Category: Departments

Sidney Lepp residency exhibition “Leave the keys outside..I know these doors, I know these windows..doors, windows..day of open doors..open doors day..window closed – door open, door closed – window open..each window is a door?”

Kanal gallery is attended by interdisciplinary artist Sidney Lepp, who started a month-long residency in the Liiva-ATE in early April. To experience the exhibition process, everyone interested will be able to meet the artist in Kanal gallery in April. The exhibition exhibits behind-the-scenes of the art field and opens to viewers how the production of the exhibition or project takes place – why and based on what are choices made; how to get the exhibition to the gallery and how the artist developes during the process.

The artist considers it to be the most important part to show an otherwise invisible fragment of the exhibition – process, preparations, production. Usually the audience is directed to consume the artist’s final work, and without context and numerous co-texts it is difficult to read it. This time, the window is opened right in the middle of the creative process. It is possible to see how ideas and nuances that influence the result arise. By becoming part of the process, it is possible to interact with the work of the gallery as well as the activities of the artist.

The exhibition focuses on the artist’s ideas, discussions, activities of installers and the gallerist, and their interpersonal dynamics. The exhibition exhibits opinions that influence the process. The project gives the participants the opportunity to see the exhibition in the special stages of its emergence, becoming aware of a possible lack of motivation or, on the other hand, a creative outbreak. In any case, the situation may be interfered with if desired. The aim is to show sincerely and honestly how much work, failures and successes accompany the production of one exhibition.

The documentation of the two-month process contains topics that have proved to be current in society during this period, later serving as a time capsule as a reminder of this moment.

The idea is inspired by William Grieve’s cult (documentary) film series “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm 1-3.”

Visual introduction to the exhibition.

Sidney Lepp (1994) is a fluidum that adapts very quickly to the (art) scene. Most of the time, he handles the space in an installation and grafts onto the works such features as to be as interactive as possible. Sidney is a graduate of the EAA in fine arts with a BA and a MA in contemporary art. His current playing field has been Tallinn, Riga, Berlin, Kiev and Brussels.

http://sidneylepp.com/

8.04 Kunstiministeerium

https://cca.ee/ajakiri/mida-motlevad-noored-kunstnikud

The exhibition will be open until 3 June 2023.

Graphic design: Henri Kutsar

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Võru linn

Kanal gallery

Liiva 11a, Võru, 65609

Mon-Fri 12-17 Sat 12-15

FB: Kanal galerii

IG: Kanal galerii

Additional information:

Mari Škerin / gallerist

mariskerin@gmail.com

+372 53449447

Artists:
Gabrielė Adomaitytė (Lithuania/Netherlands, 1994); Māris Ārgalis (Latvia, 1954–2008); Milla Aska (Finland, 1993); Marikki Hakola (Finland, 1960); Madlen Hirtentreu (Estonia, 1993); Elvyra Kairiūkštytė (Lithuania, 1950–2006); Miska Kukkohovi (Finland, 2001); Daria Melnikova (Latvia, 1984); Rait Prääts (Estonia, 1952); Anna Škodenko (Estonia, 1986); Viktor Timofeev (Latvia/US, 1984); Justinas Vilutis (Lithuania/France, 1991)

Co-authors:
Anders Kreuger (Sweden/Finland, 1965); Jaakko Pallasvuo (Finland, 1987); Miša Skalskis (Lithuania/Finland, 1994)

Kunsthalle Kohta, Helsinki

Opening 12.04, 6pm

“For some reason they thought this exhibition should be titled Amber. Amber could be a natural resource, a souvenir, a wall colour, or a way to accidentally preserve mosquitos full of dinosaur blood, making Jurassic Park possible. 

They are imagining this curator. Her name is Amber. She is on a Baltic-Nordic tour, taking the long trip from LA to Vilnius, making her way through Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki to look for inspiration. Afterwards – Ibiza, for fun and romance.

Maybe Amber is from a tiny spa town with an air of mystery. Shallow Springs, Wyoming. Shallow Springs, Arizona. She has left town, she has made it in the art world, but what happened in Shallow Springs is haunting her dreams.

On her way across the Baltic-Nordic zone Amber sees what other curators were not able to see. This survey of the region is not giving her the typical post-Soviet archive, austere-but-cozy Lutheran interiors, mystified relationships to lichen or strained X-is-the-new-Berlin coolness.

Amber is having a great time. These sites appear lavish and bewitching to her. Maybe it is her presence that makes them so. She is dancing. People think too much, she tells herself. Her new Baltic friends offer her a super-slim cigarette. Is it a Vogue? she asks. No, a Glamour, her friend responds.”

