Events

Artists: Brit Kikas, Jakub Tulinger, Nora Schmelter, Viktor Kudriashov
Curator: Katarina Nyyssönen
Graphic Design: Oliver Long

On Thursday, May 26 at 6 pm EKA students invite you to join with a critical run, we take over and question the existence of a man-made mound of soil and look at what such a natural buffer zone in the middle of the city symbolizes. A critical run is an art format created by Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel and will be used to open a discussion, to reflect and debate during the run. We will end the run to enter an exhibition platform where traces already exist and can be actualized. To what extent of interaction do we see this platform still as a part of nature? This exhibit brings into interest human connections between nature and artificial.

“People’s natural need to spend time in nature has not disappeared: instead of being amused, they like to chill…” – Juhan Hint, Sirp 2019 

EXTENSION
Skoone bastion

Do you think differently when you run?
Is reconstruction constant?
Human shelter, a form of forgotten space?
Can we give structure to nature?
Do you leave traces?
Will traces become permanent?
Or permanent become nature?
Are we creating our own models of nature by leaving traces?
Do we perceive an intervention as artificial?
Or is it becoming part of the existing ecosystem?
With losing its functionality?
Artificial nature, a created image excluding reality?

A long forgotten green space in the middle of the city, shows the mankinds attitude towards the environment and what surrounds us. Even the protection that the underground tunnels have provided in the past has been forgotten, despite the current state of the world.

Start: Critical Run, 26.05.2022 at 18:00 (Meeting point in front of EKA) 

End: Skoone bastioni, Rannamäe tee, Entrance to the tunnels

Supported by: Estonian Academy of Arts, Sveta Bar

Additional information:
Katarina Nyyssönen
katarina.nyyssonen@artun.ee
+372 53021657

 

June 6-7 at EKA Library

Portfolio Café is structured around one on one meetings that take place between local and international fine arts field professionals and EKA BA and MA level students. Each meeting takes place about 45 minutes. During Portfolio Café sessions students introduce themselves and their work and experts share their observations, provide recommendations, ask questions etc. After the first scheduled conversation student moves on to the next selected expert they have signed up for. 

All Portfolio Café meetings are in English.

Registration:  Portfolio Café invites all fine art students from the BA and MA level to participate. The spots are limited and participants will be chosen according to the provided portfolios. 

 

To apply, please fill out this registration form before June 3 and upload your portfolio.  

 

EXPERTS

Ulla Marquardt is a German artist and educator whose work revolves around people’s aspirations and determination to leave behind often dire working and living conditions and come a little closer to their hopes and dreams. In her photographic series and her mostly site-specific video installations, the different parts play together to form a complex visual experience that enables a dialogue – both within the different parts of the installation and between the artwork and the viewer. The second aspect in her works is the exploration of the phenomena of beauty and transience in nature.

www.ulla-marquardt.com

Lilian Hiob (b. 1991) is a curator, gallerist and art agent. She is a manager at Temnikova & Kasela gallery, also a founder of an independent gallery located in her basement, Hoib gallery. Together with Siim Preiman she is hosting a monthly radio show Vitamin K at IDA radio, dedicated to contemporary art.

Anna Zača (b. 1984) – curator, programmer and project manager in the field of animated and short film. Anna studied Art History and Theory in Latvia and Animation in Estonia. She has been the creative director of 2ANNAS ISFF and one of the founders of Riga International Film Festival, in 2015 she founded SHORT RIGA a section dedicated to short and artist film within Riga International Film Festival. Since 2016 Anna has been the Head of the Latvian Animation Association and since 2018 she is one of the Board Members at the European Animation Awards.

Audrius Pocius (b. 1991) is a curator and a philosopher currently based in Vilnius. In his curatorial practices he is mainly focused on conceptual and performative aspects of art and their potency for social and cultural critique. Audrius has been a curator and educator at CAC Vilnius up until he co-founded Swallow space for contemporary art together with his co-conspirators. He is also lecturing on various topics related to philosophy, aesthetics and contemporary culture at Vilnius University, Vilnius Academy of Art and Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

www.swallow.lt

Siim Preiman (b. 1992) works as a curator at Tallinn Art Hall and runs a mobile art platform gallery gallery. He is characterised by a strong awareness of the environment and a desire for a more equal society. Preiman’s curatorial projects sprout from the personal and, with the help of co-creators, grow into collective platforms that address various generational pain points. The exhibitions he has convened have addressed among other issues  the expanded sense of self, changing Eastern Europeanism, the ethics of art-making and the national landscape. More recently, he has been reflecting on hospitality, gender, violence and living as a whole. 

