Open Lectures

«In 1972 there was still grass…»: Design Activism at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment by Kjetil Fallan

Design historian Kjetil Fallan will give a lecture ““In 1972 there was still grass…”: Design Activism at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment” on Thursday, 17 October at 16:00 in room A101. 

Kjetil Fallan’s talk will explore design interventions at, and in the wake of, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. What can design activism tell us about the conference’s influence on future political decision-making? Or about the development of environmental thinking and ecologically informed design ideology in Scandinavia? 

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; however, the seminar following the lecture will be held for the course students.

Kjetil Fallan is a Professor of Design History at the University of Oslo, where he currently leads the project Designing with/out Extractive Materials (deXmat), funded by the Research Council of Norway. His most recent books are Ecological by Design: A History from Scandinavia (MIT Press, 2022); Nordic Design Cultures in Transformation, 1960-1980: Revolt and Resilience (Routledge, 2023) (Co-edited with Christina Zetterlund and Anders V. Munch); and The Culture of Nature in the History of Design (Routledge, 2019). Fallan also serves as editor of the Journal of Design History.

14th October at 17:30 in the room A-501 Klara Kemp-Welch will give an open lecture Free Movement? Tracking Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe since the early 2000s

Klara Kemp-Welch is Reader in 20th Century Modernism at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She works on modern and contemporary art from Eastern Europe. She was educated at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and University College London and is the author of Antipolitics in Central European Art. Reticence as Dissidence under Post-Totalitarian Rule 1956-1989 (IB Tauris, 2014), Networking the Bloc. Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965-1981 (MIT Press, 2019) and co-editor of A Reader in East-Central European Modernism 1918-1956 with Beata Hock and Jonathan Owen (Courtauld Books Online, 2019). She is currently completing a monograph entitled “Free Movement? Documenting Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe”.

This lecture introduces her current research project, “Free Movement?”, which is structured around three core themes: labour mobility, displacement, and border politics. With reference to a selection of lens-based case studies, I examine how contemporary artists have represented Eastern European experiences of migration and mobility since the early 2000s.

 

Lecture will be held in cooperation of Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and  Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts

Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

EKA celebrates its 110th anniversary with a birthday week. 

 

From November 4th to 8th exhibition tours, lectures and film screenings will take place. The week will end on Friday with the opening of the EKA’s new building, the White House and a birthday party. Departments’ alumni parties will take place on Friday. 

Monday

15.30 Defense of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis | Auditorium A-501

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Laura Schmidt (DE) – ZKM_Gameplay. The Next Level (Paul Galloway will be joining us from New York city via screen. In English) | Main hall A-101

Tuesday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (Ava will be joining us from Helsinki via screen. In English) | B-305

19:15 New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The right to forget. Artificial intelligences humanly inspired in contemporary art (Jaime will be joining us from Mexico via screen. In English) | B-305

Wednesday

16.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Linda van Deursen | Main hall A-101

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

17.30 Awarding of inners of applied research and development work | The Hole

18.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Antoine Picon | Main hall A-101

Thursday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

19.00 Cinema: The best of by the Animation Department | Main hall A-101

Friday – PARTY!

16.00 Anniversary assembly and conferment ceremony | Main hall A-101

18.00 Departments’ parties for alumni | EKA Main Building

19.00 Opening of the EKA White House | EKA White House

19.30 Musical performers until the end of the party | Both houses:

• 19.30 – EKA Students Queer Association | EKA white house
• 20:00 – DJ Vaatab jooksvalt | EKA main building
• 21.00 – Karameel | EKA white house
• 21.30 – EKA Chamber Choir | EKA main building
• 21.45 – karaoke with Helina Risti | EKA main building
• 22.30 – Motonormal | EKA white house
• 00.00 – Avemaria | EKA white house

20.30 Auction | Main hall A-101

22.00 EKA 110 gift opening

The programme of events will be updated on a rolling basis.

EKA Birthday Week events are free of charge and open to all.  

