Ene-Liis Semper

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Ene-Liis Semper
Born	(1969-04-04) 4 April 1969 Tallinn, Estonia
🏳️ Citizenship	Estonian
🏫 Education	Estonian Academy of Arts
💼 Occupation	Video artist, performance artist, scenographer, theatre director
📆 Years active	1993–present
Known for	FF/REW, Licked Room, Theatre NO99, Unified Estonia
🏅 Awards	Order of the White Star, V class

Ene-Liis Semper (born 4 April 1969) is an Estonian video artist, performance artist, scenographer and theatre director. She studied scenography at the Estonian Academy of Arts and first came to prominence in the 1990s for video and performance works centred on corporeality, risk and psychological tension. In 2001 she represented Estonia at the Venice Biennale, where Harald Szeemann selected her video FF/REW for the international exhibition Plateau of Humankind. Since 2004 she has been closely associated with Theatre NO99, which she founded with Tiit Ojasoo and led as one of its creative heads until the theatre closed in 2018.

Early life and education

Semper was born in Tallinn on 4 April 1969. She studied scenography at the Estonian Academy of Arts from 1989 to 1995. According to theatre scholar Anneli Saro, Semper had already gained notice as a video and performance artist during her student years; from 1993 onward she exhibited works that explored corporeality, often using her own body and a distinctly theatrical visual language.

Visual art

Semper's works frequently stage physically demanding actions or emotionally charged situations in order to probe questions of identity, power and vulnerability. Among her best-known early works are Fundamental (1997), FF/REW (1998), Oasis (1999) and Licked Room (2000–2003). In 2000 she participated in Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana, and in 2001 she represented Estonia at the 49th Venice Biennale; the same year, Harald Szeemann included FF/REW in Plateau of Humankind, the biennale's international exhibition.

Her solo exhibitions have included shows at the Tallinn Art Hall in 2002, Galerie Martin Janda in Vienna in 2004, the Kumu Art Museum in 2011, and the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia in 2024. The 2024 EKKM exhibition was her first solo exhibition in more than thirteen years.

Theatre

Semper also established herself as a set and costume designer, working with Estonian directors including Mati Unt and Hendrik Toompere. In 2004 she and Tiit Ojasoo became the leaders of the state-funded Vanalinnastuudio and set about reorganising it into what became Theatre NO99. Semper remained one of NO99's founders and creative leaders until its closure in 2018.

Scholars and critics have described NO99 as a major force in twenty-first-century Estonian theatre. Anneli Saro wrote that the company was regarded as the country's first political theatre and that its work changed the field of Estonian theatre "dramatically". One of its most discussed projects was Unified Estonia, a staged fictional political movement that culminated in a convention at Saku Suurhall in May 2010. According to theatre researcher Eva-Liisa Linder, the event drew more than 7,200 people and became one of the largest theatre events in modern European theatre history. Semper also developed the concept for the annual Estonian theatre awards trophy Theodori silm ("Theodore's Eye"), first introduced in 2006 and executed in glass by Ivo Lill.

NO99's work toured internationally, with productions appearing at venues and festivals including the Wiener Festwochen, the Lyric Hammersmith, the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Théâtre de l'Odéon. In 2017 the theatre received the Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities.

Semper was invited professor of the liberal arts at the University of Tartu in the 2010–2011 academic year. She later joined the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she has served as professor and head of the scenography department.

Film

With Tiit Ojasoo, Semper co-directed and co-wrote the documentary Ash & Money (Estonian: Kust tuleb tolm ja kuhu kaob raha?) in 2013. The film concerns the short-lived fictional party created for Unified Estonia and its 44-day political-theatre campaign.

Awards and honours

Semper received the Order of the White Star, 5th Class, in 2004. She has received Estonian state cultural prizes for her exhibitions, for Erkki-Sven Tüür's opera Wallenberg, for NO99's Unified Estonia, and for Macbeth, staged with Tiit Ojasoo and Olari Elts. She has also won the Estonian Theatre Union's artist prize in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2014, the Natalie Mei prize in 2009 and 2014, and the Estonian Theatre Union directing award in 2024 for Macbeth.

Selected works

• Fundamental (1997)
• FF/REW (1998)
• Oasis (1999)
• Licked Room (2000–2003)
• Unified Estonia (2010, with Theatre NO99)
• Ash & Money (2013, documentary film, with Tiit Ojasoo)
• Macbeth (stage production, with Tiit Ojasoo and Olari Elts)

References

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