Maret Sarapu (1978) is an artist and curator based in Tallinn. She has graduated from the Department of Glass Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA 2002, MA 2005). She has taken additional professional courses and been in artist residencies both in Estonia and abroad, including at the Creative Glass Center of America (USA), the Glass Centre of Sunderland University (UK) and GlazenHuis (Belgium).

She has curated and organised numerous glass art exhibitions in Estonia. Since 2017 she is one of the core team members of the Tallinn Applied Art Triennial. Sarapu is also the curator of the triennial’s main exhibition in 2024.

In addition to exhibitions in Estonia, Sarapu has also participated in group exhibitions in Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Turkey, USA. Sarapu’s artworks belong to a number of public collections: Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (Tallinn, Estonia), Museum of American Glass (Millville, NJ, USA), Museum of Modern Glass Art (Eskisehir, Turkey) etc.

Her works have won prizes in national art competitions and are on display in several public buildings. These achievements have given Sarapu the experience of creating conceptually rich, aesthetically pleasing and thought provoking compositions as well as equipped her with valuable insights and skills related to large-scale projects and collaborations.

In her work, Sarapu is mostly inspired by everyday life. Often, her aim is to achieve mental well-being and find harmony between intelligence and emotions. In her process, Sarapu alternates between thinking, writing, working in the studio and collaborating with material, which leads to results that give both the artist and the viewer a possibility to make conclusions and generalisations.

As a curator she is interested in constructiveness and the questions of how a constructive and progressive approach can be expressed in applied arts, how art and contemporary craft can serve as a powerful source of perseverance, both in the act of creation and in the messages and symbolism they convey. And how by tapping into the resilience and strength of the human spirit, these creative forms can inspire individuals to push through challenges and find meaning in their struggles.