 

Events of EKA Departments as part of the EKA 110 Celebration

Monday, November 4th

• 18:00-21:00 – EKA Open Academy Open Lecture: “EKA 110 | How to Collect Art?” (in Estonian)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Paul Galloway (US) – Video Games at MoMA

Tuesday, November 5th

• 16:30 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design present: Open Archive of the Design Faculty 1966-1994 (open area on the 2nd floor, A300)
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design panel discussion: Design Thinking – Establishing Design in Times of Change (EKA lobby)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (room B305)
• 19:15 – EKA New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The Right to Forget: Artificial Intelligences in Contemporary Art
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Art: Exhibition of Nominees for the Edmund Valtman Young Graphic Artist Scholarship (EKA glass gallery)

Thursday, November 7th

• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Raivo Kelomees – Metamorphoses of Media Art (room A101)

Friday, November 8th

• 16:00-00:00 – EKA Textile 110: Installation Textile in 110 Squares (room D504)
• 10:00-17:00 – EKA Interaction Design and Animation Departments’ installation Godseed (Kotzebue 10 basement)
• 17:00 – Opening of EKA New Media 30th Anniversary Outdoor Exhibition: Video Installations
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – EKA Glass Department Book Launch Glass Painting – Painting with Light (room B604)
• 22:00 – EKA Architecture / PAKK – Opening of EKA’s Gift (Kotzebue 2)

Alumni Gatherings on Friday, November 8th

• 17:30 – Ceramic Department Gathering: Viewing of Past Works and Identifying Authors (room B602)
• 17:30 – Fashion Design Alumni and Faculty Gathering, Tour of Workspaces and Works (room D507)
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar and Gathering of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – Design and Innovation (formerly known as Applied Art) Room Open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends! (room D404)
• 18:00 – Product Design Alumni and Student Gathering and “Cafe” (room C301)
• 18:00 – Interaction Design Alumni and Student Party (room D306)
• 18:00 – Textile Design Alumni and Student Reunion (room D505)
• 18:00 – Photography Department Gathering at Maitselabor. Opportunity to tour department spaces and studios. Wide Angle Gallery Exhibition (room B407)
• 18:00 – Faculty of Architecture Introduction and Social Space (room A400)
• 18:00 – Glass Department Book Launch, Formal Gathering, and Studio Tour (room B604)
• 18:00 – Accessory and Bookbinding Department open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends. Showcasing the accessory and bookbinding studio; recent student work exhibited in the glass display at the entrance. Leather drink bar by accessory artisans! (rooms B510 and B511)
• 18:00 – Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department open! Tour of department spaces and workshops (room B504)
• 18:00 – The Department of Heritage Protection and Conservation invites its alumni and friends to the sculpture conservation studio (room D308)

Art historian and curator Kai Lobjakas will give an open lecture, “Was there design in Eastern Europe? Retrotopia Case,” on Tuesday, 24 September, at 16:00 in room A501. In her lecture, she will discuss the research and exhibition project “Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” (2023).

“Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” was a project that led to a comprehensive exhibition during the summer of 2023 in Berlin at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, initiated by Claudia Banz. The aim was to search for the traces of the almost unknown visions, design practices and contexts both for the public and private spehre of the former Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia in order to add a layer to the prevailing Western perspective in design history and research.

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.

Kai Lobjakas is an art historian and curator, from 2014 head of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (ETDM). Her focus of interest lay both in the post-war and contemporary applied art and design practices, especially the intersections of these fields. Besides building the design collection at the museum, she has compiled and edited catalogues with a focus on Estonian design phenomena, including the Between Art and Industry. Art Products’ Factory in Tallinn (2013), Local Beauty. Tarbeklaas (2016). She has initiated and curated exhibitions, such as Design as Experiment. Tõnis Käo (2014), Kitchen. Changing Space, Design and Applied Art in Estonia (2016). A permanent exhibition of Estonian design curated by her was opened at ETDM in 2022. She was the chair of ICOM ICDAD, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Decorative Arts and Design during 2019-2022 and is chairing the national committee ICOM Estonia.