Major projects include the group exhibition “Mändfulness” at Tallinn City Gallery (2021), the temporary project space March 1 in Tallinn Old Town (2021), the group exhibition “The Art of Being Good” at Tallinn Art Hall (2019) and the durability project/mobile platform gallery gallery (2016 – …).

www.galeriigalerii.ee

 

Portfolio Café is supported by the European Regional Development Fund EKA LOOVKÄRG (2014-2020.4.01.20-0288).

 

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 and Art Culture

3pm – graduates of Faculties of Architecture and Fine Art

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.

TASE’22
Estonian Academy of Arts Grad Show
28.05–09.06, open daily 12–6 pm

Opening: 27.05, 4pm @EKA

tase.artun.ee

Exhibition locations:
EKA, Põhja pst 7
Vent Space, Vabaduse väljak 6-8
ARS Art Factory, Pärnu mnt 154
Rotermanni kvartal, Rotermanni 7

TASE is the annual graduation show of the Estonian Academy of Arts. It presents the final projects of Fine Arts, Architecture, Design, and Art and Culture faculties’ master’s students, along with the final artworks by Fine Arts and Design faculties’ bachelor’s students. The opening of the main exhibition and TASE’22 webpage tase.artun.ee takes place on May 27th at 4 pm at EKA!
Most of the works are exhibited at EKA on all five floors and including EKA Gallery and Billboard Gallery. Additionally, you can visit the exhibition at ARS Art Factory (Project Space, Showroom and room 112), Vent Space, Rotermanni 7, Lai 31, Kanuti Gildi Hall Cellar, Kadriorg Art Museum, Poordi 3 and Loewenschede tower on Kooli str 7. See more info on the programme.

tase.artun.ee opens simultaneously with the main exhibition on May 27th!

In addition to the works at the main exhibition, written theses by PhD and Art and Culture graduates and grad works from the rest of the BA graduates will be presented on tase.artun.ee. Last year’s TASE page can be found at tase20.artun.ee and tase21.artun.ee.

Young Artist Award and Young Applied Artist Award

The Young Artist Award and Young Applied Artist Award winners at the master’s and bachelor’s levels will be announced at the opening of TASE main exhibition. The prizes are each 1500€.
Young Artist Award winner at the master’s level will be chosen from Contemporary Art graduation works and at the bachelor’s level from the Graphic Art, Installation and Sculpture Painting, and Photography graduation works. The master’s prize includes a solo exhibition at the Hobusepea or Draakon gallery in 2023. This year’s jury members are art professionals Elin Kard, Marko Mäetamm, Aleksander Zahharov, Karolin Poska (only MA), Sigrid Viir and Maarin Ektermann.
Young Applied Artist Award winners will be selected from the Design and Crafts graduation works. The master level prize includes a solo exhibition at the HOP Gallery. The jury members are Maria Valdma, Ketli Tiitsar, Gregor Taul, Keiu Krikmann and Tiina Sarapu.

PROGRAMME

Exhibition opening ceremony
27.05 at 16.00, EKA lobby

Theses defences
30.05–15.06, www.artun.ee/kaitsmised

TASE FILM
04.06 at 17.00, A101

Scenography bachelors’ works exhibition “Kujundliku Mõtte Labor”
Estookin, Kristel Zimmer, Anita Kremm, Linda Mai Kari, Liisamari Viik, supervisor Ene-Liis Semper
28.05–07.06, open every day at 12.00–18.00, opening on 27.05 at 18.00
Lai 31, II floor

