SLED is an artist duo formed by Katarina Meister and Marika Alver.
Contemporary art, anthropology and recent history are all important in our work. We share a passion for a community-focused approach. We share a commitment to a community-focused approach. Our practice draws on anthropological research methods such as participant observation, long-term fieldwork, documentation, and work with archival materials. We engage in a socially oriented creative research practice in which the relationships between personal and collective memory, commemoration and remembrance, and questions of identity are central to our work. We engage in memory activism to understand pivotal events in recent history that keep on impacting us today on both personal and collective levels.
We often like to include other professionals in our work for their professional expertise. Some of the people we have worked with are artist-curator Tanel Rander, researcher Terje Anepaio and trauma coach Kaili Särg. During the years of our work we have also collaborated with local memory organisations and museums in Estonia, such as Vabamu, Estonian National Museum, Eesti Represseeritute Ühing and Murtud Rukkilill.
Marika Alver (she/her) is trained as a cultural anthropologist and an art historian at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Currently she is working on a documentary film about a woman who was 5 years old when she was deported to Siberia in 1949.
Alver is also interested in African studies, the culture of Maasai people, and she is studying the modernization process and land privatisation in Maasai Mara (Kenya).
Katarina Meister (they/them) is trained as an artist at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Academy of Arts (Kuvataideakatemia) in Helsinki, Finland. They hold an MA degree from the Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies department in Helsinki University. They are interested in sociology and politics of memory. Besides studying the March deportation of 1949 they are also studying the contemporary Russian protest music through the perceptions of the Russian emigrants living in Finland and Estonia. They are a passionate cook and like to find ways to approach difficult topics also through different media. Their grandmother was one of the children deported to Siberia in 1949, making this study also a personal study of their family history.
The official written form of the artist duo SLЭD comes from the Russian words sled - 'footprint' and sledovateli - 'investigators'. SLЭD uses the Russian letter Э that is present also in Эстония (Estonia in Russian), but often we simplify our name to SLED due to the writing conventions.
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History of SLED
This group was loosely formed on the basis of the anthropological field trips to Finno-Ugric Peoples that were organised for the students of the Estonian Academy of Arts (EAA) and led by the anthropologist Marika Alver in 2013-2017. Alver decided to shift the focus towards the Estonian diaspora in Russia during these years with the annual field works taking place in the Estonian-Russian border region, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Siberia. The last 40th Finno-Ugric expedition to Khakassia and Kransoyarski krai was organised under the EAA in 2017 .
The art students and alumni who participated in this research trip were motivated to continue working with the subject and formed the art group SLED in 2018 to further research the March deportation of 1949 and conduct more field trips in Siberia. In 2019, the art program Siberian Childhood was organised across Estonia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the March deportations. The common field work experience served as a common base for this group to emerge.
Previously in SLED
Triin Kerge (2018-2023)
Liis Juuse (2018-2023)
Kalle Keskrand (2018-2021)
Ave Taavet (2018-2019)
Piret Uibotalu (2018-2019)
Anne Kaljas (2018-2019)
Johanna Rannula (2018)
Support us:
MTÜ Muuuurijad
EE037700771003356310
(bic: LHVBEE22)
Contemporary art, anthropology and recent history are all important in our work. We share a passion for a community-focused approach. We share a commitment to a community-focused approach. Our practice draws on anthropological research methods such as participant observation, long-term fieldwork, documentation, and work with archival materials. We engage in a socially oriented creative research practice in which the relationships between personal and collective memory, commemoration and remembrance, and questions of identity are central to our work. We engage in memory activism to understand pivotal events in recent history that keep on impacting us today on both personal and collective levels.
We often like to include other professionals in our work for their professional expertise. Some of the people we have worked with are artist-curator Tanel Rander, researcher Terje Anepaio and trauma coach Kaili Särg. During the years of our work we have also collaborated with local memory organisations and museums in Estonia, such as Vabamu, Estonian National Museum, Eesti Represseeritute Ühing and Murtud Rukkilill.
Marika Alver (she/her) is trained as a cultural anthropologist and an art historian at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Currently she is working on a documentary film about a woman who was 5 years old when she was deported to Siberia in 1949.
Alver is also interested in African studies, the culture of Maasai people, and she is studying the modernization process and land privatisation in Maasai Mara (Kenya).
Katarina Meister (they/them) is trained as an artist at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Academy of Arts (Kuvataideakatemia) in Helsinki, Finland. They hold an MA degree from the Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies department in Helsinki University. They are interested in sociology and politics of memory. Besides studying the March deportation of 1949 they are also studying the contemporary Russian protest music through the perceptions of the Russian emigrants living in Finland and Estonia. They are a passionate cook and like to find ways to approach difficult topics also through different media. Their grandmother was one of the children deported to Siberia in 1949, making this study also a personal study of their family history.
The official written form of the artist duo SLЭD comes from the Russian words sled - 'footprint' and sledovateli - 'investigators'. SLЭD uses the Russian letter Э that is present also in Эстония (Estonia in Russian), but often we simplify our name to SLED due to the writing conventions.
***************************************************************
History of SLED
This group was loosely formed on the basis of the anthropological field trips to Finno-Ugric Peoples that were organised for the students of the Estonian Academy of Arts (EAA) and led by the anthropologist Marika Alver in 2013-2017. Alver decided to shift the focus towards the Estonian diaspora in Russia during these years with the annual field works taking place in the Estonian-Russian border region, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Siberia. The last 40th Finno-Ugric expedition to Khakassia and Kransoyarski krai was organised under the EAA in 2017 .
The art students and alumni who participated in this research trip were motivated to continue working with the subject and formed the art group SLED in 2018 to further research the March deportation of 1949 and conduct more field trips in Siberia. In 2019, the art program Siberian Childhood was organised across Estonia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the March deportations. The common field work experience served as a common base for this group to emerge.
Previously in SLED
Triin Kerge (2018-2023)
Liis Juuse (2018-2023)
Kalle Keskrand (2018-2021)
Ave Taavet (2018-2019)
Piret Uibotalu (2018-2019)
Anne Kaljas (2018-2019)
Johanna Rannula (2018)
Support us:
MTÜ Muuuurijad
EE037700771003356310
(bic: LHVBEE22)