Category: Faculty of Design

On Thursday, May 16 at 6 pm, the exhibition YOU MUST HAVE A BODY by the second-year students of the Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department will be opened at the Estonian Academy of Arts Trepigalerii.

The subject of the exhibition is the body and the experience of this self-existence and being a part of the world. Nine young artists interpret how bodies interact with each other, what are the characteristics of the body, and what, in which form, leaves marks in the body. The selection of the materials and techniques used can be somewhat surprising.

Participators: Georg Arnold, Kristina Kask, Endel Maas, Terje Meisterson, Tauris Reose, Kristin Sepp, Oleg Šubitšev, Mart Talvar, Taavi Teevet.

Supervisors: Eve Margus-Villems, Nils Hint, Urmas Lüüs, Jens A. Clausen.

Sponsors: Träx rehvikeskus, Tikkurila, ExtraWize, EKA, Martin Kipper, Carol Haamer.

The exhibition at the Estonian Academy of Arts Trepigalerii (entrance on the corner of Põhja pst 7 and Kotzebue street) remains open May 17 – 30, Monday – Sunday 12 PM – 7 PM.

Further information:
Taavi Teevet
taavi.teevet@artun.ee
+372 56 947 532

Date:6–8 May 2019 at 10.00 – 15.30

Venue:Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhja pst 7, room A402 (6-7 May), A301 (8 May)

Lecturer:Nithikul Nimkulrat

Practice-based research[1]has been adopted by creative practitioners in various art and design disciplines for over three decades. Its basic proposition is that “not only is practice embedded in the research process but research questions arise from the process of practice, the answers to which are directed toward enlightening and enhancing practice” (Candy and Edmonds 2018, p. 63). An emphasis on the contribution of research outcomes from practice-based research is that new knowledge is generated to inform creative practice and such knowledge may at times only be obtainable by means of practice.

Whilst artifacts created from within a research project is viewed as an integral part of the practice-based research process, they are expected to be placed in context through written theses and/or disseminated in published papers. By the necessity of written theses in academic research, reflection and documentation of the creative process and the overall research process is unavoidable (Nimkulart 2007).

This seminar aims to assist art and design students in situating their creative artifacts in research (Nimkulrat 2013) and in designing and structing their research conduct that involves their own practice as a research method based on their research questions initially set. This is not to understand practice as research. Practice is not research but can play a significant role in research.

The seminar will focus on the following research components:

1. Research question– Why would art and design practice be necessary for answering it?
2. Research process– How is it constructed based on the research question? Where is art and design practice located within the research process? How is documentation performed throughout the processes? How does reflection drive the process further and transform the research question initially set?
3. Artifacts– Do they answer or support the written thesis to answer the research question?

In addition, the seminar will highlight how documentation functions as a research tool for capturing the practitioner-researcher’s reflection in- and on- action (Mäkelä and Nimkulrat 2018).

Requirement

To participate in the seminar, please send an abstract (250 words) that describes their PhD project and includes a few photos of artifacts and their processes, if any, to elika.kiilo@artun.eeby 1 May 2019. Please note that a primary research question must be clearly stated in the abstract.

In preparation for the seminar, participants will be asked to read

Candy, L. and Edmonds E. (2018). Practice-Based Research in the Creative Arts: Foundations and Futures from the Front Line. Leonardo 51(1), 63–69. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01471

Mäkelä, M., & Nimkulrat, N. (2018). Documentation as Practice-Led Research Tools for Reflection on Experiential Knowledge. FORMakademisk 11(2).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7577/formakademisk.1818

Nimkulrat, N. (2007). The Role of Documentation in Practice-Led Research. Journal of Research Practice, 3(1), Article M6. http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/58/83

Nimkulrat, N. (2009). Paperness: Expressive Material in Textile Art from an Artist’s Viewpoint (pp. 34–38). Helsinki, Finland: University of Art and Design Helsinki. https://nithikul.com/PDF/Paperness.pdf

Nimkulrat, N. (2013). Situating Creative Artifacts in Art and Design Research. FORMakademisk, 6(2), Article 4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7577/formakademisk.657

Registration

The seminar is open to PhD students. Registration is open until 30.04.2019.

