The artists were present!
The 2026 spring season of the Narva Art Residency’s project “Artists are there” ended with a seminar opened on May 15, which brought together nine participating artists as well as other parties.
Erki Kasemets, Vaim Sarv, Jevgeni Zolotko, Tea Lemberpuu, Kairi Getman, Trevor Kinna, Kerttu Siplane, Mari Männa and Mia Tamme shared the experiences they got from Narva-Jõesuu School, Narva 6th School and Pähklimäe School.
The panel discussion revealed that for the artists, creating lesson plans was like creating a work of art – it has little to do with reality. They also acknowledged that, compared to adults, working with children is special becasue of their honesty – if kids are bored or do not understand, they immediately let everyone know.
Hanna-Liis Kont and Eleriin Miilmann presented the initial results of the impact study. We learned that 82% of students were able to communicate in Estonian quite a lot or a lot during the project, their courage to use Estonian increased from 38 percent to 61 percent, and many other social skills showed a bold increase. 88% of the participating students responded that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the project. The most popular new words were “pattern”, “ultramarine” and “fabric”.
The next “Artists Are Present” season will be this fall. The open vall to find new participants-artists will take place in the summer months – keep an eye out!
The project is supported by the Smart Future Foundation.
