Academic Calendar

Rahul Sharma is currently working as a junior-researcher doctoral student in the Department of Art History and Visual Culture at Estonian Academy of Arts. His research is focused on identities in film, migration as well as gallery films. The seminar is a presentation of certain key aspects derived from his upcoming book titled The Phantasmagorical and Ethnographic World of Amit Dutta.

Amit Dutta (b. 1977) is one of the most significant contemporary practitioners of avant-garde Indian cinema. Over the course of his oeuvre, he has created a large body of cinematic works, which number over sixty. With an inherent non-narrative structure, Several of Dutta’s films arguably fall under the category of gallery films and post-cinema. This seminar will begin by looking at the concepts of post-cinema and what has been broadly described as “gallery films” (Fowler, 2004), “new cinematic aesthetic in video” (Iles, 2003) or “cinema of the exhibition” (Royoux, 2000). In particular, it will analyse how Dutta’s cinematic works re-define the contemporary gallery space through his practices. His films such as Chitrashala (2015) and A Game of Shifting Mirrors (2021) look at gallery spaces in different ways. While Chitrashala lingers onto a spectatorless gallery space only to then let loose its depiction of pahari miniatures with animated techniques, Games of Shifting Mirrors (2021) questions the role of the gallery and brings to light the displacement of art over the time-space continuum. The seminar will also briefly discuss his four part 240-minute art-installation cum cinema project Finished/Unfinished (2015). The work circumambulates around the 8th century Shaivite Masrur complex located in Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh, much like an old Buddhist monk lost in a religious trance. The work lets the viewers engage in a thorough 360-degree survey of the complex: part-by-part, following each detail as it circumambulates the temple from the forest paths and roads up until the sacred womb.
Dutta’s film Nainsukh (2010), which was named as the Top 30 best-biopics ever made by the New Yorker, will also be a key focal point of the discussion, in how it enlivened recreations of miniature pahari paintings, endemic to the region of Himachal Pradesh in India. Dutta’s employment of the tableaux-vivant style as well as painterly approaches to cinematic techniques will be discussed.
The seminar will look at certain aspects of the aforementioned works in close detail.
Several of Dutta’s films are available online through paid-Vimeo services, while Nainsukh can be viewed for free on Museum Rietberg’s website.

On Friday, August 30th, starting at 12:00, the opening ceremony of the 2024/25 academic year will be held. The ceremony takes place in the main hall (A101) and lasts approximately 1.5 hours.

 

The 1980s and 1990s were marked by events around the world that radically changed the political order, people’s beliefs and attitudes, and the entire cultural and intellectual orientation of much of the globe. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War stand out as the most important changes, in the shadow of which the events in Yugoslavia and important changes elsewhere are often overlooked by European commentators. These events, taken as a whole, have been seen as part of broader processes of democratization, even as, at the same time, this period was also marked by outbreaks of extreme nationalism and radical religious ferment.

The planned conference invites participants to reflect on the following questions:
– In what ways does democracy manifest itself in the culture of the transitional period of the 1990s?– What are the common features and differences of the transition period in different post-socialist countries?
– What different theoretical frameworks can be used to analyze the culture of this period?
– What are the new forms of cultural negotiation between different cultural traditions and elements?
– How might we describe the way cultural imaginaries and experiences of temporality have changed?
– Which transgressive tendencies arose to challenge the narrative of imaginary unity between different cultural spheres?
– How is one to describe the dynamic of the forces at play in the transition between the mentality of social collectivism and the new liberal individualism?
– How, if at all, has the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 altered understandings of the transition period and its narratives?

Organizing Committee:
Virve Sarapik, Estonian Academy of Arts
Epp Annus, Tallinn University
Luule Epner, Tallinn University
Regina-Nino Mion, Estonian Academy of Arts
Jaak Tomberg, University of Tartu
Piret Viires, Tallinn University

The conference is being organized by the Research Group of Contemporary Estonian Culture, which unites scholars from the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn University and the University of Tartu. The research is funded by the project PRG636 “Patterns of Development in Estonian Culture of the Transition Period (1986–1998).”

The conference was co-funded by:

On Friday, September 1, starting at 12:00, the opening ceremony of the 2023/24 academic year will be held. The ceremony lasts approximately 1.5 hours.

This year’s Graduation Ceremonies will be held on June 21th in the EKA gallery and main hall (room A101, Põhja puiestee 7, Tallinn).