Registration form

Nithikul Nimkulrat is a practitioner-researcher who intertwines research with textile practice, focusing on experiential knowledge in craft processes in the context of design research. Prior to her current appointment as a Tenured Associate Professor at OCAD University in Canada in December 2018, Nithikul has worked at Estonian Academy of Arts, Loughborough University, and Aalto University, where she earned a doctorate in 2009. Nithikul is an elected council member of the Design Research Society (DRS), the convenor of the DRS Special Interest Group on Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG), and the leader of the Cumulus Association’s Fashion and Textile Working Group.

[1]The term “practice-based research” is chosen over “artistic research” and “practice-led research” to be used in the workshop in order to give practice a general role in scholarly research. For differentiation in meaning of different terms, see Nimkulrat (2009, pp. 34–38) and Candy and Edmonds (2018, pp. 64–65).

This event is organised by the Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts, supported by the ASTRA project of the Estonian Academy of Arts – EKA LOOVKÄRG (European Union, European Regional Development Fund).

Erinn M. Cox artist talk at her solo show “loneliness is the slowest death : a requiem for longing”

Join the artist for a conversation about the works from her new series titled Longing, including a personal tour of the exhibition at EKA Gallery. The artist talk is in English.

For more about the artist, visit www.erinnmcox.com

The exhibition is open until April 27.
Supported by Põhjala Brewery.

The lecture takes place in EKA Main Hall (Põhja puiestee 7) on Tuesday, 16 April 18:00 and is open to everyone.

We experience so many innovations daily that we tend to forget that before their acceptance, many of these innovations have been met by resistance among the public, or by people whose livelihoods are threatened by them.

By looking into past innovation case studies we begin to understand the underlying reasons for resistance of innovations and become better equipped to propose innovative designs for our uncertain future to ultimately become the designers of tomorrow.

In the third open seminar for IxD.ma, and the second for IxDA Tallinn, we invite Haig Armen, Head of Interaction Design at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, to talk about designers’ role in creating the future.

As one of Canada’s most respected and innovative digital designers, Haig has been designing brands, advertising, and interactive projects for two decades. He has received a variety of awards throughout his career, including three The Webby Awards, two Prix Italia for Web Arts and Drama and a Gold Medal from the Art Director’s Club of New York to name only a few.

For the past six years, Haig holds a position as the Head of Interaction Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His research explores the intersection of design and programming, focusing on data visualization, gestural interfaces and music technology.

Interaction design (IxD) is a theme that has emerged to address the ongoing advancements in technology and the way it relates to people. At IxD.ma we keep a broad view on the field and cover more areas than what is related to digital technology.

Date: June 4, 6, 7 at 10.00 to 17.00

Venue: Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhja pst 7, room A202

Lecturer: Benjamin Lignel

Artist, writer and curator Benjamin Lignel will conduct a 3-day seminar in June, focusing on the challenges and opportunities inherent to artistic research. We will be thinking through the temporalities of making, documenting, and argumenting, and the different sort of “proof” they invoke; we will attempt a 21st century autopsy of the author-function and look at subject-positions with the help of Italo Calvino, Joan Scott and Audre Lord; we will play at presenting an object (textual or physical) for public scrutiny with a view to understanding what “stewardship of ideas” might imply.

Students who sign up for the seminar will be required to read 3 texts in advance:

Audre Lord, the Use of Anger, Women responding to Racism (1981)

Joan Scott, The Evidence of Experience (1991)

Ulrike Müller, Herstory Inventory (2011)

You will also be required to write, in conversational/diaristic mode, how you first met an idea that subequently guided your current research (max. 500 words).

Registration

The seminar is open to PhD and MA students.

Registration form

Registration is open until 28.05.2019.

This event is organised by the Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts, supported by the ASTRA project of the Estonian Academy of Arts – EKA LOOVKÄRG (European Union, European Regional Development Fund).

All design enthusiasts are welcome to an open lecture by Dr. Jonathan Ventura on Tuesday, April 16, at 4 pm at Estonian Academy of Arts room A301. The guest researcher at the Royal College of Art, Helen Hamlyn Center for Design Center, focuses mainly on social and medical design, design theories and methodology, spatial and urban design, visual and material culture, and applied anthropology. In the open design lecture at EKA, he gives an introductory overview of contemporary design theory.

Design is rapidly becoming much more than an amalgam of history, practice and theory, yet as a defined sub-discipline, design theory is yet to reach its full potential. Furthermore, the schism between design theoreticians, historians and practitioners should be overcome to offer a more holistic approach. In this lecture/workshop, I wish to elaborate on the potential of teaching and practicing design as a social and material language. Moving forward from classic semiotic theories, using hermeneutics as a platform to shape design differently will help in the integration of history, practice and theory.