Info

Participants:
Marie Kanger,Marion Laev,Agnes Isabelle Veevo,Gréta
Þorkelsdóttir,Paula,Xingpei Shen

Tutor:
Zane Shumeiko

Time:
05.04.-14.04.2023
09:00-20:00

Graphic design:
Gréta Þorkelsdóttir

The exhibition Stitch-Sensory-Story displays student work created during the Experimental free-motion machine and hand embroidery course, offered by the Textile Design department in spring 2023.

The course explored the techniques and processes of experimental stitching on various materials and surfaces using free-motion machine and hand stitching techniques.

It investigated the participants’ sensory experiences (tactility, visual, auditive, smell and others) during the making process and after. Each student produced their own personal stitched (memory, emotion, physical, sensory) story.

Each work is accompanied by the students’ written text about their
experience.

Entropy Gauntlet
Zody Burke, Taylor “Tex” Tehan, Joonas Timmi, Lauri Raus April 6 – April 28, 2023
Opening: April 6, 6pm–9pm

“There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room … Suddenly the TV reveals itself for what it really is: a video of another world, ultimately addressed to no one at all, delivering its images indifferently, indifferent to its own messages. You can easily imagine it still functioning after humanity has disappeared.”

— Jean Baudrillard, America

Entropy Gauntlet invites you to pass a threshold into a transmutation of space. Inspired by wide-eyed summer night visits to amusement parks and roadside motels, laden with the nostalgia of childhood & playing with the expectations generated by the psychogeography of such spaces, the exhibition leads viewers to contemplate the tension between fantasies of the world we’ve inherited versus the reality of a warming planet.

Solastalgia, a concept which describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change, presents itself materially through an amalgam of works and artifacts set inside a narrative. Within the Entropy Gauntlet is a contemporary apologue; using architecture as archetype, exploring the porousness of post-western notions of national identity and its haunted histories. Here, utopia and dystopia become uneven categories in the realm of the anthropocene.

In the tradition of transformative environmental-architectural works such as Gregor Schneider’s “Totes Haus u r” and Jonah Freeman’s “Hello Meth Lab in the Sun”, and hearkening to Robert Ashley’s operatic compositions of late capitalist melancholia, the Entropy Gauntlet manifests as a linear series of archaeological sites undergoing perpetual excavation. It is a narrative of motion and placelessness tropifying the notion that invisible, emotional environs can be injected into the visible sphere to create a sense of longing, dread, and even abject horror.

A note from the artists…

The roadside motel is a ubiquitous feature upon the sprawling face of the continental USA, but it is entirely absent in Estonia. It is taken for granted as a place where small tragedies may or may not occur. It is a location for repressed emotions to manifest due to its invisible status, despite its ubiquity in the flyover states. Within the Entropy Gauntlet, our aim is to engage with the surreality that permeates the line where memory and history interact, in an unexpected location in Tallinn; creating a hauntological simulacrum of a space that exists between destinations. The poetic transmutations of culture that occur when countries on opposite sides of the globe mirror and refract one another are acutely fertile terrain for our work.

The fact that the USA exists partially as a fantasy informed by media is intrinsic to our concept. Two out of four of us are American; despite this, the two of us have experienced our home country in ways that run contradictory to the America that exists in the imagination of the cultural status quo. The other two of us are Estonian and have spent a considerable amount of time formulating fantasies about America & weighing these fantasies against facts. To honestly engage with the USA is to deal with omnipresent shadows that resist truth & dominate the country’s emotional cartography, and with an endless deluge of popular fantasies that provide alternative images to the USA that exists.

Artist Bios:

With an eye towards the complicated nature of inherent and enforced structures, American multidisciplinary artist Zody Burke criticizes the absurdity of late capitalism and the mythologies and archetypes it generates, while leaving a liminal space for larger ways of being together.
Working with sculpture, illustration, sound, and other media, Burke has sought to establish that societal concepts of identity, symbolism, brutality and hierarchy are as tenuous as we see to craft them, and yet they paradoxically shape practically every facet of our lives.

Taylor “Tex” Tehan is an M.A. Graphic Design student from the United States and an interdisciplinary practitioner. Working with textiles, sound, metal, wood and film, his work is influenced by the landscape, nostalgia, speculative futures, mythology and romanticism of the American West. Previously working in the fashion industry, Tehan has worked as a designer for various brands, including a recent traineeship on the Menswear Design Team at Louis Vuitton in Paris. His interests meet at the cross section of fashion, music, contemporary art, film and graphic design, with a strong emphasis on experiential-environmental themes.

