Category: Doctoral School

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

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

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

Opponent: Prof. Arie Graafland

The defense will be held in English.

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

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

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

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

Please find the PhD thesis HERE.

On the 6th of June at 10.00, the pre-reviewing of Art & Design doctoral student Tõnis Jürgens’ exhibition “Dreaming of Babylon” will take place via Zoom. Link HERE

“Dreaming of Babylon” is the first solo exhibition related to Jürgens’ artistic research doctoral thesis. The thesis is supervised by dr Rolf Hughes (KU Leuven, Belgium). The pre-reviewers of the exhibition are dr Eva Näripea and Taavi Talve.

The virtual exhibition was open during 28.02.–10.04.2022 at the post-gallery.online platform, and is archived here: https://www.post-gallery.online/archive/dreamingofbabylon/index.

“Dreaming of Babylon” is a nostalgic-satirical vision of the future whose central motifs are distraction and the materiality of data.

The film and online exhibition form one possible imagination of a post-human time, where the drive for better life, novelty and technological solipsism has led to the total melding of conscience into code, and digital ruins, around which the earthy nature keeps on perpetuating.

The title refers to a novel by American prose writer Richard Brautigan. In a parody of 1940s noir fiction, Brautigan’s protagonist is a private detective and hapless dreamer who, while trying to solve a case, incessantly becomes entangled in his own daydreams. As a response to the explicitly rapid and brief chapters of Brautigan’s novel, this film instead adheres to the lingering style of slow cinema, whilst tipping its hat to the romantic medium of 16mm film.

film crew
executive producer: Fidelia Regina Randmäe
1st assistant camera: Erki Kase
2nd assistant camera: Aadu Lambot

post-gallery.online
programmer: Kelli Gedvil
management: Kristen Rästas

thanks
Joosep Ehasalu, Toomas Jürgens, Raul Keller, Kristo Kiis, Kalju Karl Kivi, Piibe Kolka, Paul Kuimet, Kulla Laas, Ian Simon Märjama, Allan Proos, Rene Tamm, Erko Valdmets

supported by
Balti Filmi- ja Meediakool, Eesti Kultuurkapital, Eesti Rahvuskultuuri Fond, Jõelähtme vald, Kino Sõprus, Kuusalu vald, Paekivitoodete Tehas OÜ, Rae vald, Rahvusarhiiv, Silikaat AS, Tallinna Strateegiakeskus, Telia Eesti AS

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.

The annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on April 7th, 2022.

Please register by April 4th at the latest.

The conference will also be broadcast on EKA TV https://tv.artun.ee/eka

Conference is supported by European Regional Development Fund

TIMETABLE

09.45 Registration

10.00 Opening words, Dr. Anu Allas, Vice-Rector for Research, Head of Doctoral School

10.15 Lecture, EKA visiting Prof. Maarit Mäkelä (Aalto University) „In dialogue with the environment: creativity, materials and making“

11.05 Coffee break

Cultural Heritage and Conservation
Moderator Dr. Anneli Randla

11.20 Ulla Kadakas  „About protection of archaeological heritage in Estonia from 1945 to 1965“ (supervisors Dr. Riin Alatalu, Dr. Erki Russow). Discussant Kristiina Ribelus.

12.00 Kadri Kallast „Heritage Values in Urban Planning: the Authorized Heritage Discourse and Community Engagement“ (supervisors Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Kurmo Konsa). Discussant Sean Tyler.

12.40 Kristiina Ribelus  „Digitizing cultural heritage by citizen participation: creating a historic interior finishes and features database in Estonia“ (supervisors Prof. Hilkka Hiiop, Dr. Epi Tohvri). Discussant Ulla Kadakas.

13.20 Break

Architecture and Urban Planning
Moderator Dr Jüri Soolep

14.20 Sean Thomas Tyler „Revisiting Landscape Architecture’s relationship to Stewardship: British Woodlands, Forests and Estates“ (supervisor Prof. Maroš Krivy). Discussant Kadri Kallast. 

Art history and visual culture
Moderator Prof. Krista Kodres

15.00 Hanno Soans  „On the „Zarathustra-Cycle“ by Raoul Kurvits’’ (supervisor Dr. Katrin Kivimaa). Discussant Liisa-Helena Lumberg.