Graphic Design master’s graduation works “Silence After Early Hours”
Mucho Mustachio (Alejandro Bellón Ample), Louise Borinski, Daddy Breezy (Aleksandrs Breže), Energy Star (Paula Buškevica), Reese (Björn Giesecke), Tropaasi (Otso Peräsaari), Foxy (Diandra Rebase), miss S (Katarina Sarap)
04–11.06 at 13.00–19.00
Opening 03.06 at 18.00, finissage 11.06 at 21.00
Kanuti Guild Hall Cellar, Pühavaimu 5
www.silenceafterearlyhours.eka-gd-ma.ee

“Piiritu”, curator Nele Ambos
Cultural Heritage and Conservation master’s graduation work
Lilly Walther
23.02–29.05, Wed, Fri-Sun at 11.00–18.00, Thu at 11.00–20.00
Tartu Art Museum, Raekoja plats 18, Tartu

“ars viva 2022 – tajuvälja agendid”, curator Maria Helen Känd
Curator studies master’s graduation work
Tamina Amadyar, Laura Põld, Lewis Hammond, Jānis Dzirnieks, Anastasia Sosunova, Mooni Perry
09.04–07.09, Wed-Sun at 12.00–18.00
Kai kunstikeskus, Peetri 12

“Visible Storage Gallery for the Sculpture Collection”, curator Maria Väinsar
Department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation, master’s thesis
18.05.2022–31.12.2024
Tue, Thu-Sun at 10.00–18.00, Wed at 10.00–20.00
Kadriorg Art Museum, Weizenbergi 37, 10127 Tallinn

Olev Kuma “Transmission”
Painting bachelor’s graduation work
28.05–09.06, every day at 11.00–19.00
Poordi 3

Caroline Pajusaar “Inferno”
Bachelor’s thesis in Graphics
27.05–10.06, Mon-Fri at 11.00–18.00
Loewenschede tower, Kooli 7 (entrance from the park, last floor)

SATELLITE PROGRAMME

Open Academy exhibition “Maalikunsti A, B, C… ja Z lõputööde näitus”
Kaia Hommik, Ivo Kuldmäe, Anne-Mari Rannamäe, Jana Koel, Gerli Pesor, Andri Lõhek, Mari-Helen Vili, Kristine-Kristi Kasak, Ülle Soitu, Astrid Mägi, Mari Annuka, Raili Moldov
20.05–28.05, Wed-Fri at 12.00–18.00, Sat at 12.00–16.00, opening 19.05 at 18.00
Artdepoo gallery, Jahu 12-213

Jewellery and Blacksmithing II year student exhibition “NIHE”
Anna-Maria Vaino, Ardo Teesalu, Bianca Triinu Toots, Hugo Toss, Margus Elizarov, Villu Mustkivi, Visa Eino Eduard Nurmi, Ellen Axberg, Camilla Prey
20.05–02.06 at 12.00–20.00, opening 19.05 at 18.00
Uus 4

Photoart Academy exhibition “Ruumis”
Marcus Kallavus, Marta Khrshanovskaya, Silvi Kiin, Elias Kuulmann, Kristi Leps, Margus Metsaäär, Jaanus Muruõis, Nelli Pello, Kärt Petser, Annika Vihmann
Open 24/7, opening 07.06 at 18.00,
Telliskivi 64

 

Head organiser: Pire Sova
Assistant: Dana Lorên Vares
Exhibition design: Brigit Arop, Katarina Ild, Anabel Ainso
Communication: Solveig Jahnke, Andres Lõo, Maarja Pabut
Graphic design: Birgita Siim, Agnes Isabelle Veevo, Aaro Veiderpass
Web coordinator: Kert Väljak
TASE FILM and opening event: Johanna Kuzmenko, Ligia Fernandes

 

Supported by Eesti Kultuurkapital, Kasevetekohin, Mistra, AkzoNobel, BigBerry

On Thursday, June 9, at 6 pm, we will open an exhibition of works by architecture students of the Estonian Academy of Arts in the Krull Quarter. In the evening, the first introduction of the Timber Architecture Research Center PAKK will take place.

The pop-up exhibition “REKrulli: reconstructing spacial culture” is an official side event of the New European Bauhaus Festival and it will remain open until June 12.

