Biografía
Mark Raidpere, born in 1975 in Estonia, has shown a consistent search of the dynamic relationship between the evolution of self-identity and social events in the time of post-cold war transition. His work, utilizing video as the main medium, explores the psychological states of those living in our time of radical social change. Often putting himself, his family and entourage in the centre of his research, Raidpere reveals with extraordinary sensitivity and efficiency the dilemma and contradiction of everyday life. Starting from intimate relationships, he brings his observation and testimony further to the social terrain: people on the edge of the society, urban violence and street life are important subject matters in his artistic endeavor. Through the artist's particular manipulation of the video camera characterized by an articulation of simplicity, stillness and objectivity, human traumas and social dramas are powerfully exposed to the public gaze. This kind of uncanny state of existence, resulted from drastic social changes, is increasingly becoming the condition of contemporary humanity. This tendency is particularly visible and intense in societies like the ex-Soviet, Baltic countries in permanent quests of identity and coherence in the turbulence of the "revolution" from communist system to liberal capitalist globalization. Raidpere, grown up in the midst of such a "revolution", successfully grasps this sentiment in his art work and defuses it in the ambience of the exhibition space. The audience is moved by Raidpere's seemingly simple presentation and inescapably immerged in puzzling, sometimes funny, but definitely unforgettable state of mind... We are all living in the same turbulence, indeed.
