Estonia paints in public

Estonia’s pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale will stay unfinished on opening day because Merike Estna plans to paint it in public every day of the show. (e-flux.com) Estna’s exhibition, *The House of Leaking Sky*, runs May 9 to November 22, 2026, at the Estonian Pavilion in Venice, with previews beginning May 6. Curator Natalia Sielewicz is organizing the project for Estonia’s official national presentation. (labiennale.org) (e-flux.com) The work starts with a blank canvas and poured paint on the floor, then grows through daily sessions in front of visitors. By the end of the Biennale, the paintings are meant to join into one work across 22 canvases measuring about 22 by 6 meters. (e-flux.com) That setup turns painting into a durational performance, with the artist’s labor visible for six months instead of hidden in a studio before the opening. Estonia’s own pavilion materials describe the project as placing painting at the intersection of performance and social questions. (e-flux.com) (cca.ee) The pavilion also folds domestic space into the exhibition. Estna will live in Venice with her family during the Biennale, and the project text says motherhood and care are part of the work’s conceptual structure. (e-flux.com) Estonia is building the pavilion around that process rather than around a finished object. The floor will be covered with 25,000 glazed tiles, and the exhibition architecture by studio D_P_S is designed to adapt to Estna’s evolving painting. (news.err.ee) (e-flux.com) Estna, born in 1980, lives and works in Tallinn and Mexico City and studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Goldsmiths, University of London. The Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art selected her after an open call that drew 25 submissions. (cca.ee) This is Estonia’s 15th appearance at the International Art Exhibition in Venice since it began participating in 1997. The Biennale itself, titled *In Minor Keys*, is the 61st edition of the exhibition. (cca.ee) (labiennale.org) By November, visitors to the Estonian pavilion will have seen not just the finished painting, but the full record of how it was made, one public workday at a time. (e-flux.com)