Category: Departments

EKA Graphic Design MA programme is hosting online Open House event on 30th November 2020.

We invite prospective students to join our Open House on Monday, 30 November 2020, 17:00h. This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, and to meet and ask questions directly from the faculty.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the open house will be hosted online over zoom. If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

REGISTER HERE

Open lecture by Jonathan Keep ‘10 Years of Extrusion Clay Printing’ on EKA TV.

Jonathan Keep, a pioneer in clay 3D printing, will talk about his experience in the field of printing over the past ten years, starting at 1 PM on Thursday, November 26th. 

He began working as a ceramicist in South Africa 30 years ago. He has lived and worked in Suffolk, England since 1986.

Jonathan Keep started working in digital technology at the turn of the century, during his master’s studies at the Royal College of Art. From there on he became interested in the possibilities of clay 3D printing, which was realized in a delta printer built in cooperation with the Belgian design studio Unfold. Since then, he has worked and shared his experience in the field of clay 3D printing in many countries, also via the web.

The first half of the lecture at EKA covers what he has learned on the subject in his travels over the last 10 years.

The second half is more technical as he talks about what he has learned about machines and about extrusion clay printing. In this second part he describes some quite detailed research he has done into the characteristics of different clays when used for printing and research into layer height, nozzle size, clay consistency and printing speed.

The lecture can be rewatched on EKA TV till the end of Thursday.

Organizer: prof Urmas Puhkan, Department of Ceramics

Siim Tuksam, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend his thesis „Modulated Modularity – from mass customisation to custom mass production“ („Moduleeritud modulaarsus – masskohandamisest kohandatud masstootmiseni“) on the 22nd of December 2020 at 13.00 EET (UTC +2).

Audience is welcome to follow the live-stream on the link below: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisors: Dr. Renee Puusepp (Eesti Kunstiakadeemia) and Dr. Antoine Picon (Harvard University)

External reviewers: Andrew Witt (Harvard University) and Dr. John Harding (University of Reading)

Opponent: Andrew Witt

The digitalisation of the construction industry is in full swing. The infrastructure for the computer-aided fabrication of buildings is here, yet mass customisation by robotically manufactured infinitesimally variable components, as suggested by the early digital architects of the 1990s, is still not viable on an industrial scale. Architecture is seemingly forced to adapt to the industry rather than the other way round. How is it possible, within this context, to maintain the autonomy of the architectural discipline, facing the realities of extensive standardisation, automation, and artificial intelligence?

Digital architecture as a critical discourse was largely built upon Gilles Deleuze’s idea of folding, proposing a continuous formation of matter based on intensities. Folding in architecture resulted in an almost frictionless combination of topology and tectonics, where the whole consists of continuously variegated adaptive details. It is this continuous adaptation that is contested within the thesis in which modulation is proposed as an active intervention rather than frictionless optimisation – subverting the prevailing ideology from within by taking the system more seriously than the system takes itself, to paraphrase Slavoj Žižek.

Looking at modularity in architecture, starting with the professor of architecture at the École Polytechnique Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand and the analytical method at the beginning of the 19th century, and studying mid-twentieth century modular structures inspired by system theory, a lineage is traced towards the digitisation of architecture. The introduction of modularity into digital architecture produces an internal tension that constrains the formation of matter. In the 1960s the German architect Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz explored this type of emergent formation through the term Raumstruktur (structure of space), a macro material capable of modulation. By modulating the conditioning circumstances into a model of the Raumstruktur, a design space is created that governs formation – not a mould, but an emergent structure of space.

These internal tensions manifest themselves in the formal qualities of this macro material as an expression of the underlying structure. Through this expression, the communicative and political dimensions of modulation are explored in the thesis, suggesting an ornamental quality within the work and therefore a differentiation from mere construction.

The study is projective and reflective at the same time – experimental research by design that turnsinto both practice research and theoretical research. Through a series of projects in collaboration with the Estonian wooden house manufacturing industry, this exploration has evolved from looking at mimetic algorithms and variable tectonics towards a pre-rationalised design approach – modulated modularity.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Panu Lehtovuori, Dr. Suzie Attiwill, Prof. Toomas Tammis

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Sille Pihlak, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend her thesis “Prototyping Protocols, Protocolling Prototypes: A Methodological Development of Somatic Modularity for Algorithmic Timber Architecture in Estonian Context” („Prototüüpides protokolle, protokollides prototüüpe: Somaatilise modulaarsuse metodoloogia kujunemine puitarhitektuuris“) on the 21st of December 2020 at 10.00 EET (UTC +2).

