Evening chat of the Estonian National Library „Nature’s Counsel and Power“ with the visiting speaker Elle-Mari Talivee from the Literature Centre

On Monday 20 March at 6.30pm, literary scholar Elle-Mari Talivee from the Horizon 2020 project EnviroCitizen, freelance graphic designer and researcher Maria Muuk and the humanities and arts consultant Rene Mäe from the National Library visited the Viimsi Library. We got together to chat and reflect on how education and birdwatching, environmental conservation and literature, the art of printing and sustainability connect.

The event was held within the framework of an educational travelling installation „Nature’s Counsel and Power. Humans and Nature in an Original Estonian School Textbook“, opened at the beginning of the month. The installation, stemmed from the National Library’s collection of rarities and old books, combines environmentally aware thinking and nature with the wisdom and teachings of the 19th century. The installation is based on school textbooks written at the time by Carl Robert Jakobson, Ado Grenzstein and Juhan Kunder. The installation is accompanied by a printed workbook „A Tree in Conversation with a Library Visitor“ through which one may experientially understand and feel the meaning of nature and environmental conservation in a 19th-century classroom.