Category: Faculty of Design

Adrianus Kundert is a Dutch designer working on products and spatial design and is an enthusiastic basketry maker. Playfulness, experimentation and a delicate application of both colors and materials characterize his design language. His hands-on working method vouches for groundbreaking projects – materialized ideas twisting techniques into new crafts.

Adrianus: ”The projects I especially enjoy working on tend to push boundaries. Currently I am exploring the world of basketry and organizing my initiative Basketclub. Besides I work on product and spatial design for clients such as: Jongeriuslab, Susan Bijl, Crafts Council and Envisions.”

In this lecture Adrianus Kundert will take you on a journey through his working method, highlighting some projects that he worked on so far. With his playful and experimental approach Adrianus works on a very diverse range of projects within the scope of product design; all coming forth out of an hands-on making attitude while designing. The outcome of this process is often craft oriented, and tries to push the boundaries in an attempt to bring something new to these techniques. Recently he has been focussing on basketry, and in the lecture he will also explain more about his initiative Basketclub, that brings designers from around the world together on the theme of basketmaking. Finally, he will end the lecture by sharing his vision and what questions drive him while working on new designs.

The lecture is in English.

www.adrianuskundert.com

www.instagram.com/opblaashelicopter

https://www.instagram.com/_basketclub_/

The lecture is brought to you by EKA Accessories and Bookbinding Department

Exhibition “Notes on Fashion and Gender” on the 4th floor of Estonian Academy of Arts on 14–16 May 2022.

Participants: Karl Martin Kelder, Hedy Kohv, Karolin Kärm, Maria Kristiin Peterson, Jentl Rietdij, Mairo Seire, Sanna Särekanno, Kirke Talu, Liis Tisler, Anni Vallsalu, Dana Lorên Vares

This Saturday, the exhibition Notes on Fashion and Gender, which is outcome of the course Fashion and Gender opens at the 4th floor of Estonian Academy of Arts. 11 students present their works that could be considered floating between the areas of fashion, design and contemporary art. The focus of the course was on fashion as visual communication and as embodied practice: how different embodied practises contribute to the creation and communication of gender and other identity-related categories (age, sexuality, ethnicity, social class), and how the prevailing notions of identity can be challenged. Shoes, a mask, a hat, bags, pants and other objects will be exhibited at the show.

Tutors of the course are Sten Ojavee from Estonian Center for Contemporary Art and Annamari Vänskä from Aalto University. Ojavee and Vänskä first collaboration took place in 2016 in the event VI Artishok biennale which was produced by CCA.

Tutors: Sten Ojavee, Annamari Vänskä (Aalto University)

Exhibition is open until 16 May 2022.

Estonian Academy of Arts, 4^th floor, Sat–Mon 08–23.

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

And playground is open for the whole day.

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

Until we play!

“Soft Negotiations”
EKA (Estonian Academy Of Arts) Department of Textile Design
25/04/2022–15/05/2022

Vilnius Academy of Arts gallery “Artifex”,  Gaono g.1, Tue to Sun 12.00–18.00

The exhibition presents works by students and teaching staff of the Estonian Academy of Arts that investigate the all-encompassing role of textile design. Besides conventional roles, new hybrid forms emerge, presenting new knowledge in the context of artistic research. Emerging technological approaches are demonstrated, in which textile, interwoven with digital properties or technology at different levels, mediates collaborative processes in design of social interaction.

Just as the warp threads connect the weft, serving as a bridge for each other, this exhibition by the Department of Textile Design invites audiences to ponder the role of textile in today’s and future society. At the exhibition, the department presents contemporary trends that often straddle or meld with the boundaries of other disciplines. That in turn creates a new, multidisciplinary approach where textile can take very different forms: it can convey structure, idea, protest, message, self-expression, pattern or simply colour combination.

The exhibition has three conceptual threads, which intersect each other:
Textile as STATE(MENT)
#critical and conceptual practices
Textile as LAB
#experimental practice #flirting with science #biotextiles #new materials and structures
Textile as WELLBEING
#design that values the environment and well-being #sustainability #recycling #healthcare #social responsibility #therapy

Participants: Frank Abner, Arife Dila Demir, Katrin Kabun, Kadi Kibbermann, Mari-Triin Kirs, Kristi Kuusk + Ana Tajadura-Jiménez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) + Aleksander Väljamäe (University of Tartu), Krista Leesi, Kille- Ingeri Liivoja + Juulia Aleksandra Mikson, Greth-Ann Loog + Riina Samelselg + Anete Vihm, Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCAD UNIVERSITY), Marin Nooni, Maria Kristiin Peterson, Piret Roos + Liisa Torsus, Zane Shumeiko, Marie Vihmar + Sirje Sasi (TLU), Piret Valk, Varvara & Mar + Sebastian Mealla

Curators: Varvara Guljajeva (HKUST(GZ)), Kristel Laurits, EKA Department of Textile Design
Graphic design: Jesus Rodriguez Santos
Exhibition team: Kristi Kuusk, Varvara Guljajeva, Krista Leesi, Kadi Kibbermann, Piret Valk

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

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

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

The questions will be opened via 3 tracks

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

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

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

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

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

More info about the conference and THE SPEAKERS

European Design Festival 2022 Tallinn programme and tickets now available!

This year the European Design Festival (ED-Festival) will be held in Tallinn, 17-19 June 2022.

Creative people from all over Europe are expected to take part in the Festival Programme that will also be open to the general public. The Programme includes the Design Conference “Beyond Design”, Workshops, Exhibitions, Design Walks, Design Talks, Studio Crawls and of course, the European Design Awards Ceremony!

The Festival Programme 2022 is being curated by the Estonian Design Centre. The Programme and ticketing are available on the European Design Awards website.

