Marit Ilison’s exhibition “LIVING/ROOM” brings a total environment created by the artist into the museum gallery. The exhibition presents Ilison’s work from the past decade, during which her creative focus has shifted from fashion design toward spatial, interior, and environmental design.

“One of my creative exercises is to imagine the ideal environment for any given object, training both my mind and eye to recognize aspects of beauty even in visually unappealing objects. My inner compass constantly guides me toward creating beauty, harmony, and a sense of well-being,” Ilison describes her creative process.

Estonian conceptual fashion designer Marit Ilison has spent the past ten years working with spatial design, interiors and creative direction. Prompted by this creative shift, her expanded field of activity now includes interiors, long-term visions, and product design. The transition from fashion to a broader spatial practice has been organic and fluid. For Ilison, clothing is the first space around the human body, making the move into interiors a natural step from the immediate environment to a wider one. On the one hand, this has marked a shift into a more sustainable field than fashion; on the other, it has allowed her to channel her creativity into work that reaches a wider audience and has a longer-lasting impact.

For the museum gallery, Ilison has created a total environment composed of objects designed by her alongside historical pieces. Every object on display has its own story, and most have been further developed for this exhibition. The connection with Ilison’s earlier fashion work has not disappeared from her practice. 

As the exhibition also suggests, what matters most to Ilison is beauty, meaning and feeling – the poetry of creation.

Marit Ilison (1984) is a cross-disciplinary artist and designer whose central interest lies in the relationship between body and space. She has created fashion collections, site-specific installations, costumes, music, exhibitions, stage designs and interiors for restaurants and public spaces, and has run Marit Ilison Creative Atelier with her brother since 2013. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a master’s degree in fashion design and later pursued further studies there in architectural conservation and restoration. She has also studied in Denmark, London, Antwerp, Paris and Berlin. She received the Vogue Talent and Vogue Success Story recognition in 2016, and in 2014 was awarded the Grand Prix of the London Fashion Week International Fashion Showcase Award, the SÄSI Young Designer Award and the Kristjan Raud Art Award. Since 2024, Ilison has served as Head of Visual Identity at Tallinn City Theatre.

Graphic design: Tuuli Aule

Language editor: Hille Saluäär

Translation: Refiner Translations