In this innovative outline, I see the designer not as a problem-solver, nor a “mere” translator or mediator, but rather as an active interpreter and maker of vehicles of meanings that, for example, denote and signify marital or social status,  manifest ideas, refer to previous styles of design, and symbolize their zeitgeist Accordingly, this lecture or workshop will present the semantic, referential, or expressive qualities of design objects, and of design objects that interpret their surroundings or lend themselves to interpretations within hermeneutic circles, thus generating visual-material languages.

Though design is a ubiquitous ontological and aesthetic phenomenon, and a flourishing practical discipline that is broadly taught in the academia, and while design history has developed into a respected discipline—the philosophy of design is still in its early stages. Design methodologies have been outlined and discussed. However, the long-lasting segregation between the various sub-disciplines of design, coupled with an inherent division between the philosophy of design and its practice and history cripple the overall reach of design research. Additionally, design has been sometimes considered to be a tool for devising aesthetic packaging meant for the enhancement of consumerism. In the light of global anti-consumerism, economic crises and socio-cultural changes, the designer’s role in society is starting to change.

Shifting our definition of the practice of design from semiotics to interpretation, or more broadly and accurately to design hermeneutics hold great potential to both research and pedagogy. For example, through redefining the act of prosthetic design transforms the designer to a physical interpreter, redefining the patient’s body. Thus, integrating practice and theory will help us create better-suited lessons to our complex reality.

– – – – – –

https://hadassah.academia.edu/JonathanVentura

Dr. Jonathan Ventura is currently researching the multilayered world of the industrial designer, focusing on medical and social design vis-à-vis applied anthropology. He is a visiting research fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art in London. He has completed a post-doctorate at the RCA and presented his PhD dealing with anthropological dimensions of industrial design, in a joint program of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (the Department of Sociology and Anthropology) and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem (the Department of Industrial Design). He teaches at the Department of Inclusive Design at Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem and at the Design Graduate Program at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. Jonathan focuses mainly on social and medical design, design theories and methodologies, theories of space and urbanity, visual and material culture and applied anthropology.

From March 29 to April 18 at Art Gallery PUTTI is going to be ESTONISHING!

Estonian contemporary jewelry artists will exhibit their artwork at the group exhibition FOGSPEAK / UDUJUTT

The dense fog reduces visibility but strengthens beauty. It warns our insecurities but opens new perspectives. Fog is volatile though tangible. It allows us to feel the ethereal un gives us space to breath. Gray-toned verticals and foggy conversations will be created by a group of contemporary jewellery artists from Estonia at Art gallery PUTTI.

ESTONISHING!: 13 Estonian artists with a collective national identity background, folk traditions and history, yet they all are so distinct from one another – each with their own individual identity and character. They are like a metaphor that unifies discrete individualists, each with his or her own signature style. The only true thing that unites them is their desire to unlock their own imaginative world using jewellery as the key.

Tanel Veenre: ‘Our artisan culture is rooted in the forest. It sounds simple, but it is exactly in this feature that there is magic. The archaic yet clean wooden style is at the base of all abstraction. There is no need for noise here; whispers are loud enough.’ Estonian is the only language in the world in which the word for jewellery and sincerity is one and the same – EHE.

Thomas Cohn, a prominent Brazilian gallerist representing Galeria Thomas Cohn in San Paolo, as a bright meteor came to Tallinn to see, get to know the contemporary Estonian jewellery he had heard about. Falling in love with it, he arranged to bring it back to Brazil. Galeria Thomas Cohn premiered the ESTONISHING! jewellery exhibition at Schmuck 2016, the contemporary art jewellery event at the Munich International Skilled Trades Fair.

When asked about the title of the exhibition, Tanel Veenre, its curator, explains: ‘We had come up with several ideas, but then Thomas suggested ESTONISHING! It seemed the best fit because it was immediately clear that the participating artists came from Estonia, plus, a word written in the wrong way instinctively draws attention.’

At the core of the group are two pillars of contemporary Estonian art: Kadri Mälk, internationally renowned jewellery artist and a professor in the Jewellery Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts; and Tanel Veenre, the collective’s mouthpiece, who is also a professor in the Faculty of Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts as well as a photographer, lecturer, and member of many international exhibitions.