 

Design historian, curator and professor Alexandra Midal will give an open lecture, „Design is not anymore an Accident“, on Tuesday, 17 September, at 16:00 in room A501.

Midal’s lecture will be based on her book „Design by Accident: For a New History of Design“ (Sternberg Press, 2019).

Alexandra Midal writes that design history was written by accident. In her lecture, she draws attention to the forgotten history of design and raises the possibility of a 100% and all-pervasive new historiography that reformulates a design discipline.

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; however, the seminar following the lecture will be held for the course students.

Alexandra Midal is a professor at the University of Art and Design HEAD-Genève and Head of the Department of Critical Thinking at Ensci-Les Ateliers, Paris. Art and design historian, she combines practice and theory-based research as an artist-curator, theoretician and film essayist. Her research explores the blind spots and grey areas of design history, as evident in her two latest books, The Murder Factory (Sternberg Press, 2023) and Design by Accident: For a New History of Design (Sternberg Press, 2019). She studied literature, architecture and art history at Princeton University (NJ) and in Paris (Paris-Sorbonne). She has curated a number of international exhibitions on visual culture, design, film, and politics. She is the guest curator of the next Biennale Bio28, Ljubljana, Slovenia, entitled Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower?

On September 19 at 6 pm Elina Alatalo will hold the lecture “Creating shared spaces together: the power of the new roles of architects”.

Elina Alatalo is an architect and researcher in Environmental Policy of Tampere University, Finland. Her recent work has concentrated on new proactive forms of urban activism, getting vacant spaces back into use and developing sustainable urban neighbourhoods. Elina is a co-founder of Insurgent Spatial Practices, a collective that explores the valuable knowledge that alternative cultures and grassroots develop in the city. She also teaches Landscape Architecture in Aalto University in Helsinki and coordinates interaction for societal impact in Co-Carbon research project of urban nature.

In her work, Elina focuses on co-design methods and self-organising community approaches. In this lecture, she will discuss how to create meaningful participatory processes and how to deal with the messy-quirky situations arising in them. She will also share some theoretical lenses that help in making sense of the dynamics in these processes. The power of the new roles of architects will be illustrated through three inspirational projects. From realizing a community sauna to facilitating the development of a network of self-organising coworking spaces and making the typology of Nordic Superblock real, we will see that co-creation is worth embracing.

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 autumn 2024 lectures:

September 5 at 6 pm Jonas Janke (architects, b+)

September 19 at 6 pm Elina Alatalo (architect, Tampere University)

October 31 at 6 pm Christian Pagh (curator, Oslo Architecture Triennale)

November 28 at 6 pm Petra Marko (architect, Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava)

 

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 Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the autumn of 2024 under the general title S*cial – Values in the built realm, curated by Mattias Malk, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture.

The lecturers will focus on the ongoing shift in planning practice, where considerations other than pure economic viability increasingly play a role in decision-making.

Mattias Malk, curator of the autumn lecture series, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, describes the main theme of the lecture series as follows:

 

Participative practices, the valorisation of social space and the changing role of architects, especially in the public sector, are gaining ground in Europe’s spatial development, but things are still moving slowly in Estonia. So far, our economic growth has been based on environmental degradation and, despite rigid market-driven planning, we are among the weakest in the EU in resource use. However, the foundations of a smarter spatial policy, which is more useful than profit, are still undefined and untested.

One of the aims of the lecture series is to define and rehabilitate the word ‘social’ in Estonian spatial policy, including the social responsibility mentioned in the new planned public procurement. All the invited lecturers deal with the issues of space and sociality in their daily work and will share their experiences of the changing role of architects through examples. 

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

 

 

www.avatudloengud.ee

Join us for the screening of TASE FILM ‘24 on June 11 at 6 pm at the assembly hall of Estonian Academy of Arts (room A101).

The TASE film program has distinguished itself year after year as a central proving ground for all up-and-coming audiovisual artists. It is a platform for art that refuses to shackle itself within the confines of standard filmmaking practices and is constantly experimenting with the very concept of boundaries. This year’s program brings into focus the phenomenon of identity, dissecting both the biological body of an individual, as well as said body’s relations with the outside world, be it sentient or not.