15.40 Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann „Monstrous Ideas: The Repression and Obsession with Traumatic Experiences in Horror Films Directed by Women“ (supervisors Dr. Barbi Pilvre-Storgard, Dr. Regina-Nino Mion). Discussant Tõnis Jürgens.

16.20 Liisa-Helena Lumberg „Immediate and mediated experiences. Baltic German writings on art in the first decades of the 19th century“ (supervisor Prof. Krista Kodres). Discussant Hanno Soans. 

17.00 Coffee break

Art and Design
Moderator Dr. Jaana Päeva 

17.20 Gytis Dovydaitis „What is Space in Cyberspace? An Integrative Literature Analysis“ (new media art, exchange PhD student from Vytautas Magnus University). Discussant Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann.

18.00 Tõnis Jürgens  „Contours of Sleep“ (supervisor Dr. Rolf Hughes). Discussant Gytis Dovydaitis. 

18.40 Katrin Kabun  „Application possibilities of sheep wool according to the requirements of the circular economy system“ (supervisors Dr. Jüri Kermik, Prof. Andres Krumme). Discussant Dila Demir.

19.20 Arife Dila Demir „„Squeaky/Pain“: Cultivating Bodily Disturbing Experiences and Perspective Transition for Somaesthetic Interactions“ (supervisors Dr Kristi Kuusk, Dr Nithikul Nimkulrat). Discussant Katrin Kabun.

20.00 Conclusive comments, Dr. Anu Allas

For more information:
Kadri Kallast kadri.kallast@artun.ee
Janika Turu janika.turu@artun.ee

Conference is supported by European Regional Development Fund

On Friday, March 25 at 17.00, a pre-review of Art and Design programme PhD student Matthias Sildnik’s exhibition „Development Fever“ will take place at EKA Gallery. Exhibition is part of the doctoral thesis of Matthias Sildnik.
The exhibition is open until 26 March, 2022.

Supervisor: Dr. Margus Ott
Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: Dr. Raivo Kelomees, Andrus Laansalu

About the exhibition: https://www.artun.ee/en/calendar/matthias-sildnik-development-fever-04-26-03-at-eka-gallery-2/

Previous projects and methodological overview can be further explored here: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/721404/800739

Matthias Sildnik „Development Fever”
04—26.03
Opening: 04.03 at 5 pm

 Join us for the opening of „Development Fever“ by Matthias Sildnik on March 4, at 5 pm at EKA Gallery! The exhibition is part of the Art and Design PhD curriculum studies and runs until March 26. 

Our research results indicate that human consciousness is dysfunctional. Memory, perception and attention are setting limitations not only to the volume but also to the functions that the information contains. In addition, an even more troubling problem has emerged. A spectre of nationalism is lurking in the subconscious sections of the human psyche. Human consciousness is critical and paranoid. It doesn’t draw conclusions only from the proven facts. Speculation and critical analysis have become dangerous in the era of post-truth. We can only draw one conclusion if we take these threats seriously.

The evolutionary conditioned human mind has become a limiting factor for economic and political developments. Only radical innovation and revolutionary technology can tame the dangers of the human mind. If we could only bypass the consciousness, and feed relevant information directly to the executive parts of the brain. Disconnecting the psyche from executive autonomy is the utmost challenge. The consciousness would be isolated and will remain in the state of a passive observer. From there, it’s just a matter of fine-tuning and tying together the occasional loose ends. Do we identify parts in the brain from which the consciousness emerges and remove them? Or we could feed the consciousness with randomized noise such as entertainment, local newsfeed or audiobooks by Michel Foucault. Then they have time to think about “How to explain human nature to Foucault?”.”

But let us not get carried away by the future prospects. Neither technology nor political economy is advanced enough to achieve this during the next five years. At the time being our main strategy is to subvert and erode the evolutionary stratum of consciousness. We must use state of the art technologies, namely AI and social media to be successful at this. In addition, we need to mobilize the mass of young and underdeveloped individuals who possess incredible techno-revolutionary potential. This mass shall be empowered and organized by the neuro-pioneers movement. Neuropioneers are the developers of mind whose slogan shall be ”Deautonomize! Deorganize! Dementalize!”. Our main function during this period is the coordination and deployment of information and psychological operations. But we must not forget that only youth can accomplish the final denazification of the human mind.

