Andra Rahe “The Daycare Diary”

Description

Special care services and the people who rely on them often remain distant from the everyday experience of the wider public. Individuals with psychosocial disabilities are frequently seen primarily through the lens of diagnoses and care systems. In doing so, the person themselves can disappear from view: their relationships, sense of humour, everyday joys and worries.

“The Daycare Diary” opens a door into a world where quiet routines and genuine moments meet. Through the everyday life of a day centre in Viljandi, a photographic narrative unfolds, inviting the viewer to notice, understand, and draw closer.

Life at the day centre follows its own familiar rhythm. Some mornings begin with a zephir cake that Fernando has brought along, on another day, Villu’s brand-new haircut becomes the main topic of conversation. Rasmus writes the day’s schedule on the chalkboard, Kati heads to the shop for a loaf of bread, and Kirkke proudly shows off a brooch her mother has recently given her. Ruth’s piano playing drifts through the room, while Ave tries to reach Allar, who is still enjoying a slow morning at home. From these small shared moments emerges a community in which each person has their own place and way of expressing themselves.

At the Vinger Daycare Centre, Andra Rahe has met more than twenty individuals and come to know their daily rhythms, personalities and unique ways of being. Through photography, the artist documents the everyday life of the centre: singing, exercise sessions, cooking, arts and crafts, walks and excursions. Yet it is the quieter days, when nothing particularly remarkable seems to be happening, that take on special significance. It is through shared conversations and moments of laughter that deeper connections emerge, creating opportunities to truly get to know the members and to capture authentic moments of their lives.

“I work with an analogue camera and adjust my approach to whatever the day brings. I’m not just watching from the side: I play UNO with one hand and shoot with the other. Being part of the community helps me stay close and photograph everyone as the complex, real people they are, not as “subjects,” explains the artist.

Andra Rahe (b. 1996) is an Estonian photographer whose practice attends to the subtle structures of everyday life. Working through slowness, presence, and attentiveness, Rahe makes carefully composed and intimate images that invite empathetic engagement. Her work delicately engages with cultural narratives, foregrounding gestures, details, and atmospheres that often remain unnoticed yet shape relations between people. Rahe’s lived experience, including living with a mobility disability, functions as a distinctive creative resource, enabling a nuanced engagement with both her subjects and their environments.
Rahe graduated from the Photography Department of the Pallas University of Applied Sciences and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Tartu. Her project The Daycare Diary received the Public Choice Award at the 2025 Nordic & Baltic Young Artist Award competition. As an artist, she documents marginalised communities with the aim of increasing their visibility and reflecting on ways of being human.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Rain Lõhmus Foundat

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