KVI Open Lecture: “Life in Spite of Everything: Decolonial Approaches to Writing and Research”

In this public talk, Victoria Donovan will introduce how decolonial thinking has informed her research and projects, as well as her new book Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (2025). Life in Spite of Everything is a cultural portrait of Ukraine’s east before it was devastated by Russia’s full-scale invasion. It is a history on foot through the beautiful Donbas region, a celebration of its past and present, and its people’s tenacity, creativity and independence. Victoria will discuss the book in conversation with the historian and curator Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts). 

Victoria Donovan is a Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies and the Director of the Centre for Global (Post)socialisms at the University of St Andrews. She works at the intersection of heritage studies, urban history, visual anthropology, and the public humanities. She is the co-producer of academic research, literature, exhibitions, archives, community workshops, and artistic practice exploring the industrial history and heritage of eastern Ukraine and the UK. She is the author of Chronicles in Stone: Preservation, Patriotism, and Identity in Northwest Russia (2019); Limits of Collaboration: Art, Ethics, and Donbas (2022); and Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (2025).

Lecture will be held in cooperation of Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

Kadri Liis Rääk, “Morphogenesis” 
Opening: April 4, 2025, at 18:00 
04.04.–20.04.2025
Open Mon–Sun, 12–18
ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt. 154, Tallinn

Kadri Liis Rääk presents an immersive exhibition at ARS Project Space that explores multisensory encounters between space and the body.

“Morphogenesis” functions as a poetic ecosystem, offering opportunities for embodied interaction. The exhibition reveals metamorphoses of the creative process—transformations of materials that have taken shape through the artist’s sensitive, persistent handiwork. This method is morphogenetic, a process of giving form to ideas, creating and transforming materials, similar to biological processes and life cycles. Combining natural and synthetic matter and merging ancient craft techniques with contemporary practices, the artist creates a timeless space to contemplate relationships between mental, physical, and social realms. How do we perceive ourselves when faced with the boundaries between self and the Other? What beliefs and values shape our relationship with the environment and those around us?

Displayed sketches, drawings, and sculptures visualize the artist’s thought processes and express personal bodily experiences. The exhibition intertwines found materials, soft and rigid sculptures, creative residues, and old works reinterpreted alongside new pieces, layering new meanings. “Morphogenesis” serves as a refuge for sensitive organisms, inspired by spatial experiences from Icelandic and Peruvian landscapes as well as the forests of Hiiumaa.

Kadri Liis Rääk is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher, focusing on creating immersive and tactile environments. Operating simultaneously in the expanded fields of art and design, she investigates how tactile interactions with artworks shift perceptions and foster dialogues extending beyond the visible. She studied scenography (BA) and contemporary art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts and autonomous design (MA) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (KASK, Belgium). Her works engage with bodily and symbolic narratives, addressing entanglements and dialogues between humans and other life forms. She has participated in exhibitions and residencies in Peru, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, and Estonia.

Sound design: Ekke Västrik

Special thanks: Raimond Põldmaa, Marika Agu, Kerli Praks, Siim Toomet, Liina Unt, Kristjan Vahtra 

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Artists’ Association

On the 3rd of April at 6pm, Hobusepea gallery will open Zody Burke’s solo exhibition “The House of Asterion”. A live performance will take place at 7pm by experimental musician & performance artist Nick Klein (US/DE).

A new series of works shall be introduced to gallery visitors, featuring sculptural high reliefs, illustrations (accompanied by short stories written by the artist), and several 3D floor-based sculptures, many of which contain oblique allegories to the Labyrinth of Greek mythology. These new works endeavor to challenge viewers to reconsider how modernity reimagines spaces of disorientation and entrapment. Through magical-realist reinterpretations of classical mythology, Burke offers varying glimpses of alternate narratives woven through the labyrinth. The sculpture Pasiphaë, Queen of the Rodeo draws thematic references from both the foundational Greek myth that inspired Borges’ story and contemporary Americana, bridging two distinct cultures—an ongoing theme in Burke’s work. The upstairs space, conceived in the clarity of the white cube, serves as a prelude to the darker, more visceral experience below. The exhibition utilises mythological tools to probe broader questions of power, identity, and the spaces we inhabit—whether spatial, digital, cultural, or existential.

Zody Burke (b.1991, Manhattan) is an American multimedia artist and musician who is currently living and working in Tallinn, Estonia. Informed by her perspective as a New Yorker displaced by the city’s economic inaccessibility, Burke creates cyphers through sculpture and other media through which to cartograph the complexity of American identity within late capitalism, exploring how this mutable identity is refracted and transfigured through the mirror of other cultural spatiality. Often utilizing narrative structures, she is interested in interfacing world-building with geological time, and visualizing a diffusion of boundaries between distinct countries & their national mythologies by the omnipresence of what lies beneath. She recently completed her master’s thesis at the Estonian Academy of Art, which attempted to bridge sociopolitical narratives, legacies, and trajectories of industrialization between Estonia & the USA.