The REKrulli studio’s objective was to develop flexible architecture from sustainable materials, based on digital design and fabrication. We were looking at possible ways of living together beyond the usual apartment association home ownership model, while developing contemporary building structures that can produce adaptable and efficient solutions for the creation of high quality spaces with a positive environmental impact. 

REKrulli superstudio supports the ongoing research project “sLender” at EKA PAKK which examines what type of apartment building does Tallinn need today and how to solve a new apartment building using the best knowledge of the Estonian wooden house industry and architects.

 

SCHEDULE OF THE OPENING EVENT:

15.00 Presentations of the five best works of the Estonian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale *

17.30 Opening of the installation “Steampunk” *

Exhibition:

18.00 Introduction of the EKA Wooden Architecture Competence Center PAKK, researchers and guests speak.

18.30 Students of the Faculty of Architecture of EKA will present the visions of apartment buildings and the results of the REKrull superstudio.

 

THE EXHIBITION IS OPEN:

Thursday, June 9, 6 p.m. – Opening night

Friday, June 10, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, June 11, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday, June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 

Students:

Triinu Amboja, Mariia Babur, Grete Daut, Simon Eiland, Roosmarii Kukk, Helin Kuldkepp, Patrick Liik, Kristina Lillepea, Maria Helena Luiga, Mattias Ots, Mariia Paslova, Yelyzaveta Perel, Yelyzaveta Peresada, Daria Polonska, Anna Pushkarska, Mikael Ristmets, Martin Sepp, Sander Sinnep, Kaari Maria Tirmaste, Cristin Marii Titma, Aneth Traumann, Mariia Ufimtseva, Liispet Viira, Laura Liis Vilbiks, Dalia Viškelyt

 

Tutors:

Architectural planning: Siim Tuksam, Sille Pihlak

Structural analysis and energy design: Adam Orlinski (Bollinger+Grohmann)

Anthropological analysis: Mattias Malk

Landscape architecture: Karin Bachmann

 

* The opening of the exhibition will be preceded at 3 pm by the public presentations of the five best works of the Estonian Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale and the opening of the installation “Steampunk” in the Krull Quarter. The event is organized by the Estonian Center of Architecture.

Preservation has achieved cultural significance as a lens through which various urban experts have come

to imagine what a socially and environmentally sound future might look like. As an approach, preservation has been applied to disparate phenomena ranging from historic neighbourhoods and natural environments to democracy and identity. This studio unfolded the formative concepts and historic moments that define contemporary understandings of preservation and applied these discussions to various typologies of architecture, urban fabric and the natural environment taking Pärnu and the wider region as a case study. In particular, the studio focused on the ways in which ideas, labour and design have intersected in the past to identify alternatives to the mainstream forms of preservation.

The studio culminates with a presentation of group projects that explore a variety of approaches to layers of heritage and questions of preservation in Pärnu and Sindi. Pärnu, the fourth largest city in Estonia, is struggling with the seemingly conflicting and contradictory notions of growth, shrinkage, preservation and destruction. Sindi, as a smaller town in the region, faces similar, but also additional challenges connected to its significant industrial heritage. Efforts to imagine and construct a vision for a city are also tied up with the tactile practices of preservation; set within specific administrative and management frameworks of maintenance, care, and neglect. 

Despite intentions, prescriptive visions by the city and developers can serve to exacerbate inequalities through the various infrastructures, supply chains, policies and environmental conditions that extend well beyond the rigid borders of a city.

Can the concept of preservation open a discussion around a vision for Pärnu (and its hinterlands)

beginning not with growth and progress, but rather with repair, maintenance or even deterioration?

Student projects explore who gets to decide what is valuable, organise the preservation of things, and who then carries out the work. Negotiations about what should be preserved and what “good preservation” entails, are always contingent and contextual.