The screening lasts for one hour, entry is free.

Participating artists: Anett Aedla, Agnes Milla Bereczki, Nataliia Domini, Mia Felić, Andrea Gudiño, Kadri Joala, Mark Kokotov, Marto Mägi, Piret Potter, Yiyang Sun

Curator: Kaur Järve

For the first time a jury will select the best TASE FILM among the participating films. The author of which will be awarded five free tickets to film screenings at Sõprus Cinema, in addition the film will be screened before all other screenings at both of Sõprus’ cinemas during the entire month of September. The jury consists of film director, producer and CEO of Sõprus Cinema Ivar Murd, artist Liina Siib and artist-curator and main organiser of TASE ‘24 Kaisa Maasik.

Drinks from Põhjala Brewery. 

Program in screening order:

 

1. YiyangSun

Breed咘哩嘚  

08′ 38′

The sky is vast, the wilderness is boundless 

While the lonely maple tree stands at the corner of the world 

              It bears thousands of seeds,Transforming into butterflies

Flirting and dancing over the water bubbles 

They fall in love

 

1. Mia Felić  

On the other Side

06′ 48”

 

The work explores the transgender and non-binary body in transition through the 19th century photographic process mordançage. The mordançage, using its tremendous chemical pressure alters the silver gelatine prints, causing them to undergo slow, gradual transformation. The tissue of the body and of the print breaks and a new life, new forms are born.

 

1. Marto Mägi  

breaks of from to dissociation

08′ 46” 

 

study of the removal of static through the format of an operetta.

 

1. Andrea Gudiño 

Also the Sea of June

09′ 43” 

 

The account of the not-so-everyday landscapes in the life of an anxious human a month before her birthday, becomes a solitary confession made up of fragments while traveling alone with her phone.

 

1. Mark Kokotov 

V¡¶λ

02′ 57” 

The work brings into focus the effect that cell towers have on birds and their surrounding environment. The soundscape in the video makes certain sounds audible to the human ear that are normally only accessible to different animals. Moreover, the video highlights the magnetic fields generated by the aforementioned towers and the ways in which these fields disturb the navigational skills of birds. The ethics surrounding the placement and quantity of these towers take center stage in this audiovisual piece, provoking the audience to ask themselves these exact questions.

1. Nataliia Domini (Grygorieva)

Hair 

00′ 36” 

Sisyphian fight against Hair that will continue to grow even after human death.

1. Agnes Milla Bereczki 

Soul

03′ 41” 

While on a 10-day trip in the Alps with the EKA animation department, we met with the animation students from Lucerne. We lived together in wooden cabins under the slope of the mountain, and every morning we would go out to hike and film. My work is inspired by ancient Estonian idolatry and a renewed perspective on coexistence with nature. Before leaving for Switzerland, I prepared a few dozen porcelain doll heads to help visualize the mythological landscape that is revealed to those who travel there. The work is classified as a music video-esque, experimental animation.

1. Kadri Joala 

Identity 

07′ 32′

Identity is a sign and a mark, by which people classify themselves and by which they communicate with one another in any given society.’ 

1. Piret Potter 

Hingelind (meaning “spirit bird” in English)

05′ 51” 

A lively child runs across a field until they notice a dead bird. The soul of the bird departs its body and flies towards the forest, and the curious child follows it. Without warning, the child falls into the world of the dead and must find their way home.

* Anett Aedla’s graduation work “What brings joy?”, duration 21′ 13” 

The film tells the story of 10-year-old Lilli, who has to cope with very contrasting tasks in her everyday life. How to go to school, take care of the household, help her mother, and at the same time remain a child and find joy in life? What happens to a child’s life when their parents can no longer fulfil their responsibilities? This story, full of the joys and sorrows of everyday life,  strives to show that hope does not disappear even in the toughest moments.

