Category: Departments

Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė-Žaltė Lecture: 13th Kaunas Biennial „Once Upon Another Time” – Review and Case Analysis 

09.02.2022, 4–5.30 PM, auditorium A501 

Kaunas Biennial organizer, border member Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė-Žaltė will present an review of the 13th Kaunas Biennial “Once Upon Another Time… gyveno jie jau kitaip” which reflects on current global situations by exploring stories of human resilience and adaptation. The exhibition investigates myths and fictions associated with transformation, as well as lived personal and communal tales of survival.The sharing of stories enables humans to connect with each other. Stories convey multiple meanings and perspectives rooted in diverse worldviews and can also link the present to the past, as well as to the future.

The lectur is open to everyone. 

Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė-Žaltė is invited by the Textile Design Department of EKA. 

Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė-Žaltė Lecture: „Pixel generation: individual artistic(al) view in Digital Jaquard weaving and collaborations“ 

09.02.2022, 4–5.30 PM in auditorium A501 

Artist,  Assoc. Prof. VAA Kaunas Faculty Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė Žaltė will introduce Textile Department student works and  herself as an artist of the jacquard weaving technology in the context of contemporary art field: the technical one (knowledge how to do this) and the conceptual one (using possibilities providedby the technique to create the desired effect of the work). 

“Textiles have an incredible ability to be alive. What I mean by this is how it communicates a sense of substance, which is intimate to every human being. A fabric can hold both physical (heat, cold, protection) and rational (recall, memory) features. Each of us uses textile everyday in one way or another. Therefore, it is a common material that allows us to combine multiple experiences, collaborations and to understand the individual person.” 

The lectur is open to everyone. 

Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė-Žaltė is invited by the Textile Design Department of EKA.

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.

Lisette Lepik’s exhibition ‘’Garden of Eve’’ will be opened at the Uus Rada Gallery on Friday, January 28th at 6 pm.

Using the motif of the flower the exhibition presents an ongoing series of oil paintings by Lisette reflecting on the experience of the menstrual cycle; menstrual pains and the choices women make regarding their own birth control choices. The exhibition space is transformed into a womb holding a series of paintings within its walls. Through expressive use of colour and gestural mark each painting speaks to totally different experiences within the monthly cycle.

Everything began from there: the land, the world, the air, the sky, the soil, the water, the fire, the land. Me and you, you and me, us and we. Everything begins from there. I took a picture of my sister’s hand, which was holding a rose. This beautiful, pulsing, throbbing, bloody, thorny, sad, fertile rose reminded me of a vulva. Some ancient, primal, feminine impulse fired at me. It told me to give more attention to this flower. I didn’t explain it to myself. I just started painting and gradually deciphering this phenomenon. – Lisette Lepik

The exhibition will be open until the 3rd of February. After the opening of the exhibition it can be visited by arrangement by writing an email to lisette.lepik@gmail.com or calling +372 53313428. 

Uus Rada is a community art space run collaboratively by the second year Masters of Contemporary Arts Students in the former Raja gallery space.

Curatorial assistance for the exhibition from Sophie Durand.

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

The artist thanks: Elisa Margot Winters, Olivia Soans

Facebook event

On Saturday, 22 January Kelli Gedvil’s  solo exhibition “Purifying Your Skin” will open in the small gallery of the Tartu Art House. The exhibition is curated by Hanna-Liisa Lavonen.

The exhibition focuses on the methods by which virtual and physical tools change the look and texture of human skin as a material. The modified skin on advertisements looks soft, smooth and flawless. The dissonance between the real and the manipulated makes us crave for the artificial beauty standards and the advertised products seem like otherworldly magical potions. This, however, results in a frustrating cycle when one product, which was advertised as omnipotent, is followed by another, that is equally as ineffective.

By removing the physical and virtual manipulations from the skin, we notice its diverse and hidden ecosystem. This protective, elastic material reveals pores, pimples, wrinkles, sebum, and the creatures that help with its functioning. The present exhibition shows how our obsessive desire to improve our skin based on false visuals can make us forget about the real and natural dermal texture and its individual characteristics.

Kelli Gedvil (b 1994) has graduated from the Department of Painting (BA) and the Department of Contemporary Art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has also studied as an exchange student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and the Valand Academy in Sweden. Besides Estonia, she has participated in exhibitions in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Hungary and Poland. Gedvil is the co-founder of the artist group Robin Ellis Meta and the gallerist and web developer at the online gallery post-gallery.online. This is her first solo exhibition in Tartu.

The exhibition is accompanied by a sound design by Natalia Anna Wójcik.

The technical support of the exhibition was provided by Ian-Simon Märjama.