“There were this time over 1 400 submissions to the ED-Awards 2022 Competition. The participants were from 34 different countries – from Lichtenstein to Germany and from Iceland to Turkey, so from big to small, east to west and north to south” says Mr Demetrios Fakinos, the European Design Festival director and added: “The winners will start receiving notifications in the second half of April, but the official announcement of winners will take place during the European Design Festival 2022 Award Show, on 18 June at 7 pm at the Creative Hub/Kultuurikatel – one of the most unique creative and event spaces in Northern Europe.”

The European Design Conference 2022 “Beyond Design”, also takes place on 18 June at the Creative Hub/Kultuurikatel. The Conference addresses the core questions of the future of design and the future through design, as well as themes related to the position and responsibilities of the designer. The work will take place through practical workshops, discussions and multidisciplinary future visions. The speakers at the Design Conference include designer, sociologist and sustainability provocateur Leyla Acaroglu; futurist Angela Oguntala (founding partner at Greyspace, a foresight and design studio); professor, design and technology ethicist Ariel Guersenzvaig; creative strategist and problem solver Marksteen Adamson and many more. The Conference will also cover several interesting cases from leading European design agencies.

More info about European Design Festival 2022 in Tallinn

The programme

On Monday, April 18, at 4 pm, the Department of Textile Design of the Estonian Academy of Arts presents Katrin Kabun’s book “Archaically high-tech: Knowledge-based Use of Sheep Wool”

The book was born out of a practical need, a desire to help restore the historical and economic value of wool. 

The publication has been compiled by a textile designer and is intended primarily for students, designers, interior architects, but also for anyone interested in understanding the value of wool as a material, the continuous processes that take place in the wool fibre and the functional properties of wool that are the result of such processes and give reason to call wool a naturally high-tech fiber. The aim of the book is to explain in an easily understandable language what is happening in the wool fibre, how wool as a material interacts with the surrounding environment and thereby increase interest towards a wider and more conscious use of wool.

Author Katrin Kabun has been developing the possibilities and technology of the application of sheep wool since 2014 in the Department of Textile Design of the Estonian Academy of Arts. The study of wool is the subject of both her master’s and doctoral theses and is central to her studies with her students.

Publisher: The Estonian Academy of Arts Department of Textile Design

Author: Katrin Kabun

Scientific editor: Sander Õun

Content editor: Diana Tuulik

Language editor: Svea Aavik

Designer: Janika Vesberg

Illustrator: Laura Meelind

Photography: iStock, Shutterstock, Katrin Kabun, Gilleke Kopamees, Sandra Urvak 

SEM images: Valdek Mikli

English translation: OÜ Tritek

Print: Booksfactory

ISBN 978-9916-6-1951-3

Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Arts 

OPEN LECTURE by Ariel Guersenzvaig
“The goods of design: towards professional ethics for designers”
Thursday, 14th of April at 4 p.m. (EKA, A-101)

SYNOPSIS

Despite its impact on society and on the world, the design profession lacks widespread ethical principles and frameworks for addressing ethical issues. Codes of ethics, however useful to prompt discussions, rarely go beyond generalities as preventing harms or respecting human rights. In this talk I will propose a different approach based on the cultivation of ethics from within the practice, and will explore the urgent need for a broad design professional ethics that viably enables designers to deal with the challenges they face in their profession.

___

Ariel Guersenzvaig is a design and technology ethicist and a professor of design at ELISAVA, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. His main areas of research are, on the one hand, the ethical impact of machine intelligence on society, and, on the other hand, the ethics of professional design activity, which is the topic of his latest book ‘The Goods of Design: Professional Ethics for Designers’* (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), which is also available in EKA library. He holds a PhD in Design Theory from the University of Southampton (UK), and an MA in Ethics from the University of Birmingham (UK).

Monday, April 4, 16:30

EKA auditorium A101

Valentinas Klimašauskas will present his recent practice as an art researcher, curator, and writer while emphasising the critique of the art machinery in the age of manipulations.

Valentinas Klimašauskas is a curator and writer who is based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Together with João Laia he curated “The Endless Frontier”, the 14th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius (2021). With Inga Lāce he curated “Saules Suns”, a solo exhibition by Daiga Grantina for the Latvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019). He is a curator at large at Springs.video, a moving image streaming platform that also serves as an educational and curatorial archive. Currently, he is also continuing his doctoral research at Vilnius Art Academy titled “A (self)portrait of a young artist in the style of institutional critique”.

selectedletters.lt

Valentinas Klimašauskas is in Tallinn on the invitation of Graphic Design MA and Contemporary Art MA programmes. The lecture is additionally hosted by KUNO network and can be joined also via Zoom 

Meeting ID: 978 6104 0017

Passcode: 352620

Sara Kaaman OPEN LECTURE bodies, rooms, movements, fictions

Wednesday, 30 March
17:30h
Room A-501

The talk is held in English

Playing with temporality, history and storytelling, this performative lecture is a dramatised odyssey through, and deconstruction of, the professional identity we know as the “graphic designer”. Historical and speculative facts and fictions blend into infotainment, with Britney Spears in a supporting role.

Sara Kaaman is a graphic designer based in Stockholm, who is also teaching, writing, moving, and currently studying an MA in New Performative Practices. She is interested in the intersections of publishing technologies, bodies, politics, performance and poetry. Since 2012 she is the graphic designer and co-editor of Girls Like Us magazine. With Maryam Fanni and Matilda Flodmark she forms the research collective MMS, investigating labour histories of graphic design via feminist theory and practice. Their book Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography was published in 2020. With dancer and choreographer Klara Utke Acs, she works on performative investigations on the metaphors of digital and analogue publishing formats, most recently presented as ”The Book – An Interfacial Sitcom”.