A501
Start Date:
14.03.2025
Start Time:
10:00
End Date:
14.03.2025
The annual PhD Vitamin conference returns to the Estonian Academy of Arts on March 14, offering a day of inspiration, guidance and discussion for artists and designers considering doctoral studies.
PhD Vitamin is designed to support artists and creative practitioners with a research-driven approach, providing insight into artistic research as a methodology and helping potential candidates in planning on their doctoral thesis proposals. Through a series of public lectures, discussions and one-on-one consultations, experts in the field will share their work and experiences.
This year, the conference will focus on one of the key topics of the art doctoral program – Ecological Critique in Contemporary Art, exploring environmental and ecological perspectives within creative research. Speakers will reflect on how contemporary artistic practices engage with pressing ecological questions, fostering dialogue between artistic inquiry, sustainability, and environmental awareness.
For those considering doctoral studies, PhD Vitamin offers individual consultation sessions with invited experts and researchers. These 30-minute consultations provide feedback and guidance for finishing up a doctoral research proposal. Consultations will be scheduled in time slots following the conference.
The event is open to artists, designers, EKA alumni, graduate students and creative practitioners interested in artistic research methods and postgraduate studies.
Please register through the following LINK.
To participate in individual consultation to discuss your PhD proposal, please fill out the FORM. A detailed consultation schedule will be sent to your email after registration.
PROGRAMME
10:00 -10:30 Gathering, coffee and welcome words
10:30 -11:15 Keynote by Taru Elfving “Site-sensitive research on the shifting shorelines”
11:20 – 11:40 Presentation by John Grzinich “Serious play, experimentation or research? Stories from the field”
Lunch break
12:30 -12:50 Presentation by Britta Benno “Of Becoming a Land(scape). Abstract Geology as a Way of Thinking”
12:55 -13:40 Keynote by Pascal Marcel Dreier “Activist Aesthetic Research”
Coffee break
13:50 -14:15 Discussion and Q&A, moderator Kirke Kangro.
SPEAKERS:
Taru Elfving, PhD, is a curator and writer focused on nurturing undisciplinary and site-sensitive enquiries at the intersections of ecological, feminist and decolonial practices. As artistic director of CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago she currently leads a research residency programme on the island of Seili in the Baltic Sea. Her curatorial projects include Research Pavilion (Uniarts, Helsinki, 2023); Hours, Years, Aeons (Finnish Pavilion, Venice, 2015); Frontiers in Retreat (HIAP, Helsinki, 2013-18); Towards a Future Present (LIAF, Lofoten, 2008). She has co-edited publications such as Contemporary Artist Residencies (Valiz 2019) and Altern Ecologies (Frame 2016). Elfving lives and works in Helsinki.
https://contemporaryartarchipelago.org/about/
Britta Benno is a drawing and printmaking artist living in Tallinn. Benno is constantly extending the fields and combining conventional media with unexpected layers. Benno defended her doctoral thesis Thinking in Layers, Worlding in Layers: Posthuman Landscapes in the Expanded Field of Printmaking and Drawing in 2023. Benno is working as a lecturer in the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her artworks have been exhibited throughout Europe, also in Australia and Canada.
Pascal Marcel Dreier listens to and narrates more-than-human stories. They combine aspects of aesthetic research with activist, forensic, and ethnographic methods, employing a multitude of media such as 3D laser measurement data, bones, game engines, video, sound, and music. Pascal co-founded the non profit research group TRACES Studio for Creative Investigation (Berlin) and is a member of Minding Animals Germany. They studied Media and Fine Arts with a focus on Artistic Research at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and hold an MA in Art & Ecology from Goldsmiths, University of London. Currently, Pascal is assistant professor of Multispecies Storytelling at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and teaches, talks, and holds workshops at universities and art institutions internationally, among them the University of Cambridge, University of Western Australia, University of Siegen, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, Karlstad University, and Köln International School of Design (KISD).
www.pascaldreier.com
multispecies.studio
traces.studio
John Grzinich (b. 1970 in United States) is an audio-visual artist based in Estonia. His work integrates sound, moving images and site-specific installations to explore perceptions of sound and space, seeking resonances between people and places. Grzinich’s recent focus questions our anthropocentric views through performative and fixed media works by combining earthly agencies, expanded listening practices and participatory engagement.
For more information contact kati.saarits@artun.ee