Artist thanks: Egle Ehtjen, Kaupo Haukanõmm, Anti Kidron, Leegi Kiis, Madli Lippur, Kristen Rästas, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and open until 20 February.

www.kunstimaja.ee

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.

The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu Town Government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Students of the Design and Technology Futures curriculum of EKA and TalTech will present the 3,000 utopias created during the autumn semester of Paide Theater on the “Shadow Council Committee Day” starting on Sunday, January 23 at 10.00 am. Guest of the day is Kersti Kaljulaid.

Utopias were designed with locals and people from Paide using a variety of co-design methods. In shaping the future, the problems were approached from different possibilities and four different scenarios were created:
1) how we eat in the future
2) how we plan the city and the community together with the vision
3) how we learn and
4) how we perceive time.

SCHEDULE:

10–11.30 – TalTech and EKA Design and Technology Futures students present the utopia of a small town they have created
11.30-11.45 break
11.45–12.45 Kersti Kaljulaid talks about her experiences with local governments
12.45-13.30 noon
13.30–16 Discussion rounds “Five actions that bring us closer to the utopia of a small town, but which do not require an additional 10 million in the city budget, but the joint contribution of the community”

The course is supervised by Martin Pärn, Francesco Martinez and Ruth-Helene Melioranski.

“Shadow Council Committee Day” is a discussion day on Sunday dedicated to the meeting, during which the shadow commissioners discuss all the topics that reach the city council in Paide. Each committee meeting will be opened by one expert’s insight, followed by a public hearing open to all those present.

More information on Facebook

Team AEGLA

Leaving calendars and rushing behind, we make room for action and different time rhythms. A system that takes into account and combines different tempos supports an environment where time is a value and its enjoyment is essential.

Team VISIONARY

A concept created to intensify the visions of Paide through interactive experiences

Team PARENG

The method of acquiring knowledge for a practical future

What would happen if the traditional upper secondary school system no longer existed and young people could build their own curriculum based on individual characteristics? “Pareng” introduces a vision of the future of the method of acquiring knowledge, in the development of which the young people of Paide participated.

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.

The exhibition “Remake” of EKA Art Education students can be seen on the information screens of EKA from January 14 to February 4.

The works of the art education students were completed within the “Creative project” subject .

Artists: Inga Ausmeel, Liina Oja, Liina Raidoja, Marju Rajasalu, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Triin Resik, Tanel Roomere, Piret Suviste, Zhanna Toht, Kertu Tort, Kalev Vapper, Merle Vingerfeld, Viire Jagomägi

Supervised by Anna-Kaisa Vita

The works can be seen on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th floors of EKA and on the screen of the auditorium on the Kotzebue street side. Videos with sound on the 2nd floor screen. 

More about EKA Art Education studies

“The Science of Freedom”
Third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”
22.01—26.02.2022
Tue-Sat at 12—18 pm
Opening and curators’ tour: 21.01 at 3 pm.

Curator: Róna Kopeczky
Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “The Science of Freedom” on January 21 at 3 pm at EKA Gallery! The curator will give an exhibition tour at the event. Entrance with Covid certificate.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

18th Tallinn Print Triennial venues: KAI Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Kanuti Gildi Saal

“Body slam/ihu ramm” is both an exhibition and a performance, a collaboration with Mihkel Maripuu and Tarvo Porroson.

While the installation lives independent during the day, on five selected evenings the performers’ bodies and soundscape activate the space turning the exhibition into a performance.

Two women, uninterested in achieving security neither on stage nor in the social sphere, explore the relationship between material and body, giving fragility a form.

Bodies and clay – simultaneously fragile and strong by nature – are placed in a space of dialogue, where experience recreates itself in interaction, materiality carries a question, and an executed act becomes an artwork. Opportunities arise for collision, accident, and the constant construction and deconstruction of the material. There is a system, there is chance, there is mechanics, there is text and sound in fragments and order. The unexpected produces fragility.

Fragile, fragile, strong. The clay, the human body and the presence of a performer. Resisting weight but not a slam. What remains are only fragile bodies of the two women.

Priemere: 8.1 at 7 pm
Opening of the exhibition on 8.1 at 8.30 pm
Performances: 11.1/12.1/14.1/15.1 at 7 pm
Exhibition is open on 10.1–15.1 at 12–6 pm
@ ARS Art Factory Project Room
Artist talk after the performance: 14.01

Sound by Mihkel Maripuu
Technical solutions by Tarvo Porroson
Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli
Photos: Gabriela Leopard
Lenght: 60’

The exhibition is for FREE

Buy tickets at Fienta

Body Slam on Facebook