11am – graduates of Faculties of Design

3pm – graduates of Faculties of Architecture, Art Culture, Fine Arts and Doctoral School

NB! Dear graduate, please come to the EKA gallery 15 minutes earlier, so we can lead you to your place. Guests can sit in the hall or watch the ceremonies in the lobby on the screens or online on EKA TV.

SCHEDULE OF DEFENSES

Defenses will take place at EKA, Põhja pst 7

Live streaming in EKA TV

room A501

 

Urban Studies Master’s Thesis Defense

29. May 

 

10.00-11.15 DARIA KHRYSTYCH (In)Visible Care: Civilian Volunteerism in Wartime Ukraine.

11.20-12.20 NABEEL IMITIAZ  The Infrastructure of Border Regime: Neocolonial Subjugation of Life in Modern Democratic Societies.

12.45-13.45 OLEKSANDR NENEKO Mapping Out The Dual Crisis of War and Housing in Dnipro, Ukraine. 

13.45-14.45 KHADEEJA FARRUKH. Towards The Everyday of Transnational Lives: From Sonnenallee in Neukölln to The Globalization In Question. 

 

Juhendajad: Sean Tyler ja Keiti Kljavin.

 

 

Arhitektuuri ja linnaplaneerimise magistritööde kaitsmised 

30. ja 31. May EKA, room A501

 

30. mai

 

9.00-9.45 MARK ALEKSANDER FISCHER Taskukohase linna arendamine. Kopli kaubajaam, viimane pusletükk Põhja-Tallinna sotsiaalsel maastikul.

Juhendajad Andres Alver, Douglas Gordon, Eik Hermann.

9.45-10.30 OLARI PAADIMEISTER Tihendamine kui ruumiline töövahend tuleviku linnade probleemide lahendamisel.

Juhendajad Andres Alver, Douglas Gordon, Eik Hermann.

10.30-11.15 JOHAN HALLIMÄE Helidega planeeritud linn.

Juhendajad Andres Alver, Douglas Gordon, Eik Hermann.

 

11.15 – 11.30 kohvipaus

 

11.30-12.15 KRISTOFER SOOP Avang 59°39’ N, 25°42’ E, Loksa sadama, Loksa ja Lahemaa piirideülene ruumikäsitlus Läänemeremaade kontekstis.

Juhendajad Andres Alver, Douglas Gordon, Eik Hermann.

12.15-13.00 ANETT GRIFFEL Katkestustest ühendusteks. Kopli lahe kallasrada.

Juhendajad Katrin Koov, Kadri Klementi, Eik Hermann.

13.00-13.45 KATARIINA MUSTASAAR Tööstusjärgne meremaastik. Paljassaare sadama taimtervendamine. 

Juhendajad Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa, Eik Hermann.

 

13.45 – 14.45 lõuna

 

14.45-15.30 KADI PIHLAK Rattateede võrgustiku planeerimise ja hindamise metoodika.

Juhendajad Martin Melioranski, Raul Kalvo, Eik Hermann.

15.30-16.15 ANNA RIIN VELNER Camino de igapäev.

Juhendajad Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa, Eik Hermann.

16.15-17.30 SIIM TANEL TÕNISSON Linna ühendamine. Bastionivöönd kui linna sidusstruktuur.

Juhendajad Martin Melioranski, Raul Kalvo, Eik Hermann.

 

31. May

 

9.00-9.45 LINDA LI ARRO Linnaga sidusa tööstuskvartali arendamine. Laki kvartali potentsiaalid rohepöördes.

Juhendajad Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa, Eik Hermann.

9.45-10.30 CAROLINA REIDMA Parkimismajade taasmõtestamine Maakri asumi näitel.

Juhendajad Toomas Tammis, Tarmo Teedumäe, Eik Hermann.

10.30-11.15 ART BOGDANOVICS Tartu Ülikooli Keskus.

Juhendajad Toomas Tammis, Tarmo Teedumäe, Eik Hermann.

11.15-12.00 UKU JULIAN TARVAS Kohaldatavad korterelamud väikeasulas. Palivere aleviku näitel. 

Juhendajad Toomas Tammis, Tarmo Teedumäe, Eik Hermann.

 

12.00 – 13.00 lõuna

 

13.00-13.45 KATRIN LANG Hüljatud hoonete kasutuselevõtu strateegia ja lahtivõetavate hoonete iseehitamise manuaal.

