Exhibition Observing Power at Estonian Museum of Architecture, Tallinn

The photo collection of the Museum of Architecture, which covers more than a century of Estonian architecture, witnessing the formation of a state and its repeated transformations, is an important source of history. But whose gaze represents our collective spatial memory? Urban space is like an atlas of architecture, a park of sculptures or a history book filled with stories of past ideologies. Observing Power explores the power relations between architecture and photography, located somewhere between symbiosis and parasitism. The starting point for observation is to consider architecture as a symbolic manifestation of power and, consequently, to reflect on the different ways of seeing and interpreting architectural photography. In particular, the exhibition speculates on the production, consumption and mechanical reproduction of photographic images in order to raise awareness of the seductive effects of social power structures. Observing Power invites awareness of the widespread linear and highly masculine constructs of the history of architecture, and consideration of the possibility of alternative narratives.