Kristina Õllek

Kristina Õllek (b.1989) is an artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. She is working in the field of photography, video and installation, with a focus on investigating representational processes, geological matter, aquatic ecosystems, and the human-made environment. In her practice, she uses a research-based approach, but within she also incorporates her own fictitious and speculative perspectives. With her work, she raises questions around the relationship between natural and synthetic, original and copy, and understandings of materiality by obtaining a new and reconsidered meaning. She is interested in stretching out the boundaries of what we can see and use as an image and space, especially now in the age of rapidly developing and highly manipulative technology. Within her recent projects she has been focusing on marine habitat and the notion of new technologies, including the geopolitical and ecological conditions associated with them.

Kristina Õllek graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA in Photography, 2016). She has complemented her studies in Berlin at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee (2012) and in Rotterdam at Piet Zwart Institute (2016). Õllek has won the Estonian Academy of Arts Young Artist Prize 2013 (BA) and 2016 (MA). Between 2013-2018 she was the co-founder and member of artist-run space Rundum. In 2019, she received the Art Proof Production Grant.

Kristina Õllek’s works have been shown in various international group and solo exhibitions; including at A Tale of A Tub (Rotterdam), Laurel Project Space (Amsterdam), Le Lieu Unique (Nantes), Screen City Biennial (Stavanger), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Titanic gallery (Turku); KUMU, EKKM, Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn); ISSP gallery, Riga Photography Biennial, Zuzeum (Riga); Benaki Museum and Snehta Residency (Athens). Her works can be found in private and public collections (e.g Estonian Art Museum, Estonia; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; European Central Bank art collection, Germany).