Audience is welcome to follow the live-stream on the link below: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisors: Dr. Jüri Kermik (Eesti Kunstiakadeemia) and Dr. Roland Snooks (RMIT University)

External reviewers: Prof. Michael U. Hensel (Vienna University of Technology) and Dr. Jan van Schaik (RMIT University)

Opponents: Prof. Michael U. Hensel and Dr. Jan van Schaik

This practice-based thesis posits the methodology of somatic modularity as a tool to manage complex, multilayered and highly collaborative workflow processes associated with algorithmic timber architecture. Based on computational modularity and variable resolutions, this methodology is systematized and articulated through the dynamic relationship between the detail and the whole, intending to implement that throughout the design process, including its output. The key objective of the proposed methodology is to identify design “protocols” (a set of design parameters) according to different levels of tectonic complexity introduced in the process of the “prototype” (the preliminary version ) development. The scope of resulting workflow models and their potential to adequately support new algorithmic design approaches is analysed specifically in Estonian context.

For nearly 90 years, the Estonian construction industry has been neither particularly sustainable nor automated. However, our recent work in the architectural practice PART indicates the possibility of positioning renewable materials again at the heart of the large-scale building economy with digital collaborative workflow between architects, engineers and fabricators. My dissertation addresses the question of how to robustly embed architects’ design intentions in the entire production chain of architecture from design to fabrication, combining bottom-up and top-down design workflows, which will allow more sustainable and design-led contemporary timber architecture to emerge.

I argue for a specific algorithmic workflow, with a central, agile, common platform that has proven to be an advantageous solution in pavilion scale construction, with design implications both in tectonics and for the way we work together. My dissertation maps the development of architectural practice PART, which collaborates closely with Estonian timber house manufacturers, and whose design research has developed from bespoke (2015-2017) and standardized design systems (2017-2018) towards methods of somatic modularity (a variable modular system) since 2018. In each of these periods of development I identify the negotiation between automated design protocols and tangible prototypes and show their potential for contributing to a more articulated, collaborative and material-driven architecture.

I conclude that the systematization of digital design techniques also responds to the changing position of the creative practitioner in relation to algorithmic workflow, and that the application of somatic modularity as a design methodology provides for a strategy to better facilitate design ideas in the rapidly-automating construction industry.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Panu Lehtovuori, Dr. Suzie Attiwill, Prof. Toomas Tammis

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

30.11.–18.12.2020
Open Monday–Saturday, 15:00–18:00
Entrance from Kotzebue street. Please wear a mask!

December brings an opportunity to experience, in an exhibition format, works produced by the students of the Faculty of Fine Arts: every day there will be a fresh crop of university students’ works on display at the gallery. Works of the students studying contemporary art, graphic art, installation, sculpture, photography, and painting will be on display. Each morning, an exhibition will be installed, and each evening it will give way to the next one. We hope that viewers will be able to keep up with the pace of the young artists.

30.11   Drawing: supervisor Eero Alev

01.12   Drawing: supervisor Tõnis Kenkmaa

02.12   Animation: semester overview

03.12   Scenography: supervisor Ene-Liis Semper

04.12   Scenography: supervisor Ene-Liis Semper

05.12   Installation and Sculpture: supervisors Kirke Kangro, Taavi Piibemann

07.12   Contemporary Art: supervisors Mark Dunhill, Kristaps Ancans

08.12   Contemporary Art: supervisors Mark Dunhill, Kristaps Ancans

09.12   Contemporary Art: supervisors Mark Dunhill, Kristaps Ancans

10.12 – Contemporary Art, supervisors Mark Dunhill & Kristaps Ancans

10.12 – Photography, supervisor Holger Kilumets

11.12   Painting: supervisors Mihkel Maripuu, Kristi Kongi, Merike Estna

12.12   Installation and Sculpture: supervisors Jaanus Samma, Deneš Farkas

14.12   Graphic Art: supervisors Kadi Kurema, Eve Kask

15.12   Graphic Art: supervisors John Grzinich, Jan Kaus, Urmas Lüüs

16.12   Graphic Art: supervisors Ann Pajuväli, Oliver Laas, Martiinus Daane Klemet

17.12   Painting: supervisors Holger Loodus, Raul Rajangu, Liisa Kruusmägi, Tõnis Saadoja

18.12   Painting: supervisors Jaan Toomik, Mihkel Maripuu, Mihkel Ilus, Heldur Lassi

Ingrid Ruudi, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Art History and Visual Culture, will defend her thesis Spaces of the Interregnum. Transformations in Estonian Architecture and Art, 1986–1994 („Ruumiline interreegnum. Muutused Eesti arhitektuuris ja kunstis 1986–1994“) on the 18th of December 2020 at 17.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defence will also be live-streamed on the following link: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisor: Prof. Andres Kurg (Estonian Academy of Arts)