Location Hobusepea gallery (Hobusepea 2, Tallinn)

The opening 03.04.2025 kell 18:00

Open for visit Mon, Wed-Sun 11am to 6pm

Curator Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design Taylor “Tex” Tehan

Title Typeface Brian Uhl

Technical support Hobusepea gallery, Gregor Sirendi

Support/Grateful to:

Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Paavli Kultuurivabrik, Valge Kuup Studio, Estonian Academy of Arts, Batuudijuss, Pruulikoda Tuletorn, Punch Club, Põhjala Pruulikoda, Kanuti Gildi Saal, Dan Edelstein, Nora Schmelter, Taylor “Tex” Tehan, Gert Gutmann, Lauri Raus, Jordan Reyes, Roberta Staats, Nora King, Harry Figueroa, Lara Brener, Nick Klein, Oscar Ramos, Jane Treima, Diandra Rebase, Michael Anthony Farley, Laura De Jaeger, Kerli Kurikka, Kaspar Kannelmäe, Composite EE, Karjase Sai

The 2025 Spring semester session of the Open Lectures ”City as novel ecosystem” focuses on landscape architecture and, more specifically, urban nature. 

The lecture series is being put together by landscape architects Karin Bachmann, Merle Karro-Kalberg and Anna-Liisa Unt, who have co-founded and edited the landscape architecture magazine ÕU for 7 years and are currently leading the project “Curated Biodiversity”, which experiments with ways to make urban landscaping more diverse as an environment. Therefore, the open lectures in the spring will also turn their attention to the quality of the space between buildings and, using the speakers’ words and creations, show how to make the city more biodiverse and enjoyable and how people and other species that call the city their home can live in symbiosis.

Next week, on April 3rd at 6:00 PM, Ingo Kowarik will give the next open lecture of the spring semester, “Wild Urban Nature: Challenge or Opportunity?”.

Cities have long been wrested from the wilderness, and traditional urban design often contrasts sharply with nature. Yet even highly urbanised areas can become places of wild nature, as seen in an unintended experiment in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. After 1945, many areas lay fallow, and in West Berlin, redevelopment progressed much more slowly than elsewhere. The study of urban revegetation — and its potential for quality of life and biodiversity conservation — made Berlin a cradle of modern urban ecology. The “Berlin School of Urban Ecology” uniquely integrates ecology, planning, and design. This approach, together with community-based activities, has enabled vast areas of urban wilderness to be woven into the city’s green system, despite growing land competition. The fusion of wilderness, design, and management has created distinctive green spaces that connect people with nature while supporting climate adaptation.

Ingo Kowarik studied landscape planning at TU Berlin and led the Department of Ecosystem Science/Plant Ecology for over 20 years. As Berlin’s honorary State Commissioner for Nature Conservation and Land Management, he was also involved in numerous green projects.

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture.

All lectures are held on Thursdays at 6 pm in the EKA main auditorium. All lectures are in English and free of charge.

Schedule of the Spring 2025 lectures:

March 27. Toposcape: Justyna Dziedziejko & Magdalena Wnęk https://toposcape.pl/

April 3. Ingo Kowarik https://www.tu.berlin/en/oekosys/about/team/ingo-kowarik

April 10. Jan van Schaik https://www.janvanschaik.com/

April 24. Taktyk https://taktyk.net/

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Faculty of Architecture of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year.

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

www.avatudloengud.ee

Aivar Tõnso’s solo exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State”
EKA Gallery 3.–6.04.2025
Open Thu–Fri 2–10 pm Sat 12–10 pm Sun 12–6 pm, free entry
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6 pm

Aivar Tõnso’s exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State” continues his experiments in the field of sound art that grew out of his musical work. The spatial sound exhibition, created with the Ebakõlar System, which relies on the sound characteristics of various materials, aims to push the boundaries of the listening experience, inviting viewers not only to listen, but also to actively perceive and participate in the sound space. It is possible to move within a sound composition without a definite beginning and end, which can be entered at any moment in time from any freely chosen direction.

Since sound and imagination are the central themes in Tõnso’s work, he also considers the character of sounds important, and as one way to achieve unique sounds, he often uses the constantly evolving Ebakõlar System built on the basis of various physical materials. Unlike commercial speakers designed for listening to music, Ebakõlar System do not try to play the widest possible sound frequency spectrum evenly. Each speaker has its own unique raw and undesigned character resulting from the properties of the material. It is also a process where the material visible to the eye acquires new hidden meanings due to the excitation by sounds.

Photos of the Ebakõlar System can be downloaded here.