Joonas Timmi is an Estonian artist & designer who explores the contemporary identity of craftsmanship by combining traditional woodworking techniques with VR-modeling, 3D-printing and CNC-milling. In his work, he expresses the relations between functionality and sentimentality in objects using furniture as the main medium. Each piece aims to be a somewhat functional artifact with an emphasis on biomorphic form with anthropomorphic charisma. A recent work, “Traction” chair, was exhibited in the exhibition “Present Yet-to-Be” (Tallinn, Hobusepea gallery) in January 2022. The installation combined meandering forms of plywood with textile to create throne-like structure, inspired by the idea of alternate realities.

Lauri Raus is an Estonian songwriter & guitarist, most notable for his work in contemporary country/shoegaze ensemble Holy Motors. Through his work, he engages with western musical tropes from a distance, transfiguring his own interpretation of Americana into something subtly different and altogether unique. His band is signed to New York-based indie label Wharf Cat which has enabled him to tour the USA, allowing him to rupture, expand, and transform his relationship with the musical tradition he uses as a foundation for his art. He studies anthropology at Tallinn University.

Online roundtable

Since February 2022, many Russian Imperial and Soviet statues and symbols have been removed from public space, accompanied by heated discussions in the local (social) media. The nature of the actions varies, but in several countries political rather than expert decisions have been the guiding force, with an immediate effect on the actual monuments of art, architecture and other cultural artefacts.

The international audience, at the same time, even in the neighbouring regions, has access to very few of those local debates – each country in Eastern and Central Europe has been handling similar kinds of issues on their own. To analyse these developments in more depth, a comparative approach and a longer historical perspective is needed. The situation is changing quickly, and new monuments are lost almost daily. Rather than the monuments themselves, this round table, firstly, seeks to document the local-level discussions, in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of the current situation as well as its broader contexts. Secondly, we want to learn from each other by gathering successful examples of artistic and other transdisciplinary interventions to safeguard or reinterpret those monuments.

The speakers include Linda Kaljundi, Riin Alatalu and Kristina Jõekalda (all Estonian Academy of Arts), Sofia Dyak, Iryna Sklokina (both Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv) and Mykola Homanyuk (Kherson State University, Ukraine), Maija Rudovska (independent scholar/curator, Latvia), Oxana Gourinovitch (Belarus/RWTH Aachen University), Olga Juutistenaho (Finland/Technical University of Berlin), Stephanie Herold (Technical University of Berlin, Germany), Dragan Damjanović, Patricia Počanić and Sanja Delić (all University of Zagreb, Croatia), Nini Palavandishvili (independent scholar/curator, Georgia), Małgorzata Łukianow (University of Warsaw, Poland), Linara Dovydaitytė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) and Ivo Mijnssen (independent scholar/journalist, Austria).

The online roundtable can be followed via live video stream on the Facebook page of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture, Estonian Academy of Arts on Tuesday, 16th May 2023, from 14.00 to ca. 19.00 (Tallinn time, EEST).

If you wish to get involved as a discussant and receive a Zoom link, please let us know here by 15th May.

More information: Kristina Jõekalda (kristina.joekalda@artun.ee), Linda Kaljundi (linda.kaljundi@artun.ee).

GD Lecture Series is organized by EKA graphic design department, where various graphic designers are invited to speak about their life and practice.

Graphic designer and DJ Eleonora Šljanda will be visiting on April 4.

Eleonora has studied at both the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy.

The lecture will start at 5 p.m. at Estonian Academy of Arts in room C304.

Histories and memories of the 20th and 21st centuries in the Baltic States with its different colonialisms are entangled with the uneasy relations between the past and present. How can we acknowledge this history as layered and nuanced? And which methods could help us to address its blind spots and silences as well as solidarities?

In this presentation, Margaret Tali will introduce the transdisciplinary project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” (2019-2024) and focus on its different ways of engaging artists to answer these questions. At the heart of this collaborative project has been creating synergies between humanities scholarship, artistic research and curation in order to learn from each others’ methods and approaches in order to sharpen and enrich our perspectives to history writing. The exhibition “Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds” co-curated with Ieva Astahovska in its framework at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius (2022) and in the Latvian National Museum of Art (2020) presented its results to a broader public. During the lecture, Margaret Tali will introduce some of the works included by Lia Dostlieva and Andrii Dostliev, Jaana Kokko, and Quinsy Gario & Jörgen Gario.