Juhendajad Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa, Eik Hermann

13.45-14.30 LOORA ORAV Tööstuskanepi rakendamine arhitektuurse materjalina ehitussektori keskkonnamõju vähendamiseks Eestis.

Juhendajad Martin Melioranski, Raul Kalvo, Eik Hermann.

14.30-15.15 KERTU JOHANNA JÕESTE Vastastikusel toel põhinevad puitstruktuurid.

Juhendajad Martin Melioranski, Raul Kalvo, Eik Hermann.

15.15-16.00 DELIJA THAKUR Materjali kui ressursi elu pikendamine. Liivalaia kohtumaja juhtum.

Juhendajad Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa, Eik Hermann.

 

On Friday, September 2, starting at 12:00, the opening ceremony of the 2022/23 academic year will be held. The ceremony lasts approximately 1.5 hours.

Roemer van Toorn, external PhD candidate of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend his thesis „Making Architecture Politically. From Fresh Conservatism to Aesthetics as a Form of Politics“ on 7th of September 2022 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defence can be followed in EKA TV  tv.artun.ee.

External reviewers: Prof. Panu Lehtovuori (Tampere University of Technology), Prof. Arie Graafland (Delft University of Technology).

Opponent: Prof. Arie Graafland

The defense will be held in English.

Making Architecture Politically opens with an analysis of the current conjecture of Neoliberalism through the concept of the Society of the And, opposing an understanding of our condition through modes of Eitherorism. It is a voyage, travelling along the many interdependencies of the revolutionary conservatisms of Fresh Conservatism and Progressive Neoliberalism today — parallel to the arrival of a new phase of global modernisation with a special and elaborated focus on the role of contemporary architecture in Dutch society from the 1990s — while its second chapter moves beyond Fresh Conservatism; towards a possible third of emancipation in architecture with its plea for an Aesthetics as a Form of Politics towards a cosmopolitical outlook.

Chapter one, entitled Fresh Conservatism critically addresses how the much-celebrated Superdutch movement in architecture paved the way of an upcoming Neoliberal phase of capitalism. The problem for many was not to make political architecture, on the contrary, its innovative practices — without being too conscious about the political — affirmed what later was called the post-political. With Aesthetics as a Form of Politics of chapter two, exemplary alternative horizons of possibility are being discerned; ones that make architecture politically through their aesthetic regime. It has everything to do with how freedom can be created with constraints, how one can dance with enmeshment, can move beyond limiting adversary, and dare to create lives of sustained optimal wellbeing and joy through the redistribution of the sensible. By grappling with making architecture politically, finding it wanting through critical analysis, observing the exemplary and often a-political role contemporary Dutch architecture played in the 90s and onward, it turns out the problem is not to make political architecture — all architecture is political — but how to make architecture politically.

Making architecture politically is about the creation of running room; a sense of polity — an aesthetic regime redistributing the sensible — that allows for a multiplication of connections and disconnections that reframe the relations between people, the world they live in, and the way they are supposed to act and behave. Such a field of possibility concerns a multiplicity of folds and gaps in the fabric of the common experience of the human and non-human that change the cartography of the perceptible, the imaginative and the feasible. As such, it allows for new modes of political construction of common objects and emancipatory possibilities of collective and private enunciation. Instead of slipping into paternalism or control, the idea of such a radical openness is characterized by indeterminacy, nuance, incommensurability, dissensus and the multitude of encounters it could generate. It is about a becoming that breaks open the conventional way space is experienced, thought and distributed, one that displaces the binary dialectics of colonizer and colonized, the one against the other by introducing a third (And) that belongs to both the one and the other while opening alternative horizons.

Members of the Defence Committee: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Renee Puusepp, Prof. Maros Krivy, Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Claus Peder Pedersen.

Please find the PhD thesis HERE.

This year, the graduation party takes place on 21th of June, starting from 19:00 in the EKA Gallery.

In addition to the graduating students, all other students, graduates and staff are welcome to attend. To kick off the party, there will be a drag show followed by the band Arg Part.

After the band, DJs will take over. The EKA X SVETA BAR will be serving both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks all night long. Guests can also capture the night in the photobooth which will be installed next to the gallery. 

The EKA Grad Party is hosted by EKA Student Council. 

SCHEDULE: 

19:00 – beginning of the party 

19:30-21:00 – Drag Show

21:00-23:00 – Arg Part

23:00-00:00 – DJ Silikaat

00:00-03:00 — DJ YALLAH b2b DJ HOLY MOUNTAIN 

Event on Facebook