Installation Competition ‘Place Buzz’ on the Pollinator Highway in Tallinn
The ’Place Buzz’ installations enrich the Pollinator Highway with environmentally sensitive public art designed for humans and non-humans alike, which engages with the community. The artworks highlight various sections of the longest green corridor in Tallinn by making the most of the existing space and its varied potential while making unremarkable environments vibrant. The broader concept of the Pollinator Highway is to enhance urban biodiversity, green mobility and community engagement.
Local
Estonia
Tallinn
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
ERDF : European Regional Development Fund
In addition, the project was funded by Interreg Baltic Sea Region 2021-2027, a source of EU funding.
No
Yes
2022-09-03
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Tallinn Strategic Management Office, Tallinn City Office Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Kati Last name of representative: Ots Gender: Female Nationality: Estonia Function: Curator of Public Art Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Kaarli pst 1 / Roosikrantsi 2 Town: Tallinn Postal code: 15199 Country: Estonia Direct Tel:+372 5623 2623 E-mail:kati.ots@tallinnlv.ee Website:https://www.tallinn.ee/en
In September 2022, the three winning works from the Pollinator Highway installation competition 'Place Buzz' were opened in Tallinn. The aim of 'Straw Chapel', 'Reed' and 'Interspecies Crossing' is to enrich the Pollinator Highway with environmentally sensitive public art.
The Pollinator Highway is a natural grassland environment rich in biodiversity, a green corridor and a space for people to traverse 6 districts of Tallinn. It is a part of a larger plan to make the urban environment of Tallinn greener and more suitable for humans as well as non-human inhabitants. In line with the conceptual framework of the Pollinator Highway, our goal was to support, elevate, embrace and celebrate the existing natural habitat. The installations enrich sections and places along the Pollinator Highway that were otherwise unremarkable or required a stronger sense of individual identity. Local inhabitants as well as experts were included in the process, from the point of gathering input for the concept all the way up to the actual construction of the installations. All the installations embraced sustainability by using traditional local building materials or methods, reigniting valuable links to the local history of construction and highlighting the importance of memory and heritage.
The installations offer both the locals and visitors more spatial variety and new activities through innovative cultural landmarks. Non-human audiences are also engaged by providing them new habitats. The installations invite us to think more critically about urgent issues on both a local and global level, including the impacts of urbanisation, finding new ways to preserve biodiversity, the need to co-exist with and take care for one’s surroundings and non-human neighbours. These topics are addressed in an abstract and playful way using the elevating power of public art, while demonstrating a good example of using public art as a principle of urban design, placemaking and civic engagement.
Sustainability
Engagement
Biodiversity
Urbanisation
Public Art
Sustainability was at the core of the project from the start since the context of the Pollinator Highway prescribed its own framework. The Pollinator Highway is defined by both biodiversity and urbanisation. The guiding principle of the project is to preserve the rich variety of natural life while simultaneously offering people environmentally friendly opportunities for movement as well as a diverse selection of activities. This framework provided the input for the installation competition.
The installations had to be built following principles of sustainability. The open call welcomed creatives from various fields and the winners included local and international young professionals and students from the fields of architecture and urbanism. They saw the project as a valuable opportunity to realise conceptual and small-scale public structures while experimenting with natural materials. Each of the winning projects used traditional and locally sourced building materials such as straw, reeds, hemp and wood. To an extent this included scrap material. All the materials will be reused and repurposed after deinstallation.
The name 'Pollinator Highway' refers to an existing green corridor which pollinators (butterflies, bumblebees, and bees) and other animal groups use to move from one habitat to another. For that reason, we placed the emphasis not only on people but also on the non-human audience who would make use of the installations. For example 'Reed' offers a habitat for wild bees, while 'Interspecies Crossing' addresses the need for safe ways for crossing roads for non-human creatures.
Public art is a great tool for tackling these subjects, since it has a positive and elevating effect even when addressing the most critical of topics. We hope to inspire other cities both regionally, nationally and internationally to experiment in the same way.
The winning projects of the competition were ambitious high-quality installation designs that were professionally executed. The three installations presented multilayered concepts that were produced in a minimalist, aesthetically pleasing contemporary form. They also carried practical functions which was a wonderful bonus. For example, locals felt there was a need for more seating in the area and a majority of the installations provided that function. One of them went even further by providing shelter from the weather as well as a platform for community events.
