Events

The book “About Architecture” by architect and professor Andres Alver has been published.

The book presentation will take place on February 29, 2024 at 6 pm in the EKA Gallery.

The book is introduced by the author Andres Alver. EKA Rector Mart Kalm, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Sille Pihlak and President of the Estonian Association of Architects Andro Mänd will speak.

Andres Alver, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, has taught several generations of architects at the EKA Faculty of Architecture since 1985.

The book is on sale at the presentation.

The book has parallel texts in Estonian and English.

Editor: Triin Ojari

Language editor: Aime Kons

Translators: Refiner Translations OÜ

Design: Tiina Alver

Printing house: Omaraamat

ISBN 978-9916-4-2204-5

The publication was supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On March 4th and 5th, the PhD Vitamin event will once again be hosted at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

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.

This year’s conference will focus on the problem of public space and its art. How can we decide what would be visible to all?

How do ethical challenges, the responsibility of the artist, historical and political issues and the authorship rights intertwine? What are the possibilities for artists to contribute to shaping past-present-future through the political aesthetics of public space? During the ongoing war in Ukraine, questions of what to do with the ‘red monuments’ left in the public space have come to the fore in Estonia. The debate is part of a global discourse that includes the Black Lives Matter movement. It touches on our social environment and tests our ability to ‘be good’.

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

PROGRAMME

March 4th, Monday, room A501

10:00 -10:30  Coffee and welcome

10:30 -11:15  Victoria Fareld “Responsibility in a Polychronic Present”

11:15 -11:45  Kristina Norman “Looking Back at After-War (2009) During the War”

Lunch break

12:30-13:15 Esther Shalev-Gerz “From the Monument Against Fascism to The Shadow”

13:15-13:45 Gregor Taul “Monumental Trouble”

Coffee break 

14.00-14:45  Moderated discussion: Victoria Fareld, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Gregor Taul, Kristina Norman, moderator Kirke Kangro.

March 5th, Tuesday, room A501 

10:00-12:00 Individual consultations with Victoria Fareld and Esther Shalev-Gerz

SPEAKERS

Esther Shalev-Gerz, based in Paris, is internationally recognized for her seminal contributions to the field of art in the public realm and her consistent investigation into the construction of memory, history, the natural world, democracy and cultural identities. Her works challenge the notion and practice of portraiture and consider how its qualities may contribute to contemporary discourse about the politics of representation. Her monuments, installations, photography, video and public sculpture are developed through active dialogue, consultation and negotiation with people whose participation provides an emphasis to their individual and collective memories, accounts, opinions and experiences which then become both represented and considered.

Victoria Fareld is professor of intellectual history at Stockholm university in Sweden. Her research revolves around questions of historical guilt, responsibility and historical temporalities.

Gregor Taul is a lecturer, critic and curator. He has studied semiotics at Tartu University and art history at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is about to defend his PhD thesis on art in public space in the Baltics. He is currently working as a lecturer at the General Theory and Interior Architecture departments at EKA.

Kristina Norman, based in Tallinn, is an artist whose interdisciplinary work includes video installations, sculpture, and projects in the city space, as well as documentaries and performance. She is interested in the issues of collective memory and forgetting, the memorial uses of the public space, but also the subtle sphere of the body politics that transgresses the boundaries between the public and the private. In 2009 she represented Estonia at the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia with a solo project, a multilayered mixed media installation After-War. The project was a study of a conflict around the relocation of a Soviet monument in Tallinn. In 2022 Norman represented Estonia at the 59th Venice Biennial within an ecocritical exhibition Orchidelirium. An Appetite For Abundance. Norman’s experimental film trilogy commissioned for the Pavilion, offers multiple ways to reflect on the legacies of colonialism from a specific Eastern European perspective.

The event will be held in English.

Please registrate through 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. Be quick – the number of participants in consultations is limited!

Additional info: kati.saarits@artun.ee

We will hold the EKA information session, where the main results and conclusions of the self-evaluation report for institutional accreditation will be presented. The info-hour will take place on Wednesday, 21 February, at 15:00 in the EKA auditorium (A-101). It will be conducted in Estonian. This is a great opportunity to understand the current state and future directions of the academy.

Institutional accreditation evaluates the academy’s overall management, work organisation, teaching and research activities, and the quality of the study and research environment, its compliance with both legislation and EKA’s vision and development plan.