Margaret Tali is an art historian and curator, who works as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Institute of Art History and Visual Culture. Her research interests include exhibition histories, curating difficult heritage, relationships of visual art and handicraft, and histories of the art museum. She holds a PhD from the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. She is the author of Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums (2018) and co-editor, with Ieva Astahovska, of the Memory Studies special issue Return of Suppressed Memories in Eastern Europe: Locality and Unsilencing Difficult Histories (2/2022). Together with Astahovska she has initiated the project Communicating Difficult Pasts, and as a part of which she co-curated the exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds in the Latvian National Museum of Art (2019) and Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (2022).
margarettali.net

A series of open architectural lectures will be held this 2023 spring under the title “Triggers of Architecture”. The theme brings architects and theoreticians to Tallinn, who analyze the root causes of architecture and the means of making it.

On April 13, 6 pm, Pascal Bronner will take the main hall stage with a lecture “57 Milligrams of Graphite”.

In this lecture he will take us to the journey through his work to date and provide an overview of his research into the ‘Droame’ – a composite realm that connects the physicality of drawing to the different forms of cerebral musings that the process uncovers. “In an effort to construct real spaces made entirely of graphite on paper, I investigate the seductiveness of this metaphysical world alongside its physical manifestation – both of which exist in a borderland between the miniaturised space on the drawing board and in the mind. I have begun to survey and capture these graphite landscapes in microscopic detail through the construction and assembly of various devices.” – Bronner describes his working process.

Pascal Bronner is a senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Greenwich. He was born in Malaysia, grew up in Germany and moved to the UK in 2000 where he still lives and works today. In London, he studied fine art at Central St. Martins, and architecture at the Bartlett, UCL. Pascal was awarded the RIBA Bronze Medal Commendation and the Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing at Part 2. He was also a recipient of the Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize and the Banister Fletcher Medal. Pascal is a co-founder of FleaFollyArchitects, and is currently undertaking a PHD at RMIT, where he examines and dissects his perpetual drawing practice.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year.

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge.

The lecture series is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curated by Andres Ojari

www.avatudloengud.ee

Additional information:

Tiina Tammet

E-post: arhitektuur@artun.ee

Tel. +372 642 0071

The annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on April 13th, 2023

EKA hall A501

Please register by April 10th at the latest.

TIMETABLE

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

10.10 Key Talk: Prof. Esa Kirkkopelto (University of Helsinki), visiting professor of EKA Doctoral School 2022/23, „On the Possibility of Artistic Research“.

11.10 Coffee break

Art and Design, moderator Dr. Liina Unt

11.20 Taavet Jansen, supervisor Dr. Anu Allas
„Memento – Directing a Hybrid Event as Practice-based Research“. Discussant Nesli Hazal Oktay

12.00 Mia Čopíková, supervisors Prof. Karol Weisslechner, Dr. Nadia Kančevová
„Transformation of the Stones in Jewelry“. Discussant Varje Õunapuu

12.40 Nesli Hazal Oktay, supervisors Prof. Danielle Wilde, Dr. Kristi Kuusk
„Intimacy with Far-away Bodies“. Discussant Mia Čopíková

13.20 Lunch break

Architecture and Urban Planning, moderator Dr. Jüri Soolep

14.10 Johan Tali, supervisors Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Maroš Krivy
„Curious Cases of Exhibiting Architects: Shaping the Mindset Through Displays of Environments and Spatial Interventions“. Discussant Martin Melioranski

14.50 Martin Melioranski, supervisor Dr. Jüri Soolep
“Re-writing the Rules – Architecture by Iterative Ideas”. Discussant Johan Tali

15.30 Coffee break

Cultural Heritage and Conservation, and Art History and Visual Culture,
moderators Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Andres Kurg

15.40 Varje Õunapuu, supervisors Dr. Hilkka Hiiop, Ms. Karol Bayer
„How Is it Done? Technical Aspects of the Estonian Medieval Wall-paintings and the Underneath Plaster“. Discussant Mariann Raisma

16.20 Mariann Raisma, supervisors Prof. Linda Kaljundi, Dr. Anneli Randla
„Discontinuance or Continuity? Changes in the Role of Museums as Mediators of Cultural Memory During the Major Changes of the 20th Century“. Discussant Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann

17.00 Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann, supervisors Dr. Regina-Nino Mion, Dr. Barbi Pilvre
„A Diffractive Approach to Analyzing Horror Films Directed by Women“. Discussant Taavet Jansen

17.40 Coffee break

17.50 Roundtable (Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Liina Unt, Dr. Anneli Randla, Dr. Jüri Soolep, Prof. Andres Kurg)

For more information:
Henry Kuningas Henry.kuningas@artun.ee