Open Lectures

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

On Tuesday, March 18th, we’re reading a series of writings by the EKA Craft Studies MA programme students.
All texts were composed through research, writing and editing supervised by Lieven Lahaye and Else Lagerspetz. The event takes place at the Craft Studies Krulli studio (Kopli 70a, II floor), from 18:00-20:00

There are 8 texts as part of the components required for graduation, reflecting on a diverse range of topics and approaches relevant to the students’ individual practices and the expanded field of design and craft, with links to the making and footwork-handwork-headwork relations.

Belongings

Written by Kati Saarits
This text is exploring local material culture history through the lens of industrial ceramics heritage, touching on questions of how sentimentality settles into material and how surroundings shape our perception of home.

Creature. Maker. Mire.
Written by Alyona Movko-Mägi
Through the entanglement of organic and digital materiality Creature. Maker. Mire explores the bog as an archive — where bodies, landscapes, and crafts are preserved, transformed, and reinterpreted across time.

Reblow toolset
Written by Rait Lõhmus
Reblow toolset examines ways to upgrade premade glass objects and explores the causes of devaluation and potential for revaluations.

Through the hammer, through the body

Written by Elias Sormanen
A deep look into the importance of skill in making, as seen through the craft of a metal hammerer.

Hääbuda, et taas tärgata.
Written by Juulia Aleksandra Mikson
A poetical observation of decay as an integral part of the cyclical process of life, while approaching it with acceptance and a sense of hope.

On Extractivism and Care for Landscapes:
From Mines to Mountains in the East of Estonia
Written by Hannah Segerkrantz
This text explores the post-industrial mountains of mining waste in the east of Estonia through questions about how we relate to our surroundings and their materiality.

Movement Matter. Embodied knowledge in material practices
Written by Iohan Figueroa
Series of dialogues between materials and the way we embody our practice, the importance of contact during the making process.

A Book of Mashed Potatoes
Written by Sofiya Babiy
A contemplation on shades of vanishing through photography, trees, cinema, land, time, death and family.

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.

The first lecture of the spring semester lecture series will take place on March 27 at 6:00 pm in the EKA large auditorium. Architects Justyna Dziedziejko and Magdalena Wnęk from the Polish landscape architecture firm TopoScape will take the stage with a lecture „Park on the Warsaw Uprising Mound – design development method”.

„The topic of this lecture is to discuss the design process we used in the creation of the ‘Park on the Warsaw Uprising Mound’. During the lecture we will discuss strategies aimed at creating a place-related design that supports biodiversity and closed cycle economy, we will define principles for typifying components that constitute the value of a place. The example of the park realises our postulation of an interdisciplinary design process, combining ideas based on the history of a place and nature. We will talk about the practical principles of information selection, interdisciplinary cooperation and guidelines for the construction phase of the park. The example of the Warsaw park shows how a degraded, abandoned and forgotten area, which is a post-industrial type space (brownfield), becomes a vibrant place again.”

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

April 3. Ingo Kowarik

April 10. Jan van Schaik

April 24. Taktyk

For those registered for optional subjects, the essay submission date is 12.05.2025.

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

Bart Pushaw is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. His research, teaching, and curatorial work focus on Arctic and Baltic art histories.

Baltic actors played a critical role in the expansion of the Russian Empire across the Pacific. Starting in the eighteenth century, people from throughout the Russian Empire facilitated the invasion and occupation of Alaska Native homelands until the U.S. acquired “Russian America” in 1867. The imperial initimacies that entangled these edges of the Russian Empire — the Baltic Sea and the Bering Sea — also brought Alaska Native artworks and material culture to Estonia. Today, these objects remain in collections throughout the country. This talk explores the histories that made it possible for Alaska Native art to come to Estonia, and what futures might be possible as museums reconsider their role in rematriation.

Lecture is connected to the joint project of KUMU Art Museum and Estonian Academy of Arts Expedition: Estonian and Indigineity.

Lecture is held in cooperation with KUMU Art Museum and is funded by:

Conversation evening on Japanese architecture with Yuma Shinohara

on Monday, March 10 at 5:00 PM in room A-501

The Estonian Association of Architects and the Estonian Academy of Arts invite you to participate in a conversation evening, where Yuma Shinohara, curator of the Swiss Museum of Architecture, will introduce the work of the younger generation of Japanese architects, whose focus is on society and environmental issues. Moving away from the usual image of the architect-author, they have discovered for themselves the charm of working together. The conversation evening will be hosted by Siim Tanel Tõnisson and Saskia Krautman.

Exhibitions curated by Yuma Shinohara: “Make Do With What Is: New Directions in Japanese Architecture” (2024), “Make Do With Now” (2022), “SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook” (2023), “Beton” (2021) and “Swim City” (2019). Before joining S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, he worked as an editor and curator at the Storefront for Art and Architecture gallery in New York, Ruby Press, the Academy of Arts in Berlin and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Yuma Shinohara was invited by the Estonian Association of Estonian Architects – he is a member of the jury for this year’s Young Architect Award.