 

Projects: 

• • Decompressed Transition: Paula Veidenbauma, Nora Soo and Jannik Kastrup
  • Tides of a Summer City: Khadeeja Farrukh, Anna Dzebliuk and Christian Hörner
  • Fabricated Heritage – Interweaving the Past and Future of Sindi’s Kalevivabrik: Luca Riese Ritter, Paulina Schroeder and Augustas Lapinskas
  • Tea, Coffee or Hot Water?: What to Make of the Boiler Room: Kush Badhwar, Nabeel Imtiaz and Paul Simon

Decompressed Transition

Paula Veidenbauma, Nora Soo and Jannik Kastrup

 

Pärnu is caught between diverging time regimes. In its role as a major spa and resort town, the city aims at slowing down the rhythm of life of the urban workforce. In parallel, the developments surrounding Rail Baltica will likely greatly compress this rhythm within Pärnu. The project examines frameworks of the relationship between those phenomena. It deals with instances of built and immaterial heritage and acts of preserving, especially the latter through shifting political systems. The float, emerging as the central piece of the project, can be interpreted as a gradient operating between Rail Baltica (a linear and high-velocity infrastructure), Pärnu’s leisure facilities and the open sea. It might function as a means of transportation while also exploring the possibility of non-arrival.

Visitors will be engaging with the project via a video installation, a float building workshop and a presentation. Float building instructions will be summarised in a booklet.

 

Tides of a Summer City

Khadeeja Farrukh, Anna Dzebliuk and Christian Hörner

 

The project explores possible resilient futures in Pärnu as a resort city. Showing how the “Summer City” developed historically, the video installation extrapolates empirical insights through Pärnu’s present-day reality into a future of constant flood emergency. The installation mobilizes futuristic renderings of possible resilient futures after a catastrophic flooding event to juxtapose and question the concepts of heritage, seasonality and resilience. We touch upon the inter-urban dependencies between Pärnu and Tallinn, manifesting historically, materially and spatially at the seaside of Estonia’s summer capital, securing the cities influx of holidaymakers during summer, but also causing issues of urban disenfranchisement of its residents, exploitation of its workers and destruction of coastal habitats of non-human residents. Looking into the future, it will no longer be possible to brush over the threat of flooding and the prospect of permanent crisis. The project “Tides of a Summer City” asks hypothetical questions, working towards a framework for understanding future challenges by following the changing historical tides of a summer city.

 

Fabricated Heritage – Interweaving the Past and Future of Sindi’s Kalevivabrik

Luca Riese Ritter, Paulina Schroeder and Augustas Lapinskas

The project explores the significance of Sindi´s industrial heritage. In recent decades, globalisation, deindustrialization, economic restructuring and industrial relocation have produced new landscapes within many European cities and towns – the post-industrial landscape. Deprived of their raison d’être, they are often regarded as spatially, socially, and semiotically empty places. In order to overcome this apparent ‘void’, the transformation of these post-industrial remnants into new uses is now an essential part of urban development practice.  

Turning to industrial landscapes as potential carriers of cultural heritage ostensibly provides a  framework for the continued management of these sites. Industrial heritage then becomes the bearer of local identity and creates uniqueness out of the former mundane. 

The town of Sindi, a place essentially born from the settlement of a textile factory in the early 19th century, is in the process of discussing the reintegration of the material remains of industrial production into the town’s fabric which, since the closure of Kalevivabrik, the textile factory, has outgrown its original purpose. In this process of readjusting the relationship between factory-gone-ruin and the reorientation of the city, our project seeks to understand the potentials and conflicts that arise from industrial heritage, while taking a critical perspective at the practices of heritage preservation and its political implications. How and by whom is the town’s history preserved and remembered? Can there be a value of the material remains in the process of their decay? What is the role of heritage as a legal imperative? What role can the factory building play in the future of Sindi? 

Tea, Coffee or Hot Water?: What to Make of the Boiler Room

Kush Badhwar, Nabeel Imtiaz and Paul Simon

Drawing on the interest in the role of the educational institution Academia Non-Grata, elephants and other far-out references, the project explores junctions between the plan, the script and performance; preservation, the boiler room in the wider fabric of Pärnu; and the pitfalls and possibilities of experimental approaches to planning.

Plans for places chart a set of intentions that seek to influence the future of a place. Could the duration in which a plan is enacted be considered a performance?

Conversely, the script may be considered the plan for a performance. But despite the presence of a script, in performance, there can be room to manoeuvre in and around what is on the page, to improvise, to confront uncertainty and the yet to be known, to discover and learn from the process. Could such an approach also be applied to planning a city?