Each artist showing work in the exhibition is one of a kind. The artists are both united and contrasting at the same time. When looking at the jewellery that they have created, one senses that when making their pieces, these artists focus on spiritual qualities; the works on view have an introverted quality, perhaps even a touch of darkness to them – features that, just like a fixation on details, are so very characteristic of Northern peoples.

People speak about spiritual endeavors, the wish to be active outside the realm of physical reality. The ability to create noise and scraps while retaining a clear surface. The closeness of nature, the sensitivity of a fingerprint, and even if your ears are not within your field of vision, you cannot escape them.

A piece of contemporary jewellery illustrates a feeling of magic and temptation; much like a cult, nature is an intrinsic part of contemporary jewellery. It is safe to say that, having attracted the attention of the world, the jewellery artists of today’s Estonia form the foundation of the contemporary art jewellery platform. Of course, it is impossible to completely abandon form and context, yet make no mistake – an artist creates not only objects, but also the space for communication between the artwork and the person.

Exhibitions Curators:

Thomas Cohn 1934-2018;

Tanel Veenre

Supporters: Estonian Cultural Foundation

Participants: Sofia Hallik, Nils Hint, Piret Hirv, Julia Maria Künnap, Kristiina Laurits, Eve Margus-Villems, Kadri Mälk, Maarja Niinemägi, Villu Plink, Darja Popolitova, Ketli Tiitsar, Maria Valdma, Tanel Veenre.

What if we re-designed interfaces to be tangible and beyond digital screens?

The Expo takes place in the EKA lobby, ground floor (Põhja pst 7). The exhibition opens at 10:00, welcome words, presentations and tours will be held at 18:00, and the day will be finished with DJs and party at 19:00. Snacks provided, good company available, great memories guaranteed.

Get surprised by a bench. Play a game that connects you with other people (literally). Send sweet compliments to co-workers. Go to sleep easily with the help of a nifty phone charger. Send physical compliments to a chef at a restaurant. Or, learn colors—all 110 of them.

Come, touch and experience the working prototypes of all these ideas, get inspired and meet the IxD.ma team!

IxD.ma is an international MA program in Interaction Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts (http://ixd.ma/) and this exhibition is the result of the Tangible Design project led by Ottavio Cambieri and Anna Jõgi.

Infinite Life Gallery’s first exhibition „Binding Matter” will be open from the Thursday, March 28 at 6pm at LVLup! Museum. Infinite Life Gallery is LVLup! video game museum’s side project, located in ARS Art Factory. The exhibition will remain open until April 21.

Textile artists group exhibition „Binding Matter” observes the nature and meaning of materials. Balancing on the borders of textile, design and art, the participating artists discover the connections, features and meanings between different fibers and substances. The exhibition focuses on experiments and combinations of materials, through which modern materially overloaded world is being critically rethought.

Participating artists: Ingrid Helena Pajo, Katarina Kruus, Ann Müürsepp, Frank Abner ja Triin Talts. They’ve been brought together by studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts textile and product design departments, whilst sharing a common interest in environmentally friendly and sustainable art.

Exhibition is open until April 21, at LVLup! Museum opening times:
Tue–Thu 15–20; Fri-Sat 15–22; Sun 15–18
https://www.facebook.com/lvlupmuseum/
Pärnu maantee 154, 11317

Curators: Laura Elisabeth Konsand, Ingrid Helena Pajo
LVLup! team: Patrick Zavadskis, Camille Laurelli, Sigrid Liira, Anneli Kripsaar

You are welcome to the Open Lecture of glass artists Krista Israel and Jacky Geurts on Thursday, 21th March at 5PM in room B604.

“The use of multiple techniques to come to complex works is based on the complexity of society. I try to capture its ambiguity in layered, ambiguous works that touch both personal and universal feelings. My work reflects how I see the world around me. References, experiences, memories, questions. I am deeply interested in the impact of our hyper-complex world on each of us as a modern person.” Krista Israel.

Krista looks for answers to those questions with her objects; especially personal answers that the viewer can think for thought. No ready-made solutions, but moments of reflection.

“Getting outside is nurture for the soul. On my daily walks I wonder about the beauty around me, the little things. But I also notice how humans interfere with nature. How we fail to protect the source we all need as a species to survive”. Jacky Geurts

Inspired by nature, human life and interaction, observing in all its details, Jacky Geurts searches for understanding of the world around myself, both on a small and larger scale.

More info about the artists:
http://www.krista-israel.com/