SISU is a major event in the field of Estonian interior architecture and spatial design, which deals with topics related to interior architecture. The symposium has become a meeting place for recognized theorists and practitioners in the field of (interior) architecture from all over the world. This year’s SISU will take place from the 13th until the 2oth of June  in the premises of the National Archives film archive in Pelgulinn. The focal point of SISU is an exhibition and the accompanying symposium, which will take place on 13th of June at 5.00 p.m.

The title of this year’s exhibition … And Nothing is Forever refers to the question of temporality in spatial design. Participants from all over Europe were asked to open up the current state of their profession through one artefact that was to be sent to Tallinn with the smallest size box of the international postal service. Both found objects and works created especially for this event will be on display at the symposium. However, the participants had to take into account the fact that after the end of the exhibition they wouldn’t get back their works. The objects will be put back in the boxes and they will remain in the building as a unified time capsule. 

The curators of the Time Capsule project, Aet Ader, Karin Tõugu Gregor Taul and Pavle Stamenovic, invited 50 individuals and offices from Estonia and abroad to participate in SISU this time, and half of them responded with an artefact. Among the participants are interior architects, architects, designers, artists, urban activists, material researchers, furniture makers, creative researchers as well as performance artists, all of whom have come into contact with the field of interior architecture in one way or another. Attempts have been made to capture the spirit of the era and the profession both through text-based manifestos and ephemeral mock-ups.

In the exhibition, the artefacts enter into a dialogue with the cells of the Ristiku 84 building, which was built as a prison for the Tallinn garrison in the 1950s. It is a unique horseshoe-shaped prison, which reflects the 18th century English enlightener Jeremy Bentham’s idea of a penitentiary as a panopticon. Although the neoclassical prison underwent a thorough renovation in the 1990s when it was converted into an archive, the cells on the first floor were left intact. Films have been shot in these rooms, and architecture enthusiasts have been able to get to know the house as part of the annual Museum Nights, but the house is unknown to the general public. It may happen that it will stay that way, because it is not known what the state will do with the building after the Film Archive moves out. It is not a listed building, moreover, the building is in poor condition, has a somewhat tainted history and is located on a valuable plot. Based on current practice, the entire complex – along with the “buried” SISU 2024 time capsule – is threatened with demolition.

The SISU exhibition opens at 3 p.m on the 13th of June. At 4 p.m there will be a guided tour in the Film Archives building led by its director Eva Näripea. The symposion will take place from 5 p.m to 7 p.m. The exhibition will remain open from the 14th to the 20th of June, Mon-Thu 9 a.m to 5 p.m, Fri 9 a.m to 4 p.m. Further information in English below.

SISU is supported by the Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Culture, Film Archive of the National Archives of Estonia and the Estonian Association of Interior Architects. In addition to the curators, Gregor Taul and Annamari Nael from the EKA Department of Interior Architecture and graphic designer Anna Kaarma belong to the organizing team of the symposium.

Initial list of participants:

45 degrees (Greece/Germany) – https://www.forty-five-degrees.com/

Hanna Loora Arro

Ljubica Arsic (Serbia/Switzerland) – https://ljubicaarsic.com/

Masayo Ave (Japan/Germany) – https://www.masayoavecreation.org/

Jean Jacques Balzak (France) – https://www.instagram.com/jeanjacquesbalzac/

Laurens Bekemans (Belgium) – https://bcmaterials.org/

Katarina Bonnevier (Sweden) – https://mycket.org/

Janka Csernak (Hungary) – https://mome.hu/en/people/janka-csernak

Aleksandr Delev (Germany) – https://www.aleksandrdelev.com/

Davor Eres (Serbia) – https://ifdt.bg.ac.rs/dt_team/eres-davor/?lang=en

Failed Architecture (Holland) – https://failedarchitecture.com/

Caterina Figuera (Spain/Switzerland) – https://rotativestudio.com/

Ana Filipovic (Germany) – https://www.ana-filipovic.com/

Daniel Fuchs (Switzerland) – https://bach-muehle-fuchs.ch/

Atelier Gapont (Liechenstein) – https://ateliergapont.li/

Tinatin Gurgenidze (Georgia/Germany) – https://www.instagram.com/post_soviet_space/