External reviewers: Prof. Vladimir Kulić (Iowa State University), Dr. Johannes Saar (University of Tartu)

Opponent: Prof. Vladimir Kulić

Conventionally, the Estonian architecture history tends to address the late Soviet postmodernism up to the mid-1980s, and then resume with buidlings of the independent republic from the mid-1990s. The period in between constitutes a kind of gap, and indeed, there was a remarkable decline in building activities. Nevertheless, it was a highly loaded period of active production of new social space, establishment of public sphere and public space, and rethinking of the relationship between built environment and its subject. Those processes continue to have a noted impact on our spatial and social environment up to this day. The doctoral thesis challenges this conventional periosidation of the history of Estonian architecture and art, focusing on the era between two more or less clearly defined social formations – the interregnum of 1986–1994 which must not be treated as a temporary transition on the way to ’normalcy’ but as a specific period of abundant creativity worthwile in its own right. During this dynamic era certain late Soviet practices continued while accelerated appropriation and interpretation of new western impulses took place. The transition from one spatial regime to the other did not happen as a clear and definitive cut but rather as a process that was hybrid, fluid and uneven. The dissertation demonstrates how the production of new space took place on various interconnected levels: built and planned, dreamt and imagined, performed and enacted, as well as theorised and reflected.

The monographic thesis encompasses five loosely connected case studies. The chapter Unbuilt space analyses the most vivid examples of the large amount of unrealised architecture projects and urban designs, focusing on aspects such as production of new public space, identity building and the architects’ agency. Utopian space looks at artist Tõnis Vint’s vision of a new high-rise urban settlement on Naissaar island near Tallinn, proposed as a free trade zone, considering the case in the context of international economic developments and New Age ideologies. Discursive space focuses on the two first instances of Nordic-Baltic Architecture Triennials as attempts at establishing an international platform for theoretical exchange, demonstrating the different expectations of the Nordic and Baltic participants and diverging positions regarding the issue of regional architecture  in the global context. Performative space investigates the architecture and performance practices of Group T as an interconnected phenomenon, aiming at establishing temporary counterpublic spaces and an alternative concept of community to counteract the nationalistic social tendencies of the era. Institutional space looks at the renovation process of the functionalist Tallinn Art Hall as a conceptual processual work of art by George Steinmann, demonstrating the artist’s agency in establishing international transdisciplinary networks and reconceptualisating the artspace as a multivalent discursive space. The chapter also addresses the project’s inevitable entanglement with certain neocolonialist allusions and the restitutional mentality of the era, fuelled by the desire for rebirth of the pre-war republic.

The case studies demonstrate that the Estonian architecture culture from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s was far from in hibernation: quite the contrary, it was unprecedentedly vigorous and operated in active dialogue with other processes in the production of space for the new society. Making use of the radical openness of the era, the architecture of the interregnum built upon the previous late Soviet experience and realised some of its desires. It also tested out new impulses connected with the opening up of the society. The experiments stemmed from a belief in creative individuals’ essential role in imagining future space and their right to participate in the public sphere, thus helping to keep open the discussions of possibilities. The spaces thus produced might have been intangible but they were nevertheless vital in shaping the social life of the interregnum.

Members of the Defence Council: Prof. Krista Kodres, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Virve Sarapik, Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Juhan Maiste, Prof. Marek Tamm, Prof. Tõnu Viik

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

On Thursday, 19 November at 17.00, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Sofja Hallik’s exhibition “New World” will take place at Very Hard, 2nd floor of T1 shopping mall. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Sofja Hallik.

The exhibition opening will take place on November 5 at 18-21.

