, as well as an MA in Autonomous Design (2018) from KASK in Ghent. Her work has been presented internationally, including at Sequences Biennale XI in Reykjavík and in a solo exhibition at NOW: Gallery in Lima. Since 2022, she has been a doctoral candidate in the Art and Design programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Šelda Puķīte (b. 1986, Riga, Latvia) is a Latvian curator, writer, and researcher based in Estonia. She holds BA and MA degrees in Art History and Theory from the Art Academy of Latvia. She has worked on international exhibitions, curated art fair stands, published art albums, created catalogues for Survival Kit and Riga Photography Biennial, and written essays for Baltic culture publications. Recent curated exhibitions include Maria Kapajeva’s By Losing Them, I Become a Whole (2025) at Kogo Gallery, Tartu; Silver Girls. Retouched History of Baltic Photography (2025), co-curated with Agnė Narušytė and Indrek Grigor at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; and White Dwarfs and All Those Beautiful Nebulas (2024) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga. Since 2020, she works at Kogo Gallery as an international project manager and exhibition programme curator.

TEAM

Artists: Anna Malicka, Noushin Redjaian, Kadri Liis Rääk
Curator: Šelda Puķīte
Texts: Šelda Puķīte
Graphic design: Aleksandra Samuļenkova
Project coordination and production: Greete Altrof, Liina Raus
Sales: Sandra Veinla
Installation: Siim Asmer
Communication: Karin Kahre, Else Lagerspetz
Photos: Nele Tammeaid (opening), Marje Eelma (documentation)
Translation and language editing: Refiner Translations, Karin Kahre

FUNDING AND SUPPORT

The exhibition is funded by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the City of Tartu. Anna Malicka received funding from the Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia and the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture.
Drinks at the opening are by Pühaste Brewery.