Maria Kapajeva (EE, b. 1976) is an artist working between the UK and Estonia. She is a recipient of both a three-year artist salary awarded by the Estonian Artists’ Association in collaboration with the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and the 2025 Annual Award for Visual and Applied Arts. Exhibited internationally, Kapajeva’s works are held in the collections of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and Tartu Art Museum. Her multidisciplinary practice explores identity and gender, often bringing peripheral stories to the fore.
The works Kapajeva presents at Foto Tallinn belong to My Parts, Not: a larger project on the visibility of queer bodies and women’s medical experiences. Before undergoing a preventative double mastectomy, Kapajeva created numerous images, prints and casts of her breasts as a means to preserve her memory of what once was. Later, these images were abstracted into new territory – separate from the body, fragmented, as if cut into pieces with a paper shredder. Having grown up as a queer woman who “dreamt of being breastless,” the project allows Kapajeva to reflect on her inner conflict – paradoxically, her dream was fulfilled through cancer prevention surgery.
