“Woods and the Sea: Estonian Design and the Virtual Frontier”

A garden grown with the help of digital sensors—in your kitchen. A group of Russian immigrants, unmoored from the past, grappling with the future, standing in the looming shadow of their closed factories as tension grows on both sides of the border. Jewellery made from seahorses—and cosmic dust. Skype and its discontent

These are things you’ll find in the small and windswept Baltic nation of Estonia. Stories of the talented people who are creating there are what’s to be found in Woods and the Sea.

In the telling, then, are their wry, hard-won and aesthetic insights into economy, culture, life and making things. Estonians live in a turbulent environment. Everyone knows everyone. Its designers engage every current, from stern Soviet orthodoxy to whirlwind globalisation, from plugging into a wired and forward-looking society to feeling the constants of seaside life and mushroom hunts in the deep woods. Taken up from Tallinn to the Onion Road along Lake Peipsi, found behind each smoothly-turned and curved plywood suitcase, space-age teapot and internet-connected miniature weather station, are tales and personalities.