Stia Biennale heads to Tallinn for STRIKE!: iron meets contemporary art

From 5 to 7 November 2026 the Stia Biennale will be in Estonia for STRIKE! Symposium, an Iron Notes project event hosted by the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. The gathering will bring together artists, master blacksmiths, craftspeople and metalworking experts to explore iron as a material, a means of artistic expression and a meeting point between traditional knowledge and contemporary experimentation.

Representing the Biennale will be Dario Simonetti and Adele Amato from the Associazione Autonoma per la Biennale d’Arte Fabbrile.

The Iron Notes project, co-funded by the European Union, aims to encourage reflection on the role of artistic blacksmithing in contemporary society and its potential for future development. At its heart is the value of making: a form of knowledge that combines manual skill and thought, preserving age-old techniques while opening them up to new interpretations.

The symposium will also mark the opening of STRIKE!, a travelling exhibition featuring more than one hundred artists from around the world and over three hundred works. Sculptures, objects and wearable pieces explore the expressive potential of iron. The exhibition’s title evokes the strike of the hammer, but also the spark of an idea, the beginning of an action and the possibility of change.

Representing the Biennale throughout the exhibition’s journey will be Martino Stenico with “Minotaur”, Roberto Magni with “La Sassata”.

After Tallinn, the exhibition will travel to the CODA Museum in the Netherlands, Munich Jewellery Week / Schmuck in Germany, and the Riihisaari Museum in Savonlinna, Finland. The journey will conclude in Stia in September 2027, bringing an international dialogue on the present and future of artistic ironwork to Italy.