PS

This cyber-bolshevist brainstorm belongs to the authors’ ongoing PhD artistic research project that probes similarities between technological capitalism and Leninism. Usually, digital developments are analyzed within the framework of criticism of capitalism. Nevertheless ideas such as digital Maoism (Jaron Lanier), Google Marxism (George Gilder), digital Gulag/Google archipelago, corporate socialism (Michael Rectenwald) and woke capitalism (Ross Douthat), describe tendencies within technological developments that are closer to socialist totalitarianism than to free-market economies. This exhibition consists of forms that emerge when these two opposing currents crossbreed and give life to an entirely new existence.

Matthias Sildnik (b. 1987) has graduated from the Installation and Sculpture department BA (2010) and MA (2014) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. His work has been exhibited in Estonia and abroad in solo and group shows. Sildnik studies the impact of high technology on daily life. He uses mediums such as digital graphics, statistical analysis and installation as dissociative synthesis environment. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Participate in the ongoing authors’ research and fill in the Working Environment Development form here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewxCqDpGXswDpm0CEPBpeywQiMlBceBKFq05Ry4MXXxwwFmg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0

Previous projects and methodological overview can be further explored here: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/721404/800739

The pre-review of Britta Benno’s exhibition Of Becoming a Land(Scape) will take place on 12 February at 14.00 in the Tartu Art House.
Of Becoming a Land(Scape) is the third exhibition of Britta Benno’s artistic doctoral thesis.

The pre-review will be preceded by a presentation by geologist Juho Kirs on minerals, the formation of earth layers and the geology of the post-human future at 13.00.

The thesis supervisor is Dr. Elnara Taidre.
Pre-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa and Dr. Linda Kaljundi.

The exhibition will be open from 22.01-20.02.2022.

Current solo exhibition “Of Becoming a Land(Scape)” serves as the third part of Britta Benno’s artistic research in the doctoral school at the Estonian Academy of Arts with the working title “Thinking in Layers, Imagining in Layers: Posthumanist Landscapes in the Extended Field of Drawing and Printmaking”.
Pre-reviewing of the exhibition will take place on 12.02.2022.

The protagonist in Benno’s last project in the series of personal exhibitions of the doctoral programme is landscape that formerly has appeared in a background role in Benno’s artwork. Image is becoming abstract and architecture is backing away from the stage. A layered landscape comes forth, the rocks in earth’s crust reveal themselves underneath the soil. At the same time, the crystallization of posthumanist philosophy in Britta Benno’s artistic (self)definition reveals itself through the agency of minerals. University of Tartu Natural History Museum with its collection of minerals is situated in the close proximity to Tartu Art House. Museum-like expositions, striped textures of fossils and conversations with geologists place the exhibition both to local time-space and the timeless spirit of art and science.

Tectonic layers are alive, moving and breathing, forming mountains and flooding continents. The layers arise from above while shaking and cracking holes and fissures to the earth’s crust. Similarly to the sunrise on the horizon, layers of gas and oil in the depths of earth emerge towards the surface and slowly transform the earth’s landscape. At the same time, somewhere another soil goes down in the depths of earth. In order to imagine the future, one has to look at the past to form a better understanding about the present.

Britta Benno comments on her artistic method: „While imagining the earth’s layers I am working with the means of art in layers. In a way, working in layers can be also called a method of piling up.  Materials, tracks and images cover each other just like the layers of Earth form a huge globe. How should one call the large-format artwork made of canvas, frame, coat, prints, watercolour, coal, acrylic paints, ink and plexiglass? Modelling paste, fabric and other (found) materials in combination with metamorphic rocks in litosphere, in the depths of earth, create new conceptual landscapes. Poetically flowing mountains can be also discovered while observing the heap of blanket on my bed, on a topographic map or in atlas of imaginary beings.”

Collaborational input to the exhibition works: Ragnar Neljandi (cameraman, animator, post-production), Kassandra Laur, Iti Oja, Kristiina Tali (installation), Juhan Vihterpal (composer).

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Laine Groeneweg (Smokestack Studio Hamilton), Pudy Tong (Open Studio Toronto),  Robert Zeigler (Cotton Factory Hamilton), Madis Kaasik (Prototyping Lab manager at the Estonian Academy of Arts), Mare Isakar, Juho Kirs (holder of geology collections at the University of Tartu, consultant), printmaking workshop of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Katrin Piile, Elnara Taidre.

