We invite you on a journey along the path of birds and the springtime creative thought of the Westerwalle art group!

The Narva Artists’ Union “Westerwalle” presents the exhibition “The Milky Way”, held as part of the 2025 Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture and the Ethno-Futurist Festival. Ethno-futurism is a cultural movement that seeks to merge folk traditions with contemporary art.

The “Path of Birds” exhibition is dedicated to myths of the world’s creation and the role of mythological beings in this process — and how these images are reflected across different styles in modern art. In Finno-Ugric cultures, as in many others, the creator of the world is often a bird, and the world is born from an egg.

The South is the land of birds, full of warmth and light — unlike the North, which was considered a land of darkness. Between them flowed a great river, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky — a path for migratory birds. In March and April, it appears in the sky from north to southwest and is known as Liinutee in Estonian and Lintutie in Finnish. These months are also rich in Finno-Ugric traditions connected to bird arrival and the expelling of the cold spirit.

The central theme of the exhibition is to merge ancient myths with the modern world, revealing creative power through tradition and its reinterpretation in contemporary art.

Ancient mythology can be an infinite source of inspiration. Some artworks follow mythic symbols directly, while others reinterpret them through the artist’s own worldview, with personal symbolism and imagination. As artists, we create new myths through our reflections on life, our understanding of the origins of the world, and the symbolic flight of birds toward something cosmic and eternal.

At the exhibition, Kristina Kenjuhh’s painting “On the Shore of the Sky” (2015, canvas, acrylic, 50×70 cm) will be presented.