GENTLE GESTURES OF SELF
7.–31.03.2024
Opening: 7.03. at 6 pm

Participating artists: Andre Joosep Arming, Annamaari Hyttinen, Cloe Jancis, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Taavi Rekkaro, Johanna Saikkonen, Marleen Suvi, Elo Vahtrik
Curator: Kaisa Maasik

The group exhibition “Gentle Gestures of Self” brings together a selection of contemporary self-portraits. The paintings and photographs primarily depict the faces and hands of the artists, pointing at the emotions brought out by their facial expressions and gestures.

Culturally, hands are attributed with a great expressive power: in addition to conveying mood, depicting hands in specific positions can communicate deep feelings and meanings. Anthropologist Ethel J. Alpenfels has said: “Hands point or lead or command; hands cry out in agony or lie quietly sleeping; hands have moods, character, and, in a wider sense, their own particular beauty.”

The exhibition stems from a curatorial perspective focusing on relationships, inner experiences and moods. It approaches hands’ special ability and vulnerability to convey all emotions, even those that people have learned to control in facial expressions.

Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

EKA Gallery
Kotzebue 1, Tallinn
Open Tue–Sun 12–18, free entry

More info:
eka.galerii@artun.ee

17.30–18.00
Performative gathering “ “
Yuko Kinouchi, Tea Lemberpuu, Jane Muts, Maria Elise Remme, Jake Rhys Shepherd, Elo Vahtrik

We warmly invite you to slow down with us through a guided participatory gathering.

We were searching for a pause, stillness. So we ran through forests, we slept in caves, we followed the waters. Everything to escape the noise man has created. The rumor about the man-made room for silence reached our ears. We met John. He told us that after a while all you hear is the blood running within you. Heartbeat and all the sounds we were made of. There are things we can’t turn off.

In “ “ we ask you to join us to slow down, pause, and turn the attention within.

P.S. We ask you to leave your shoes and phone outside the room on arrival.

18.00–19.30
Workshop “Leaf Pounding”
Chloé Geinoz, Sven-Aleksander Mantsik, Vitor Pascal, Liza Tsindelian

The ‘Leaf pounding’ (this is the name of the technique of hammering plants onto paper or fabric in order to print them on it) project is a printing workshop using ecological and sustainable materials.

Our workshop is based on the different practices of the people in the group. It was important for us that everyone’s personal artistic touch could be found in the project: Liza uses second-hand materials, Chloé uses plants a lot, Vitor and Sven have a practice linked to printing techniques and critical text.

18.00–19.30
Installation “I Like Earth and Earth Likes Me”
Eleftheria Kofidou, Jana Mätas, Caroline Pajusaar, KitKit Para, Kadri Vahar, Edgar Volkov

The vertebral column is the main supporting structure of the body and mind, as the nerve cells within the spinal cord carry all the signals that are required to sustain the organism. These interlinked systems – all connected with our spine – control our every activity; our waking, dreaming, and sleeping and our stability depends on their successful collaboration. Our tired bones are only resting when lying on this soil, yet the Earth’s skin is becoming more and more occupied. What would become of our body landscapes after all? Our artificial remains shall be Earth’s new spine.

18.00–19.30
“Can I speak to the manager? It’s about the anthropocene”
Yvette Bathgate, Mihhail Boitsov, Katariina Kesküla, Merilin Põldsam, Kristi Vendelin

Collectively we explore interconnection through the process of binding; artworks, papers and text. A short manifesto style text, alongside five artworks will bind our individual expressions together and will be presented in installation and hand bound booklet formats.

The works have been made as part of the “Art in the Age of the Anthropocene” course for the EKA Contemporary Art and Design & Crafts MA students (supervisors Sandra Kossorotova, Linda Kaljundi).

Forum Wood Building Baltic
26 February – 28 February 2024
Tallinn, Estonia
https://www.forum-woodbaltic.com/

We invite you to participate in the Forum Wood Building Baltic 2024 to be held on February 27 and 28 in Tallinn, Estonia. This year we have more than 40 speakers from 15 countries. 

 There is also an opportunity to participate in the thematic excursions on February 26th. Forum Wood Building Baltic is the main conference for architecture and engineering topics of wooden buildings in the Baltic region. The overarching theme of Forum Wood Building Baltic 2024 is integrated design where different disciplines come together with their own possibilities and limitations to cooperate and push the boundaries of innovation in timber construction.  