The installations offered both the locals and visitors to the Pollinator Highway more spatial variety and new activities through innovative cultural landmarks. All the installations invite the audience to think critically about urgent issues on both a local and a global level, including the impacts of urbanisation, finding new ways to preserve biodiversity, the need to not only co-exist with but also to take care of one’s surroundings and local non-human creatures. These topics are addressed in an abstract and playful way using the elevating power of public art.
All the installations used traditional local building materials or methods, creating valuable links to the local history of construction and highlighting the importance of memory and heritage. A good example of this is ’Straw Chapel’ which was built together with the local community in order to reintroduce and spread knowledge concerning traditional building methods. A straw construction workshop that was free and open to the public also included a lecture on natural engineering.
Public art is known to improve people’s quality of life by offering both mental and physical benefits. Public art invites people to explore the outdoors mainly by walking, but the installations on the Pollinator Highway are accessible by various means as they are along a popular route for cyclists, roller skaters and even skiers in the winter.
It was essential for us to follow the principles of universal design. Public art is a means of making culture more accessible and in so doing should itself be accessible.
It is important to highlight that public art provides free access to culture. This means an even greater responsibility to place emphasis on the physical accessibility of the artworks as well as access to information about them. The concepts of the installations on the Pollinator Highway are easy for viewers to relate to since they provide a variety of possible readings that appeal to a diverse viewership. We provide basic physical accessibility to the installations. Communication of our project was provided in three languages (Estonian, Russian, English) using online and offline channels. The artworks are accompanied by simple information signage in two languages.
While public art tends to be concentrated in city centres, the installations on the Pollinator Highway enrich areas and districts often overlooked while planning urban interventions and public art. The installations were put up in districts of the city that are more remote and in need of more spatial variety. This led to an overall increase in the functionality of public space for locals with the addition of places to relax and indulge in leisurely activities.
The Pollinator Highway caters to local inhabitants and aims to improve their everyday life. It is popular among various age groups and also considers the non-human audience – plants, animals and insects. The installations had to take this into account and consider the wellbeing of the environment as well as its habitants.
People were given cultural agency and a certain responsibility as they played an important role in providing input for the competition, picking out their favourite proposals, building them and afterwards using the installations as a platform for various activities.
Local citizens were engaged on several levels.
First, an anthropological survey was conducted to map the interests and needs of the users of the Pollinator Highway. It indicated their needs and provided a framework as well as the conceptual brief for the installation competition.
Second, local experts were invited to contribute to the rules of the competition. We value professional expertise and wanted to include it from the earliest stages. The Estonian Artists’ Association, the Estonian Association of Architects and the Estonian Landscape Architects' Union were all consulted in the process and their valuable advice was integrated into the procurement documents.
Third, we launched an open call that was innovative for Tallinn in several ways. It was the first time that the city itself had held a competition specifically for installations. The juries for art and architecture competitions in Tallinn are usually composed of local experts, but this time it also included members from the Public Art Department of the Helsinki Art Museum. One of the winning proposals was chosen through an online poll, where people were able to select their favourite project. Similar public votes have been conducted in the field of public art competitions elsewhere in the world, but usually these do not directly impact the results, often distinguishing public favourites, but remaining unrealised. In the case of ’Place Buzz’, the proposal selected by public vote was executed in the same way as those chosen by the jury.
Fourth, local people were included in the construction of one of the installations and have been given the possibility to use the installations as they require or see fit. We plan to continue holding various events, such as workshops, guided tours, etc. since these have been very popular.
All these small, yet invaluable steps paved the way for the success of the project.
Collaboration was a core part of our project.
Local inhabitants got the chance to have their say in the process through anthropological research, which determined the need for an installation competition and laid out its concept. Secondly, they were invited to participate in a public vote to select the winning projects. They were also engaged in the building of the installations and other public programmes. As a result, the locals were very welcoming to the new landmarks in their neighbourhoods – engagement in different stages proved to be fruitful and beneficial for everyone and we hope to continue to implement such a successful practice in the future.
The local municipality successfully led the project alongside different departments and experts from various fields all working together. This provided the project with multiple viewpoints at every stage.
On a national level we hope we set a good example for other cities. Citizen engagement is seldom enacted in such a direct way, where people are given the chance to view all the applications for a competition and vote for their favourite with direct results, since their favourite was realised in the same way as those selected by the jury. Municipalities should offer artists, architects, and urbanists more professional work opportunities in the public sector and public space, giving them more freedom and responsibility. We set a good example in providing them an opportunity to shape our shared living environment.
