Secret Garden

A gallery and an arts shop LOOV (http://www.lmk.ee/loov) from Tartu Loomemajanduskeskus was participating an event called Salaaed in Tallinn on Friday the 11^{th of March}. The event was a combination of handicrafts market and a trade fair of creative businesses spiced up with a fashion show, and it gathered exhibitors from Estonia, Finland and Latvia to Viru Keskus shopping centre. The brilliant purpose of the organisers was to bring the products and services of the creative enterprises into sight of the big audience, so that they would reach also the common man.  They wanted to express how the acts of creativity and art are often perceived in the minds of people –and named the event Salaaed –Secret Garden.

LOOV Galerii

What a name, what a metaphor it is! It’s fascinating, it describes the liveliness nature of the field of culture perfectly and for sure wakes your attention. Who wouldn’t be interested in secrets and revealing them? Bringing this garden of creativeness in the middle of people opens the gate for anyone to step in and have a piece of fairytale called culture and art. And maybe even step out from that garden with fruits from it in your pocket found on the path.

And that garden needs to be visited. It is being watered and fertilized with interest, admiration and irritation, with all the emotions and experiences that art and culture can wake in us. If art and culture are left alone in the studios and halls where the big audience doesn’t know to look them from, the spell of the garden might fade away and the garden grow shut and forgotten.

So when you see a gate to a secret garden like this, go and try it. Step in, start exploring and experiencing! There might be something to mesmerize you so that you want to return to the garden again and again. Maybe share the secret with your friends and beloved ones, too. Become a gardener for life.

Salaaed in Viru Keskus

...btw, check what I found from the secret garden: www.artbag.lv !