Estonian curator brings New York town onto art map

Estonian curator Karin Laansoo led the first Medina art triennial in New York state, where nearly 100 artworks were displayed in the small town, ERR reported. The event aims to help revitalise communities along the historic Erie Canal.

The triennial was backed by one of the largest energy companies in the United States, which viewed contemporary art as a way to support the regional economy and attract more tourists, Laansoo said in an interview with the ERR programme OP.

“Looking back, we did not realise how large, ambitious and complicated this project would become,” Laansoo said. “No one knew anything about Medina. I am not only talking about international artists, but also people who live an hour away. Of the 39 artists, only one had previously visited Medina.”

Completed in 1825, the nearly 600 kilometre Erie Canal was once considered a major engineering feat. Many communities along the canal have since fallen into obscurity.

Medina prospered around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries because of its local sandstone. Quarrying and transporting the stone provided work for thousands of people, many of them immigrants from Europe.

History teacher Todd Bensley said the triennial was helping put Medina back on the map. The town lies between the larger cities of Rochester and Buffalo and has a well-preserved main street, he said.

Two buildings more than a century old were restored for the triennial. A former hotel became a visitor centre, while a former elementary school building that had stood empty for the past 30 years became the main exhibition hall.

The exhibition includes scented works by Estonian artist Kärt Ojavee, which seek to convey how Medina smells. Ojavee visited the town for a week last year and focused on the Honeycrisp apple variety. She extracted scents from apple blossoms, soil and seeds, Laansoo said.

Susanna Rosenstock, deputy director of the Toronto Biennial, praised the organisers for bringing the exhibition to a small town where the infrastructure available in a major city might be lacking.

Laansoo said visitor feedback had been overwhelmingly positive, with people describing the triennial as “phenomenal”, “incredible”, “life-changing” and “inspiring”. She added that critics had also recognised the event, calling it one of the 20 most important art events of 2026.