Experts were engaged at every step both on a national and European level. All parties were eager to participate and share their expertise. It was a wonderful opportunity for knowledge exchange. We strengthened the cultural ties with our Finnish colleagues, who participated in the jury and afterwards visited Tallinn to see the installations, admiring our boldness in experimentation and the success of the project.
The project was led by the Spatial Planning Team at the Tallinn Strategic Management Office and the Pollinator Highway’s working group. These included an art curator, architects, city planners, a landscape architect and a biologist. Together we compiled the project, for which the initial input came from the User and Spatial Experience Study carried out by the Center for Applied Anthropology. We based our work on the concept behind the Pollinator Highway, Tallinn’s 2035 Development Strategy and our values as the Green Capital of Europe 2023. The project was developed with the support of B.Green, a European Union project funded by the Interreg Central Baltic Programme, which supports cross-border cooperation, sustainable urban mobility and cohesive communities.
Drawing up the competition procurement documents, we partnered with local experts, including the Estonian Association of Architects and the Estonian Artists’ Association.
The competition jury was composed of representatives from the Tallinn City Government, Spatial Planning Team at the Tallinn Strategic Management Office, Urban Environment and Public Works Department, Estonian Artists’ Association, Estonian Association of Architects, Estonian Landscape Architects' Union and Helsinki Art Museum. The meetings offered the jury members multiple viewpoints from experts from various fields. The fact that we had international members provided a great opportunity for international cultural exchange. Although Estonia and Finland are neighbours, our policies and precedents for public art vary greatly, due to differences in our recent histories. In the field of public art, we consider Finland an exemplary role model, but also aim to offer our Finnish colleagues some fresh viewpoints.
The installations offer an aesthetic experience while contributing to both community-building and biodiversity. The locals can enjoy new contemporary landmarks while also using them for community events. The project can be seen as a valuable tool for placemaking and could be implemented in a similar way elsewhere. Site-specificity is an integral part of such an approach. The installations enrich the sections and places along the Pollinator Highway that were otherwise unremarkable and where the site’s identity and sense of place needed strengthening. The Pollinator Highway project is part of a larger plan of making the urban environment of Tallinn greener and more human-friendly. We took into consideration the context of the Pollinator Highway by not intervening but supporting the existing natural conditions. We created new possible habitats for non-humans, mainly insects such as wild bees. The installations are also accessible to people walking their pets. The project was carried out according to the principles of sustainability and considered the life cycles of materials. Local resources like reeds, straw, and wood were used in building the installations. One of the goals was to raise awareness of the contemporary usage of these traditional local materials. Young architects and urbanists valued the opportunity to freely experiment with these natural materials by giving them unexpected functions and forms.
The project had a direct impact on raising awareness of contemporary and environmentally sensitive public art. The pilot was very successful as it was warmly welcomed by both the locals and visitors. The participants valued the process and outcome, and are committed to create similar projects in the future. On a political level it was an important milestone since such projects have not been carried out by the City of Tallinn before. After such a successful pilot, we are already planning new projects which incorporate the same values and principles.
Our project went a little further than initiatives for traditional public art usually do. We set ourselves the ambitious goal to create installations that are not only professional contemporary artworks, but are also accessible, site-specific and sustainable. Sustainability is something that is not often discussed in the discourse of public art. Public art tends to be permanent, weather-proof, protected from vandalism, etc. and these requirements often prescribe the usage of non-sustainable materials. We decided to offer an alternative approach, where public art is a more organic part of the environment, changing alongside it and not providing us something definitive, solid and rigid. It is important to enhance the essence of art and its capacity to raise questions, not to demand art provides us with answers. We implemented this approach in all aspects of our project from the initial concept, carrying out the competition, realising the results, right up to the maintenance of the installations. Flexibility and adaptation were elevated in our project as we set out into the unknown on a journey of discovery – from selecting non-central locations to engaging non-human audiences.
From the perspective of placemaking, public art is a good tool that is often overlooked. It is remarkable that in our case the installations were already established in the development stage of the Pollinator Highway linear park. Being a part of a larger project, we had the opportunity to provide engagement on several levels and give the project an international dimension. The successful pilot gave a boost and sense of trust for Tallinn to make similar investments in the future. It was a great success and has paved the way for more support for public art that is contemporary, sustainable, and semi-permanent. This shift has been long-awaited in Tallinn and as the capital we should set a good example for other cities.
