The exhibition shows views from an infamous district in Tallinn called Lasnamäe which served as home for the artist growing up. Despite the shady reputation Liivaks hopes to show Lasnamäe to the viewer through her childhood memory lens depicting places that left a mark in her heart. The exhibition goes through depths of her childhood as well as to some more recent tragic events that contributed to the latter part of the title of this exhibition: “Endings”. 

 

"I was walking along Lasnamäe on a late summer day, when my heart was warmed by nostalgia and I recalled the easiness of childhood. For some, Lasnamäe is a scary place where people ask for a cigarette and give a beating – or the good old joke "Have a beat? Want a smoke?" – but for me it is the place where my school is located, my best friends lived, I experienced my first love and my grandparents still live today. But the notoriety of Lasnamäe is partly true, so the exhibition was born from the idea of juxtaposing colorful childhood memories with surrounding reality. Lasnamäe will always be a home for me, but I have seen more than one puddle of blood and made several sprint records for unexpected surprises lurking around the corner.”

 

While on the surface this might look simply like an exhibition of cityscapes, gallerist Victoria Olt finds this to be conceptually strong. „Liivak reminisces about the childhood she spent with her cousin, whom she recently lost, so the memories have acquired a bittersweet undertone. It is notable how she paints Lasnamäe with such bright colors, still. You can almost transport yourself there with the artist, playing at the skatepark or waiting at the bus stop, back to when the days of childhood seemed so interminable. But at the same time the soul of the exhibition can’t escape terminability, that arrives like a wrecking ball to disrupt this innocence and nostalgia. This exhibition, while so bright, speaks on the grayscale of emotions that comes from loving a place that you hate, and missing the time you had with a person, whose memory seems to be confined there.“