What might be discovered about prospective futures, preservation and other possibilities in Pärnu through the act of performance? Can performance and planning ever effectively speak to one another?

The possibilities of these questions are explored through three intertwined narratives of the boiler room, also the site of performance/presentation of the work: one in which the boiler room remains, structurally, as it is today; another in which the boiler room retains its shell but is appropriated over time; and, lastly in which the boiler room is razed and the site changes in purpose. Speculative fiction and alternative history take us through the boiler room and into the possible futures of the boiler room and the city of Pärnu.

PhD VITAMIN 2023 – OPEN LECTURES AND CONSULTATIONS FOR DOCTORAL ASPIRANTS

On March 10,  PhD Vitamin will take place at the Estonian Academy of Arts, room A501.

PhD Vitamin aims to support and pave the way – and inspire artists with a research approach on their way to doctoral studies. The goal is to introduce artistic research and advise potential candidates for postgraduate studies in planning a doctoral thesis project. In a program consisting of public lectures and one-on-one consultations, artists and experts discuss their approach to artistic research and share individual advice.

Artists, designers, alumni of EKA and other creative universities, and graduate students interested in artistic research methods are invited to participate.

The event will be held in English.

To participate in a one-on-one consultation, please fill out the FORM.

A detailed consultation schedule will be sent to your email after registration. Be quick – the number of participants in consultations is limited!

In case of additional questions, please write to kati.saarits@artun.ee

 

PROGRAMME

10.03, Friday, room A501

 

11:30-12:00 Coffee and welcome

12:00-12:45 Jaana Kokko “Ideals and Practices”

12:45-13:30 Daniel Peltz “Rural Contextual Practice: Long-term, place-based research in a centre for Peripheral Study”

13:30-14.00 Taavet Jansen “Directing a hybrid event as practice-based research”

14:00-15:00 Moderated discussion: Daniel Peltz, Jaana Kokko, Taavet Jansen, Maarin Ektermann

15:00-15:30 break

15:30-18.15 Consultations with Daniel Peltz and Jaana Kokko

 

SPEAKERS:

Daniel Peltz is an artist and Professor of Time and Space Arts at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki. Prior to his professorship in Helsinki, Peltz served as Professor of Film/Animation/Video at the Rhode Island School of Design and co-founded the long-term, place-based, artistic-research project Rejmyre Art Lab’s Centre for Peripheral Studies, in Rejmyre, Sweden.

In his presentation “Rural Contextual Practice: Long-term, place-based research in a centre for Peripheral Study”, Peltz will provide an introduction to some of the strategies he has developed over the past 20 years of making works that emanate from engagements with specific communities and socio-cultural situations. The works intertwine multiple planes of existence from the ecological, to the social, to the financial, to the spiritual. There will be a particular focus on his epic, long-term engagement (going on 15 years) with the rural, glass-factory town of Rejmyre, Sweden. 

Jaana Kokko is an artist, filmmaker, educator and occasional curator based in Helsinki. In her artistic practice she is now in the search of the common: the emergent need for the change that is starting from our practices of art making, learning and being together. Her practice-based Phd project for the Aalto University is thinking the political together with Hannah Arendt and others.

 

She is and has been teaching and lecturing f.ex. at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Turku Art Academy, Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, Latvian Academy of Arts, Riga and Akademie der Bildende Künste, Nürnberg. Her work has been exhibited f.ex. at the Lithuanian National Gallery in Vilnius, Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga, Tallinn Art Hall, Helsinki Art Hall, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joensuu Art Museum in Finland, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival and Tokyo Media Art Festival. 

www.jaanakokko.com

Taavet Jansen is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in dance, choreography, sound, and video. His current research focuses on creating immersive experiences for online art events. He is pursuing his doctoral degree at EKA and working on enhancing the elektron.art platform for online art events. His project promises to bring fresh perspectives to the digital creative sphere and contribute to the performing arts community.