Our project demonstrates a good example of using public art as an agile tool of urban design, placemaking and civic engagement.
According to the anthropological study carried out on the Pollinator Highway, active users of the Pollinator Highway felt there was a lack of attractive views, opportunities for activities, places to rest and generally a low variety in terms of the space. Our priority was to highlight sections of the Pollinator Highway by making the most of its existing space and its varied potential as well as to turn the unremarkable environments into more vibrant ones. It is important to emphasise the non-central areas selected for carrying out the installation project: Mustjõe (Black River), a garden city with a village community; Veskimetsa (Mill Forest), an unremarkable space with great potential for development between Tallinn Zoo and an industrial area; Väike-Õismäe (Little Flower Hill), a modernist utopia of prefabricated residential buildings and a pragmatic industrial area low in biodiversity.
We were looking for innovative site-specific, environmentally sensitive contemporary installations which could be artworks or architectural objects and that would engage with the community. The format and medium of the installations was not prescribed and could include land art, interventions, installations, sculptures, architectural elements or small architectural forms. Anyone involved in the field of art, architecture or urban studies was welcome to participate in the open call. We asked them to base their decisions on the principles of sustainability and the life cycles of materials when creating the installations and choosing the materials. The submitted works needed to be feasible, semi-permanent and fit into the prescribed budget of 20,000 euros per installation, including the prize fund. Nineteen works were submitted and from among these, three winning works were selected: two by the international competition jury and one by public vote.
We encourage the use of public art as a tool for placemaking and civic engagement. Engagement can take place at all stages of the project and leads to positive final results. The more diverse the expertise engaged throughout the project, the better – from architects and city planners to art curators, anthropologists and biologists, we had a dream team. Preliminary research is worth the investment and cannot be overlooked – in our case knowledge about the user and spatial experience provided us with confidence in our decisions. You can trust the process as long as you’ve done the research. It also provides a good basis for giving more freedom to the participants, be it the locals voting for their favourite artwork or the creatives carrying out their projects. Experimentation and piloting are the best teachers, providing invaluable expertise and knowhow. Sustainability should and can be an integral part and core value of production in the field of art, design and the built environment.
Public art is a principle of urban design that enriches our physical environments and invests in placemaking. It connects the citizens, their shared history and shared cultural heritage. It boosts community pride and enlivens the local neighbourhoods. It is a wonderful tool for civic engagement, as it supports building social capital and encourages civil discourse. It supports local economies – in the case of our project the materials were locally sourced, supporting small companies. We offered professional opportunities for artists and architects, providing a valuable input to our local creative field since such competitions are rather rare. Our aim was to create a supportive learning environment since the project was a pilot for the city and an experiment for both the organisers and participants. Our goal was to raise public awareness and understanding of important issues. An example of this is drawing parallels between the survival of local insects and the global climate crisis.
Each of the three winning installations addressed global challenges on a local level in their own specific way.
'Straw Chapel' (Eneli Kleemann, Katariina Mustasaar, Lill Volmer, Mia Martina Peil, Marie Anette Veesaar) is a modern community pavilion that represents local values, environmentally friendly building methods and materials, community activities, a do-it-yourself attitude and spending time in nature. The pavilion brings together local and non-local visitors to the Pollinator Highway, offering them a place to hold events and workshops or simply a place to stop and rest during a long walk. The building process of the pavilion was experimental, involving a community workshop introducing the principles of straw construction.
‘Interspecies Crossing’ (Nabeel Imtiaz, Paulina Schröder, Augustas Lapinskas, Christian Hörner) is a landmark built for the non-human inhabitants of Tallinn. It bridges a rupture in the Pollinator Highway by connecting the tree canopies on either side of Akadeemia Street, hinting towards the need for safe passage of non-human creatures. Prepared with a nutritional growth base for lichens, the structure will evolve over time to act as a reminder that we humans share the space of our cities with other living beings in mutual responsibility and care.
'Reed' (Triin Vallner, Ko Ai) consists of three consecutive installations on the Pollinator Highway. 'Reed+Game', 'Reed+Buzz' and 'Reed+Pause' are all made of the same material – reeds. They are similar in form but use the building material in different ways. They offer a versatile spatial experience for visitors and a habitat for insects.
In bringing people together, all the installations invite the visitors to think critically about urgent issues on both a local and global level, including the impacts of urbanisation, finding new ways to preserve the richness of natural life, and the need to not only co-exist with but to take care of one’s surroundings and its non-human inhabitants.