Aivar Tõnso is a musician, sound artist and curator of interdisciplinary cultural events. He has been involved in electronic music creation since the early 90s and has participated in projects such as Hüpnosaurus, Kismabande, Kulgurid and Ulmer. Having long ventured into the fringes of club music and experimental electronic music, he has been active in the field of sound art in recent years both as an artist and as the organizer of the Üle Heli festival.

On Saturday, April 5th at 3 pm, artist Aivar Tõnso will give a guided tour at the exhibition in English.

The event is part of the Tallinn Music Week city program. Check out the full program here.

Graphic design by: Jaan Evart
Light design by: Rene Manivald Tamm
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Sadolin Estonia, Tallinn City and Tallinn Music Week.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

Thanks: Ian Simon Märjama, Maria Aua, Märt Vaidla, Tarvo Porroson, Tiina Tõnso, Timo Toots, Madis Reivik, Raivo Raidvee

Anu Jakobson’s solo exhibition “Finite_Jest.psd”
EKA Billboard Gallery 3.04.–25.05.2025
Open 24/7, free
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6.30 pm

Anu Jakobson’s paintings explore internet culture by using symbols and images that are widely spread online. Much like ancient civilizations used hieroglyphics and stone carvings for representation to encode power, myth, and collective identity, Jakobson’s work similarly engages with contemporary symbols. The cloudiness achieved with an airbrush emphasizes the virtual, while the painting itself resembles a file of poor quality. By translating these fleeting digital symbols into the physical permanence of a painting, the work reflects a return to classical representation. It suggests that, in the age of excessive information, our need to document and decode reality mirrors the visual storytelling of past civilizations.

Curated by: Kaisa Maasik
The exhibition is supported by Tallinn City.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

The Last Spring at the Central Market and the Exhibition in Keskpuur

A new exhibition is now open at the Keskpuur gallery on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The artist Jana Mätas’ “Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole” (There Was Something Here, or Maybe Not) invites viewers to reflect on the past, present, and future of the Central Market through materials, while contemplating the ever-present change in everything. The exhibition will remain open until April 6.

“When preparing for the exhibition, I visited the market quite often. I have always enjoyed environments that are a bit neglected and untidy, but right now, I enjoy it even more the more I think about neatly arranged cobblestones, aesthetically pleasing sales counters, and high-gloss white furniture. The people in these places are different, too.

And then one day, I remembered that the gravel roads leading to my childhood country house came from all directions. The cars passing by always drove with a white cloud behind them. All the plants by the roadside were covered with a thick layer of dust. I remember walking barefoot on the gravel road, the dust thick between my toes, and my calves were gray up to my knees. One had to walk very carefully so that it wouldn’t hurt too much on the soles. Sometimes, among the dusty stones, you could find ones that sparkled.”

Jana Mätas is an artist living and working in Tallinn, whose works are rooted in the physical world surrounding humans. Her pieces often begin with found objects, materials considered of little value, or abandoned items. The artist works largely intuitively to create surreal, worlds that exist outside of words. She has studied Estonian language and literature at the University of Tartu, dance at the Viljandi Culture Academy, and graduated with a BA in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2021). Since 2023, she has been studying contemporary art at the same institution (MA). *Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole* is her first solo exhibition.

In her works, Jana Mätas combines various material arts, craft techniques, light, space, literature, photography, and moving images.

Keskpuur is a gallery located on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The new construction of the Central Market will begin this coming summer, and the market, along with the gallery, will disappear.

Graphic design: Jana Mätas, Grete Kangro

On March 27 at 4:30 p.m in room A501

Formed by Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre,  EJTECH [ˈeɪtɛk’] is an polydisciplinary artist duo working with hyperphysical interfaces, programmable matter, and augmented textiles as media to investigate sensorial and conceptual relationships between subject and object, aiming to rediscover networks of emerging structures and immanent causality within realist metamaterialism. 

Sound, space, light and time as material building blocks are paramount elements in their practice, analyzing the process of unfolding patterns between technology and the human body. Driven by material research, resulting in performative installations, multichannel sonic sculptures and dynamic surfaces. Influenced by the philosophy of New Materialism, Holonic Theory and Somaesthetics, EJTECH aims to provide tools for exploring liminality, thirdspace, and the elusive state of now.

Their work has been presented in galleries, festivals and exhibitions such as Japan Media Arts Festival, European Media Arts Festival, Sensorium Festival, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Design Museum Holon, Ludwig Museum, Budapest Kunsthalle, LRRH Gallery, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Trafo House of Contemporary Arts, HayArt Center in Yerevan, Eastopics Gallery, Horizont Gallery, LOM Art Space, iii Instrument Inventors Initiative, Rewire among others.

