Wonderland (2022)

Installation
Materials: plaster molds, textile, readymade objects
Exhibited at an art festival Imageries in Blanks in Maardu

 

In Wonderland, Sarah Nõmm reflects on the iconic erotic store Hotlips in Maardu—the largest of its kind in the Baltics and often the only cultural reference point associated with the area. Maardu's identity remains ambiguous for much of Estonia, yet Hotlips stands out as a vivid, if unexpected, landmark.

 

This work evokes the store like a ghostly trace. Situated on the Vana-Narva highway amid truck parks and oil tanks, the store’s strange placement highlights both its anonymity and its symbolic weight. The location, remote and industrial, speaks to the performative nature of lust, sexuality, and gender identity in a consumer-driven society. Despite the surroundings, stepping inside reveals a familiar consumer landscape, not unlike any mainstream retail space.

At the same time, such marginal and empty spaces serve as society’s informal refuges—places where one can exist freely, without questions, and outside of normative frameworks. Here, identity can shift, hide, or thrive in its hybrid form, unnoticed yet fully present.