Maarin Ektermann is an art worker, based in Tallinn, Estonia, who is working on intersections between contemporary art and more-or-less experimental education. Recent projects have included “Artists in Collections” (w M-A Talvistu, 2017 – ), re-imagining social rituals of the cultural field under RESKRIPT (w H. Hütt, 2019 – ), proposal for fair fee system for Estonian art scene (w A. Triisberg, 2019 – ) and since 2020 running a new educational platform proloogkool (“school of prologues”). On a daily basis she works  as a Head of Center for General Theory Subjects at Estonian Art Academy and teaches there courses on art history of 20th century, self-organized practices and on art criticism.

Seminar Likeness in Difference. Perspectives on Baltic Regional Art History 

Location: Estonian Academy of Arts, Kumu Art Museum
The working language at the seminar is English.

The seminar jointly organised by Estonian Academy of Arts and the Art Museum of Estonia brings together art researchers and curators from the three Baltic countries. The art history of the Soviet period serves as the point of departure for the seminar.

The regional, comparative, and international focus on an analysis of cultural practices and the respective institutional conditions establishes a basis for presentations on both shared and individual experiences, facilitates studying their causes and backgrounds, and helps to challenge the established narratives that we construct and reproduce about our own art histories and those of others.

The meanings and self-understanding of the Baltics as a geopolitical and cultural region have changed several times throughout history. In the field of culture, the frequent interaction between the three Baltic republics in the Soviet time was replaced by narratives of national independence in the 1990s. Because of the polarised world perception of the Cold War era, the three countries sought to define themselves through these narratives as part of either Eastern Europe or the West. Therefore, their interest in one another and the sense of shared regional characteristics remained in the background for quite some time. Nevertheless, the last few years have witnessed changes in several spheres (of culture), which have served as a launch pad for a more active and productive dialogue.

The two-day seminar has been divided into six panels. Topics vary from photography and studies of the heritage of women artists to analyses of Soviet exhibition activities and experimental art practices. Presentations will also deal with real and imaginary art collectives and pose future-oriented questions about potential trans-Baltic research topics, exhibition projects and new theoretical approaches that provide the necessary framework. The aim is to explore intersections between the participants’ research interests and activities, and to prepare a foundation for future cooperation projects.

‘Likeness in Difference – Perspectives on Baltic Regional Art History’
Digital Thesis PDF

More info + the programme

Event on Facebook

Public play event “Don´t lose, but let loose” will take place on 10th May 18-19 at EKA caffeteria hole (A100). 

And playground is open for the whole day.

This is part of course “Design for play”, which is led by Eva Liisa Kubinyi.

Until we play!

Design Conference: Beyond Design
Saturday, June 18, 09:30-17:00 (the schedule coming soon!)
Location: Creative Hub

The European Design Festival Conference 2022 “Beyond Design” addresses the core questions of the future of design and through design, position and responsibilities of the designer through practical workshops, discussions and cross-sectoral future visions.

Through various discussions and case studies the conference seeks answers to the questions such as: How to design a future that is better for all of us? How to control the situations we do not yet know? Will the problems arising today create new meanings and opportunities for design tomorrow? What does digital innovation actually mean, and how does it change us as humans? How to create sustainability in a sustainable way? How to see sustainability not as a constraint but as a great challenge that gives us new opportunities for innovation. On which side of the barricades should a designer stay? Is reconsideration of the ethics of creation a basis for new significance?

The questions will be opened via 3 tracks

1. BEYOND GOVERNANCE. Innovation leads us to the future, and the future makes us innovate. How to govern situations that are in the future and that we have never experienced before? How to consider unforeseen events and uncertainty? How to understand the future of the relationship between people and their governments?

2. DESIGN BEYOND RESISTANCE. Our world is using many comfortable and unsustainable models – social, ecological, economical. How to challenge the status quo – and go beyond mere disruption but design the next solution.

3. DESIGN BEYOND TRANQUILITY. Creating a world for living in meaningful peace of mind – this is the oldest task of design. How to design a future that is better for all of us? Will the problems arising today create new meanings and opportunities for design tomorrow? How to see sustainability not as a constraint but as a great challenge that gives us opportunities for innovation?

The programme and speakers will be announced gradually in the end of April 2022.

The conference will take place on June 18, 09:30-17:00 at Kultuurikatel (Cultural Hub) as a physical event, enabling also some hybrid activities. The conference will be recorded and available for later review.

More info about the conference and THE SPEAKERS