The exhibition is open until 21 November, 2020
Wed-Sat 12-19

Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: Dr. Raivo Kelomees, Keiu Krikmann

Supervisors: Prof. Kadri Mälk, Dr. Jaak Tomberg

Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄
Juss Heinsalu

Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄ is a simplified formula representing the chemical composition of clay. This exhibit of the same name is a continuation to the exhibition “Surface View” in the monumental gallery of the Tartu Art House (June 2020). It gathers together a wide range of artistic applications of clay in ceramics, glass, printmaking and in new material combinations. Heinsalu deals with clay as a source, medium and environment. In his material-based research and creation practice, he looks at the properties of clay while combining them with mythological derivations, scientific hypotheses and speculative solutions. EKA Gallery displays prints made with clay pigments, fused clay-glass samples, ceramic elements, formed clay-skin from bioplastic and wool mixture, micro-macro scales of clay through video format and much more.

Heinsalu adds: “My studio practice merges materials with invented tools, mythological narratives and folklore with contemporary technology. I often lean on fiction to playfully observe and (re)define the surrounding world. In this exhibition, clay is simultaneously a base material, form, language, metaphor and a reflection.”

Juss Heinsalu studied ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts and received his MFA at NSCAD University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Heinsalu deals daily with material-based research and creation, and in Fall 2020 began additional studies in the field of interior architecture at EAA. Previously, he has actively participated in various projects and exhibitions across Europe and North America.

Thanks from the artist for the support of this exhibition and his practice: Estonian Artists’ Association, Arts Nova Scotia, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the departments of Glass Art, Ceramics, and Jewellery and Blacksmithing at Estonian Academy of Arts, Printmaking department at NSCAD University, Valge Kuup, and artist’s family and friends.

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Ceramic Dimension
10–28.11.2020
Lauri Kilusk, Martin Melioranski and Urmas Puhkan.

The international workshop-exhibit “Ceramic Dimension“ introduces the possibilities of clay 3D printing in EKA. The project is organized by Urmas Puhkan and Lauri Kilusk from the Department of Ceramics and Martin Melioranski from the Department of Architecture. Huge assistive support from Kaiko Kivi as a system architect and Madis Kaasik from Prototyping Lab.

During the period of almost five years, the professionals and students of different disciplines from EKA and elsewhere in the World, have been engaged in an experimental process, that has taken the knowledge and sensibility gathered through centuries of this specific materiality and combined it with current technological outputs, initiating novel outcomes from a well tested material.

The exhibit “Ceramic Dimension“ gives an overview of the wide spectrum of morphological and space-making topics led by design, art and architectural agendas, that have been brought to the physical environment by stratifying refined clay mass with digital tools and specially designed 3D printers and an advanced collaborative robot.

When compared to the now common plastic filament 3D printing, it brings forth contrasting results – clay is much more “alive”, even after going through the stages of digital-mechanical treatments. Clay, due to its substantiate internal properties, keeps on moving even after receiving its numerically driven exact shape. This in turn gives it a certain character, and avoids the easily attainable repetitive numbness and dryness when compared to regular digital prints from established industrial materials.

This has in some cases been integrated with properties of other materials in order to gain specific composite mixtures. Leftovers of Rockwool, waste paper, sand etc, has introduced a recycling and up-cycling perspective to the process, at the same time improving the printing properties of the base-material.

With our workshop-exhibit we wish to start a broader discussion on the possibilities of 3D clay printing. During this exhibition, the EKA Gallery will transform into a kind of laboratory, where new objects become alive during a continuous experiment. The viewer is expected to ask questions and express opinions, thereby becoming more akin to a participant in this process. We plan to make web-mediated meetings with several internationally recognized and established practitioners of this craft.

Next to the finished works shown and done prior to the opening, the exhibit will gain additional performative layers of integrating machinic intelligence to the joy of human discovery by making new results – showing both successes and mistakes.

Participants: Elize Hiiop, Madis Kaasik, Lauri Kilusk, Kaiko Kivi, Martin Melioranski, Urmas Puhkan Laura Põld, Oksana Teder, Katri Jürimäe, Sanna Lova, Jekaterina Burlakova, Aleksandra Kazanina, Kristel Ojasuu, Helena Tuudelepp.