Matilde Igual (Spain) – https://matildeigual.eu/

Silvia Ingver

Jüri Kermik – https://www.kermikdesign.com/

Keithy Kuuspu – https://www.keithykuuspu.com/

Kuidas.works – https://kuidas.works/

LLRRLLRR – https://llrrllrr.com/

Milica Lopičić (Serbia/Germany) – https://www.lopicic.de/

Urmas Lüüs – https://urmasluus.com/

Tom Vam Malderen (Malta) – https://tomvanmalderen.com/

Philip Mecke (Germany) – https://www.philipp-mecke.com/

Arnita Melzoba and Kārlis Melzobs (Latvia) – https://gaissarhitekti.lv/

Jelena Mitrovic (Serbia) – https://poligon.rs/

mitte_tallinn – https://www.instagram.com/mitte_tallinn/

Maria Muuk, Nele Kurvits, Aimur Takk

Platvorm – https://www.platvorm.ee/

Laura Pormeister

Miro Roman (Croatia/Switzerland) – https://miro.romanvlahovic.com/

Sampling (Latvia) – https://www.sampling.lv/

SPOLKA (Slovakia) – https://spolka.cc/

Sven Samyn

Dubravka Sekulić (Serbia/United Kingdom) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubravka_Sekulić

Sander Joosep Siigur

Linda Marie Zimmer

Pent Talvet – https://www.iseasi.ee/

Margus Tammik, Mari Möldre, Ulla Alla, Merilin Kaup – https://vares.space/

TEN studio (Serbia/Switzerland) – https://ten.studio/

Kristi Tšernilovski

Stuudio TÄNA – https://stuudiotäna.ee/

Mari Uibo

Linda-Marie Urke

Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla – https://www.vaiklastudio.ee/people/tuune-kristin/

Kristina Õllek – https://kristinaollek.com/

Mirell Ülle – https://www.tervislikruum.ee/

Cancelled!

On May 31, at 11 AM Sofia Nannini will present a lecture “The mechanization of life: Histories, architecture, and paradoxes of intensive animal farming” in room A-403.

The zootechnical buildings of animal farming are everywhere and, paradoxically, they seem to be nowhere. Also, they are often perceived as anonymous and timeless. Yet, we may ask: How did the architecture of intensive animal farming develop since the late nineteenth century? This talk will briefly explore its geographical and institutional origins, and it will critically analyse the spatial, social, and ethical paradoxes on which the animal-industrial complex is grounded.

The lecture is intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture.

Sofia Nannini is an Assistant Professor in architectural history at the Politecnico di Torino. She is author of “Icelandic Farmhouses: Identity, Landscape and Construction (1790-1945)” (Firenze University Press, 2023) and of “The Icelandic Concrete Saga: Architecture and Construction (1847–1958)” (Jovis, 2024). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled “The Mechanization of Life: An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming”.

 

NART OPEN LECTURE IN EKA 3/3 – Kristiin Hanimägi and Joel Freeman
21 May at 17.45
Põhja pst 7 room A-501, EKA, Tallinn

The third and final NART open lecture this season will be on May 21. It will be by Kristiin Hanimägi (EST) and Joel Freeman (USA). Kristiin is an experimental photographer living in Tallinn where she works at the National Heritage Board of Estonia as an archivist. Joel is an artist and art worker living in Los Angeles, California. Together, they work as a duo and in Narva they research collective memory by offering locals to engage with camera obcuras.

Artists-in-residence from the Narva Art Residency give semi-regular public lectures at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. They talk about the practicalities of being a professional artist, what the daily life of an art residency is like, and how to get involved in the opportunities offered to artists. Of course, they also introduce their creative work.

The final lecture this spring takes place on Tuesday, 21 May at 17.45. It will be in EKA (Põhja pst 7) in room A.501 on the fifth floor. The lecture is free of charge and open to all! The lecture will be held in English.