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

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.

www.brittabenno.com

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.

www.maaheli.ee/main/

For more information contact kati.saarits@artun.ee

Pirjo Kääriäinen

19.02.2025

A-501 kell 16:30

Weaving textile design with material innovation

Pirjo Kääriäinen is a material enthusiast and textile specialist, working as an Associate Professor in Design and Materialities at the Aalto University, Finland. She operates between research and practice, and she is involved in several material research projects focusing on bio-based materials. Since 2011 she has been developing interdisciplinary CHEMARTS collaboration between the School of Arts, Design and Architecture (ARTS) and the School of Chemical Engineering (CHEM). CHEMARTS is aiming to inspire Aalto University students and researchers to explore bio-based materials together, and to create new concepts for their sustainable use. Before her career in academia, Pirjo Kääriäinen worked over decade in the Finnish textile industry, and gained experience also as an entrepreneur and consultant for creative industries.

chemarts.aalto.fi
aalto.fi/en/aalto-university-bioinnovation-center

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

London-based art critic Orit Gat will be giving an open lecture on 12 February at 18.00 at the Estonian Academy of Arts (room A202) on the subject of being personal in (art) writing. She will be exploring different ways of bringing personal experiences to writing and making space for experiences that are often not reflected in culture. Gat also considers the importance of developing a writing practice as a social space and writing with others in mind.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion led by art critic and educator Maarin Ektermann.
Orit Gat is a British writer and art critic living in London. She has written about
contemporary art, books, digital culture, and football for numerous magazines including The White Review, frieze, e-flux journal and e-flux criticism, ArtReview, Jacobin, Texte zur Kunst, Paper Visual Art, Art Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, the LA Review of Books, The World Policy Journal, Camera Austria, and Cultured, among others.

Orit Gat’s lecture in Tallinn is organized jointly by the Estonian Centre of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
The lecture will be held in English.

Dr. Charis Gullickson is a senior curator at the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Norway).

In her PhD project, Charis Gullickson examined public art museums in Norway as social actors. In her abstract she states: “The aim of this dissertation is to question status quo art museum practices and the predisposition to regard state-funded art museums in Norway as ‘neutral’ institutions.” Museum neutrality prevents institutions from “seeing” their potential transformative social power. Out of her research project grew the activist group Museer er ikke nøytrale / Museat eai leat neutrálat. For Charis, it is about learning to see (understanding systems of power and hierarchical structures). If museum practitioners cannot see the structural and systemic problems that exist, they cannot begin to fix them. Hence art museum professionals tend to maintain status quo and function within prevailing uncontroversial frameworks.

This lecture discusses Norwegian art museums as settler institutions in a historical perspective. I will consider how coloniality shapes the present within the context of art museums and curatorial practices. Analyzing the historical trajectory of the art museum from this standpoint might help demonstrate why art museums and curators operate the way they do today.

Links to case studies:

https://www.idunn.no/doi/full/10.18261/kk.105.1.4

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cura.12580

Lecture is held in cooperation with KUMU Art Museum and is connected to the exhibition “They Began to Talk” at the Gallery of Contemporary Art at Kumu Art Museum which invites us to reflect on environmental changes resulting from human activity through the lens of colonial history and its lasting impact. The exhibition brings together the practices of artists working in this region with those from Indigenous communities in the Nordic countries, exploring the possibility of recovering and cultivating a sense of connection.

Lecture is funded by:

@nordnorskkunstmuseum

@ikkenoytrale

Lecture’s recording at EKA TV.

Ezio Manzini, a world-renowned advocate for sustainability and social innovation in design, will give a public lecture “Livable proximity. A design-orienting scenario” on Tuesday, December 17, starting at 4:00 PM in room A101.

In the past century, the spatial organization of modern societies has been dominated by the effects of an idea of efficiency based on specialization and the economy of scale. In the name of efficiency, some areas have specialized: those where to work, those where to have fun, those where to study, and those where to go back to sleep. We can refer to all of this as the scenario of distance.

Over time, however, it clearly emerged that the application of this scenario was leading to very serious environmental and social problems. Therefore, for long time some cases appeared in which this model began to clash with other ideas and practices, driven by the need to bring together what had been separated and to reconnect what had been disconnected. That is, to bring services, workplaces and people’s homes closer together. These new ideas and practices, i.e. these social innovations, can be seen as the beginning of a new, emerging scenario: the scenario of proximity.

Although the problems of the society of distance were evident for long time, until 2019, the ideas and practices that had led to the definition of the scenario of proximity have slowly advanced. Then the pandemic arrived and, paradoxically, the same sanitary distancing it required has shown everyone how important physical proximity is: the social role of neighborhood services; the advantage of working close to where you live; the importance of having good relationships with the tenants next-door. In short, the value of the scenario of proximity has been recognized by a growing number of people and institutions

The lecture discusses this scenario of proximity, showing how it has emerged from the grassroots social innovations of the past 20 years, and how, in some large cities, it has become a reference for action, sometimes using the expression “15-minute city”, with the creation of new proximity systems capable of responding to many, if not all, the daily needs of citizens.

Finally, underlining how the strategies for approaching this scenario are profoundly place-based, the lecture also identifies some common traits and focuses on one of them.

The conceptual background on which the lecture is based can be found in: “Design, When Everybody Designs”, MIT Press 2015, “Politics of the Everyday.” Bloomsbury, 2019 (both are also published in China) and Livable Proximity (Egea, 2022)

For over three decades Ezio Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. Most recently, his interests have focused on social innovation, considered as a major driver of sustainable changes. In this perspective, he started DESIS: an international network of schools of design, active in the field of design for social innovation for sustainability.

In 2024, the Design Research Society awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Presently, he is President of DESIS Network and an Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. He has been a guest professor in several design schools worldwide, as (in the past decade): Elisava-Design School and Engineering (Barcelona), Tongji University (Shanghai), Jiangnan University (Wuxi), University of the Arts (London), CPUT (Cape Town), Parsons -The New School for Design (NYC)

His most recent books are: “Design, When Everybody Designs”, MIT Press 2015; “Politics of the Everyday.” Bloomsbury, 2019; “Livable Proximity” Egea, 2021, “Plug-ins: Design for City Making in Barcelona” (with Albert Fuster and Roger Paez, Elisava and Actar Publishers 2023; Fare Assieme, Una nuova generazione di servizi pubblici collaborativi (con Michele D’Alena), Egea, 2024

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski’s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all.