Blacksunset at Tallinn T-shirt art biennial – twice, two different stories
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Blacksunset at Tallinn T-shirt art biennial – twice, two different stories

Mariliis Tehno Mariliis Tehno
6 min lugemist

Blacksunset at Tallinn T-shirt art biennial – twice, two different stories

When someone asks if a T-shirt can be art, I usually say no. I will send him to the Tallinn T-shirt Art Biennale instead. There’s the answer on the wall – or rather, on the hanger.

Blacksunset has participated in this exhibition twice: in 2023 at Telliskivi Loomelinnak and in 2025 at ArtDepoo gallery. The first time was an experiment, the second time was a manifesto. Here is the story of both.

Anti Soosaar at the Tallinn T-shirt Art Biennale blacksunset (1)_result

What is Tallinn T-shirt art biennial

The Biennale is organized byRando Freiberg, who acts as a stage nameARTSHIbelow. His vision is simple and ambitious: to bring together artists from around the world who use the T-shirt as a medium – not as an advertising space, not as a souvenir, but as a canvas that has the same weight as a canvas on a gallery wall.

The Biennale has been held every two years since 2015. Artists from Estonia, Ukraine, USA, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Philippines, Turkey have performed on it – the list is long and varied. Every year, the exhibition has grown both in terms of the number of artists and ambitions.

What Rando has built here deserves recognition. To organize an international art exhibition practically alone, without much institutional support, and to keep it alive for ten years – it requires the same drive and vision that T-shirt art itself represents: to do things that no one necessarily understands the value of, but which are still necessary.

2023 – esimene kord, Telliskivi Loomelinnak

For the first time, I did not go to the Biennale with a special collection. I just went with Blacksunset – designs that were already on sale and that I believed in myself.

There was ‘Strip(p)ed Women’, a portrait of a woman made up of horizontal stripes so that the image only emerges from a distance. This was one of my earliest designs where the graphic experiment was more important than the message. And the “Tallinn city code” – vertical lines that resemble a bar code, but which actually encode the Tallinn skyline.

I didn’t know what to expect. It was the first time my t-shirts were hanging on a gallery wall and not in an online store. The first time someone looked at my work not as a product, but as a work. And that experience changed something.

Telliskivi Loomelinnak was then the home of the biennale – industrial, a bit raw, exactly the right energy for this format. Shirts were hung on hangers, walls, structures hanging from the ceiling. It was an exhibition where you got really close to art – not behind glass, but within reach. And it is this closeness that makes T-shirt art special.

When I came back, I knew that next time I wanted to do something specifically for this exhibition. Something that wouldn’t just be a Blacksunset product on a gallery wall, but Blacksunset’s answer to the question: What do you think as an artist?

blacksunset (1)_result at the Tallinn T-shirt art biennial

Two years later, the answer was ready. Ten partShift Theorycollection – each design has its own philosophical position. Not T-shirts for sale, which also happen to hang in the exhibition, but works created for the exhibition, which later became wearable products.

The 2025 biennale celebrated its tenth anniversary and moved to ArtDepoo gallery Kalamajja, Jahu 12. This time the biennale was also connectedwith UKUFEST– with the Ukrainian Art Festival, which included five Tallinn galleries, including Fotografiska and Temnikova & Kasela. This gave the whole event a different weight: it was no longer just a T-shirt exhibition, but part of a wider international art event.

The exhibition ran from May 9th to June 21st, and Blacksunset’s Shift Theory works hung on the second floor of ArtDepoo’s gallery, “Not Here to Explain,” “Unscripted Existence,” “Hidden Architectures,” “Reflections Unfolded,” and others, all with their own manifesto pages.

There was a moment I will never forget. You are standing in a gallery, and next to you hang works from artists from Ukraine, the USA, Germany – people who have worked for this medium for years. And your work is next to them. Not because you’re better, but because the T-shirt is a medium wide enough to accommodate all voices. This is exactly what Rando has tried to create with the biennale.

blacksunset (1)_result at the Tallinn T-shirt art biennial

What the biennale changed

Between two participations, my understanding of what Blacksunset is changed.

In 2023, I was a T-shirt maker who happened upon an art exhibition. In 2025, I was an artist using a T-shirt. This difference is small, but important. In the first case, the product is the primary value and the context is an added value. In the second case, the thought is primary and the product is the embodiment of that thought.

Shift Theory would not have been born without the Biennale. Not only because the biennale provided a deadline and motivation, but because it forced me to ask: if this shirt hung on a gallery wall next to artists from Ukraine and Germany – would it survive? This question raised the bar and I’m grateful for that.

 

Kudos to the organizers

I want to say this directly: Rando Freiberg and the Tallinn T-shirt Art Biennale deserve more attention than they currently receive.

Ten years of international art exhibitions – from Tallinn Art Space to Telliskivi Creative City, from Solaris Gallery to ArtDepoon. Every time a new place, new artists, new workshops. And it’s done by one person who believes that T-shirt art is real art.

In Estonia, T-shirt art is an underrated medium. As Rando himself has said – it’s not really taken seriously yet. But that is precisely why the biennale is necessary. Not because he has to convince anyone, but because he creates a place where the question is no longer a question. On a gallery wall, on a hanger, under professional lighting – a T-shirt *is* art. Point.

I hope the biennale continues. And I hope that Blacksunset can participate there for the third time. But even if not, these two experiences have been more important to my brand than any sales campaign could ever be.

Blacksunset and Shift Theory

All ten Shift Theory designs are currently available on the Blacksunset e-shop. They are a biennial series priced at €35, made from 100% combed cotton and made to order.

The entire Shift Theory booklet – manifestos, visuals, philosophy – can be downloaded from each Shift Theory product page.

References and links:

Mariliis Tehno
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