Prejudice is often born before experience. Before meeting. Before a glance. Before listening. It is an invisible layer we grow around ourselves—sometimes for protection, sometimes as a limitation.
On Friday, January 9th at 5 PM, the exhibition Assumption Is the Death of Progress opens at Gallery Pallas, inviting visitors of all ages to pause and notice how assumptions shape relationships, decisions, and the way we read the world. The exhibition does not offer answers; instead, it creates space for questions, shifts in perception, and new perspectives.
The works created by students and lecturers of the Pallas Department of Leather Design explore the layered nature of prejudice and connect it to leather as a material. Here, leather is not merely a surface but a carrier—durable and adaptable, changing over time and storing meaning. It can be strong or fragile, smooth or rough, protective or revealing. Like people, leather carries traces of experience, use, and transformation.
The exhibition creates a multilayered visual environment where layers do not conceal but reveal. It is a space where resilience does not mean rigidity, and softness does not mean weakness. Viewers are invited to reflect on the stories the authors read from surfaces—of people, materials, and themselves—and to consider when a first impression becomes an obstacle to moving forward.
What kind of skin are you wearing today? And which assumptions are you ready to let go of in order to move ahead?
Participating students and alumni faculty:
Merrit Helistve, Emily Turro, Christopher Mururand, Kaisa-Lotta Laak, Kätlin Muttika, Anni Vallsalu, Kristel Suigussaar, Rutt Maantoa, Kerli Jõgi, Dorel Sabre, Eneli Valge, Kristi Männik, Helen Grosnõi, Tuule Tensing Eliise-Anette Muuga, Helene Triin Õunapuu, Anett Holter, Eliise Sallaste, Kersti Katerina Kaplan, Lisete Jõepera.
Exhibition curator: Anni Vallsalu
Photographer of the works used in the exhibition: Rain Avarmaa
Models: Udo Vool, Lisette Malla, Koit Paales
Special thanks: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Redbull
The exhibition is open at Gallery Pallas from January 9th to February 7th 2026.
Press photo: Bookbinding by Helene Triin Õunapuu, model Koit Paales. Photo Rain Avarmaa. 2026.
Additional information: Anni Vallsalu, Lecturer / Head of Leather Design Department, Pallas University of Applied Sciences, +372 55529225, anni.vallsalu@pallasart.ee
Galerii Pallas, galerii@pallasart.ee, +372 734 9954, Tue–Sat 11:00–18:00, Riia 11, Tartu
https://www.facebook.com/GaleriiPallas