EJTECH has created commissioned art pieces for cultural institutions and commercial brands such as DIOR, Blade Runner 2049, Dune: part two, Material ConneXion.

They regularly hold workshops and lectures on new media art and creative technology internationally. Founded the Soft Interfaces Lab in 2020 for further research in soft technology and material ecologies at MOME.

The artist duo currently works and lives in Budapest, Hungary.

Textile 110 is a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of EKA’s textile design education, as part of which a series of open lectures focusing on textiles will be held, a series of publications will be published, and a selection of works from the EKA Museum’s textile collection can be seen throughout the year.

The lecture series opens up the spectrum of diverse opportunities in the field of textiles, both in design, industry, and creative practices, bringing out different roles and methods of creation in the field through various invited guests.

Supported by the Research Fund of EKA and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Artist talk by Tris Vonna-Michell at 17:30 on March 4th in EKA, A-501

The artist is visiting EKA to run a workshop in the department of photography on March 24-26, 2025 together with Henrik Follesø Egeland.

Tris Vonna-Michell (1982) is an artist, publisher and guest professor in Expanded Performance and Installation at the Royal College of Art in Stockholm.

Recent works can be found in public collections such as Serralves Museum, Porto, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate Modern, London, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Vonna-Michell has exhibited widely, most recently at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

Vonna-Michell’s work utilises a plethora of technical devices, modes of presentation and installational approaches, encompassing performance, audio recordings, slide projections, poetry, sound poetry, printed matter, photography and film. Since 2010 he has been co-running the publishing space and analogue studio Mount Analogue.

https://www.vonna-michell.com

Annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on 10 April 2025.

Please register by 01.04.

PROGRAM

08.20 – Registration
08.30 – Opening words
prof. Linda Kaljundi (EKA Vice Rector for Research)

Panel 1: Cultural Heritage & Conservation, moderator prof. Victoria Donovan
08.35 Footwear Fashion in Late Medieval Europe
Tuuli Jõesaar (supervisors dr. Erki Russow, dr. Marquita Volken)

09.10 Climate Impact on Wall Paintings and Salt-Induced Decay
Mariam Sagaradze (supervisors dr. Lisa Shekede, dr. Anneli Randla, prof. Hilkka Hiiop)

09.45 Rethinking of Historical Wood Waste
Aljona Gineiko (supervisors dr. Mihkel Kiviste, dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.20 Eiffel’s Lighthouses and the Theseus’s Paradox: A Study of Identity and Change
Indrek Laos (supervisor dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.55 – Coffee, tea, snacks (15 min)

Panel 2: Art & Design, and Art History & Visual Culture, moderators dr. Jaana Päeva and prof. Andres Kurg
11.10 Painting as a Mirror: Symmetries and Reflections.
Sirja-Liisa Eelma (supervisor dr. Alari Allik)

11.45 Listen To My Scream: Autotheory in Practice-Based Research
Maria Kapajeva (supervisors dr. Redi Koobak, prof. Annika von Hausswolff)

12.20 What Kind of Art is Expected in School Buildings?
Karin Paulus (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Kara Diane Brown)

12.55 Oak Night: Looking for Any-Space-Whatevers in the Poststructuralist Thicket of Estonian Experimental Art and Literature in the 2000s
Sven Vabar (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Jaak Tomberg)

13.30 – Lunch break (30 min)

Panel 3: Architecture & Urban Planning, moderator dr. Jan van Schaik
14.00 Non-manifold Topology in Digital Architectural Models: Bridging Spatial Design and Industrial Production
Kaiko Kivi (supervisor dr. Renee Puusepp)

14.35 New Force Majeure in Urban Greenery: Nature Restoration and Amending
Regulation of the European Parliament and The Council
Karin Bachmann (supervisors prof. Urve Sinijärv, prof. Mart Kalm)

15.10 Climate Branding, Local Perceptions, and the YIMBY-NIMBY Conflict: The Case of Putukaväil Place-Making
Karina Vabson (supervisor prof. Maroš Krivy)

15.45 Chapters of Temperate. The Challenge of Doing More with Less in Urban
Greening
Anna-Liisa Unt (supervisor dr. Epp Lankots)

16.20 – Coffee, tea, snacks (10 min)

16.30 – Decolonising Research and Curating in Ukrainian Industrial Areas (= Institute of Art History and Visual Culture open lecture)*
prof. Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews), moderator prof. Linda Kaljundi

17.50 – Break (10 min)

18.00 – The Work is the Knowledge (= Faculty of Architecture open lecture)*
dr. Jan van Schaik (RMIT University, MvS Architects, Melbourne), moderator dr. Siim Tuksam

* The lectures are organised in cooperation with the Estonian Doctoral School. Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

More information:

Triin Metsla, triin.metsla@artun.ee
Mirje Tammaru, mirje.tammaru@artun.ee