The main technical topics will be:

• introduction to the second generation of Eurocode 5 (by the authors of different parts) 
• design for manufacturing and assembly 
• building physics of wooden houses 
• energy performance, fire safety etc. 

The conference is a part of the international organization Forum Holzbau. Local hosts are Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University of Technology.
 

Registration to the conference can be easily done here: https://www.forum-woodbaltic.com

The gala dinner on February 27th is included in all tickets.

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for Everybody, Free of Charge, and May No One Be Left Behind!*”
EKA Gallery
19.–24.02.2024

Open Mon–Fri 12–9 pm & Sat 5–11 pm (part of the reception), free entry

The Institute of Meetings & Non-Meetings opens the Embassy of Utopia at the EKA Gallery on February 19th. On the final evening of the performative installation, February 24th, one hour after President Alar Karis steps up to the lectern at the Estonia Theatre to deliver Estonia’s most anticipated speech of the year, the Embassy of Utopia will present the year’s most unexpected speech.

The speech will not be written by artificial intelligence or a freelance poet. It will be written by those who gather at the Embassy, those seeking poetic refuge.

“We have dealt with speeches in the Institute’s and Paide Theatre’s previous projects and confirmed that the core of a good speech is a clear message. But the world is not clear, and it seems that every speech, aiming to bring clarity, spreads confusion. Therefore, we decided it was time to turn our backs on clarity and create a speech that acknowledges confusion,” says one of the participating artists, Jan Teevet.

“One might ask, what distinguishes the Embassy of Utopia’s speech from any much-maligned internet forum. The answer can be found in the phenomenon of meeting. From Monday to Friday, when the Embassy’s doors at the Estonian Academy of Arts are open to all passersby, dozens of groups will meet there, not aiming for a mediocre compromise, but to build bold connections between views, crises, and solutions that frame their personal realities today,” adds the Institute’s dramaturge, Oliver Issak.

“A clear message, a clear tax system, a clear line between good and evil — we often think that clarity takes care of everything and everyone on its own, not noticing that clarity can often be uncaring. Clear messages are easier to receive and categorize, but how to organise a reception for doubts?” asks sociologist and artist-researcher Margaret Tilk.

The Embassy of Utopia is open from February 19th–23rd from 12–9 pm and culminates in the Embassy of Utopia’s reception on February 24th at 5 pm.

Entry to the Embassy is free for all, and everyone is free to decide whether it is an exhibition, a theatre production, a workshop, a meeting, a political-poetic consecration, a deep hangout, a minimalist opera, or something else entirely. One may also choose not to decide.

The Embassy of Utopia’s daily life and nightly fiction are created and organised by Oliver Issak, Kairi Mändla, Jan Teevet, Taavi Teevet, and Margaret Tilk.

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for everybody, free of charge, and may no one be left behind!” is the fourth event in the series of actions created by the Institute of Meetings and Non-Meetings. The doors of the Embassy of Utopia first opened in May 2023 at the invitation of the international literature festival Prima Vista and the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024, with the subtitle “Longing for a different reality”, and from September, the Embassy of Utopia’s radio action goes live on Klassikaraadio on the last Sunday of every month. On December 31st, 2023, a 5-hour New Year’s Eve special was broadcasted on Klassikaraadio’s wavelength, “Embassy of Utopia: A Thousand Toasts to the Future”.

The Embassy of Utopia is a sanctuary for positive uncertainty, bold thought, and untamable imagination. 

* The title is based on the novel “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

The project is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Drinks at the reception provided by Põhjala Brewery.

More info:
Jan Teevet jan@instituut.art
Oliver Issak oliver@instituut.art
Margaret Tilk marga.tilk@gmail.com
www.instituut.art/utoopiasaatkond

MA in Graphic Design
Online info session
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 18:00–19:00h EET (local Estonian time) / 17:00h CET / 16:00h GMT … 

We invite prospective students to join the Master of Arts in Graphic Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts for our Online Info Session on 30 January, 18:00–19:00h EET. This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from teachers and students.

REGISTER HERE

EKA Animation MA programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the programme and to meet and ask questions directly from the people of animation department – both the teaching staff and the current students.

The online info session will be hosted online over Zoom and the link will be e-mailed out to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below.

Register HERE

More information about the Animation MA programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/animation
• https://www.facebook.com/EKAanimatsioon
• https://vimeo.com/ekaanima

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2024 and application deadline is 4th of March 2024.

https://artun.ee/admissions