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Nukufilm OÜ.

Ulvi Haagensen
Kodunäitus / Home Exhibition
Lembitu 6-6, Tallinn
8.–10.01.2022
Please register HERE

There are many ways to make an exhibition at home. You could paint the walls white, clear away all traces of everyday life and set up the artwork as you might in a white cube gallery. Or you could set up your work in and around existing everyday objects. Or you could not really do anything and simply invite people to your place and call it an exhibition. Art can after all, be whatever we decide it will be.

Ulvi Haagensen and her three imaginary friends, Thea Koristaja, Olive Puuvill and Artist-Researcher are using Ulvi’s home as the venue for their exhibition. This is an environment that combines home, studio and now also exhibition space. Their aim is to explore the lines between art and everyday life and as they do, they puzzle over distinctions of whether something is art or non-art, practical or impractical, useful or useless, mundane or special. They are curious to know how people will know what they are looking at. Will they know whether something is art or non-art; are they supposed to be looking at this thing or not? But maybe these questions don’t really matter, because maybe what we are really interested in is seeing how other people live.

Ulvi Haagensen was born in Sydney, Australia, but has been living, working and teaching in Tallinn for many years. She studied at City Art Institute in Sydney (BA) and College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales (MFA) and is currently doing her PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts researching the connections and overlap between art and everyday life, as seen through the eyes of an artist, for whom art, work and everyday life are closely interwoven. In her research she is assisted by three imaginary friends – an artist cleaner, an artist bricoleuse and an artist researcher. She has had solo exhibitions in Estonia, Australia, Sweden and Lithuania.

Kodunäitus / Home Exhibitionon is the third pre-reviewed exhibition of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis. The pre-reviewing will take place on 11 January, 11.00 at the EKA, room A202.
The pre-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Ester Bardone (University of Tartu), Dr. Anu Kannike (Estonian National Museum) and Prof. Mika Pekka Elo (Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki).
Supervisors of the thesis are Dr. Liina Unt (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Dr. Jan Guy (The University of Sydney).

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Rait Rosin, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Art and Disain, will defend his thesis “Social Art as the Source for Changing Social Norms: Artists’ and Art Viewers’ Expectations in Estonian Small Towns” („Sotsiaalne kunst kui ühiskondlike normide kasvulava: kunstnike ja kunstipubliku vastastikused ootused Eesti väikelinnades“) on 13th of December 2021 at 10.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A101.

Limited number of audience can participate on-site, please register HERE
Please provide certificate of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19.

The defense will be held in Estonian.

Supervisors: Dr. Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts), Dr. Margus Vihalem (Tallinn University)
External reviewers: Dr. Heie Treier (Tallinn University), Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu)
Opponent: Dr. Heie Treier

The increasing interest in Estonian art scenes outside of Tallinn necessitates careful and critical discussion. Rait Rosin’s PhD dissertation investigates regional gallery spaces and local people attitudes toward art activities in their communities. The reader will have a better grasp of Estonia’s diversified creative scene and society-driven cultural shifts. The comparison provides an overview of the precision of the regional differentiations of the six Estonian small towns: Paldiski, Haapsalu, Valga, Võru, Rapla, and Rakvere by comparing the various regional characters and as well six local art galleries. In comparison, the audience of town galleries and artist interviews demonstrate how each party sees local art. The research looks into Estonian small-town initiatives to communicate with small towns, parallels and examples of artists activities, who had exhibitions in local galleries during the years 2010–2017. The author of the thesis interprets the artistic expressions of the participants as acts of cultural communication of the centre and the periphery polarities. Nonetheless, because the expectations of small towns have to implement for their organised events, the contribution of artists is calculated based on their effect on the surrounding areas. On the one hand, the dissertation is a reflection of Rait Rosin’s own artistic practice while he depict themes for the artworks, while also analysing his own position as artist researcher. Dissertation In the other hand, is classified as discourse, with engaged art as one of the socially active solutions. According to the philosophers such as John Dewey, Jacques Rancière and others, local interest and activity-binding solutions may assist artists. As a result, the local cultural scene may have established a field of meaning construction that aids to integrate various groups into the community. The PhD thesis focuses on local people waiting for artists and visiting artists’ assessments of Estonian small-towns in creative chores and art creation, often due to a lack of expert criticism and the location of the art.