Kristina Jõekalda, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Art History and Visual Culture, will defend her thesis “German Monuments in the Baltic Heimat? A Historiography of Heritage in the “Long Nineteenth Century”” (“Saksa mälestised ja Balti Heimat. Pärandi historiograafia “pikal 19. sajandil””) on the 20th of November 2020 at 11.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

Up to 30 people from EKA can participate on-site, please register HERE
The defence will also be live-streamed on the following link: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

Live-stream viewers can submit their questions HERE

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisors: Prof. Krista Kodres (Estonian Academy of Arts), Prof. Ulrike Plath (Tallinn University)

External reviewers: Prof. Jörg Hackmann, Dr. Ants Hein

Opponent: Prof. Jörg Hackmann (University of Szczecin; University of Greifswald)

In Estonian humanities the Baltic Germans (Deutschbalten) are mostly addressed as a historical phenomenon, despite the fact that the architecture that they left behind from medieval and later times still continues to shape the local environment of the present. How did the Baltic Germans project the image they held of their past onto their goals for the present and the future? How did that path relate to the culture of the Germans living elsewhere in Eastern Europe? What new research prospects are there available to be taken up today? This transdisciplinary and transnational dissertation looks at the representations of Baltic German identity that expressed themselves in art historiography and in heritage preservation from late eighteenth century until the interwar era. This period witnessed not just the rise of nationalism, but also the emergence of the concept of heritage as a culturally valuable entity, the formation of the humanities and of the idea of civil society. Attitudes to monuments and historiography are reflections on political and social processes. Nevertheless, not much research exists to date on the history of art history and heritage preservation taken as a combined topic, nor yet on the popular dimension of these fields, beyond academic circles. This thesis seeks to show that, rather than leaning exclusively on Estonian nationalism, the idea of the existence of a national heritage goes back to the patriotic movement of the Baltic Germans, which had also struggled to create and preserve the symbols of a glorious past against the background of German identity. This is the first attempt made within Estonian humanities to research the challenges that heritage studies – a field heavily tilted toward contemporary concerns – have posed for the discipline of art history. The analysis also has many overlaps with nationalism studies and German diaspora studies, the key concepts being ʻheritageʼ, Heimat and ʻnationʼ, all seen as constructs. What is in focus here is not the local architectural monuments themselves, but the process of turning them into heritage. Ideological standpoints are more fully articulated in the handbooks and widely disseminated texts that hence provide the main sources for this work, especially texts relating to cultural memory, identity and belonging. Addressing various media by which (national) heritage is constructed – in image, word and practice – this dissertation constitutes a critical historiography of texts on the history and protection of local architecture, focusing for the most part on the contribution of the learned societies and of Wilhelm Neumann (1849–1919). The dissertation therefore looks at discussions on monuments through various visions of continuity and discontinuity, of similarity and difference, of localism and universalism, of nationalism and internationalism, of Balticness and Germanness (and Estonianness), of scholarship and popularisation.

Members of the Defence Council: Prof. Andres Kurg, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Virve Sarapik, Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Juhan Maiste, Prof. Marek Tamm, Prof. Tõnu Viik

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

From 19 – 21 October public lectures will be held in Estonian Academy of Arts on Late Soviet Modernism in Georgia by Nini Palavandishvili, Lithuania by Vaidas Petrulis and Estonia by Laura Ingerpuu. These lectures are part of a study course “Understanding Late Soviet Modernism”. All 3 countries are rich of intriguing architectural masterpieces worth to be evaluated and protected. Soviet modernism in monumental art is presented by Hilkka Hiiop and the current and former students of EAA.

Watch live on EKA TV:

19 October from 16:00 to 18:15: Soviet modernism.
Nini Palavandishvili (Georgia) and Laura Ingerpuu (Estonia)

20 October from 17:00 to 18:00:
Vaidas Petrulis (Lithuania)

21 October from 09:00 to 12:45 Lecture on monumental art.
Hilkka Hiiop, Varje Õunapuu, Frank Lukk, Johanna Lamp, Anu Soojärv, Helen Volber (Estonia) and Nini Palavandishvili (Georgia)

Nini Palavandishvili is a passionate and erudite researcher of Georgian architecture and heritage, especially late soviet modernism. The focus of her research and curatorial projects lies in social and political contexts and their interpretation in the framework of cultural production and contemporary art. She cooperates with Blue Shield Georgia in the protection of heritage in Georgia.

Vaidas Petrulis is a senior research fellow at Kaunas University of Technology. Published a series of articles and conference presentations on history and heritage of modern Lithuanian architecture. Member of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on 20th Century Heritage ISC20C.

Laura Ingerpuu is a PhD student of Estonian Academy of Arts. Her research field is the soviet modernist architecture in Estonia with an emphasis on the architecture of the collective farms.

Hilkka Hiiop is a professor in the Department of Cultural Heritage and Conservation of EAA. Under his leadership, several important projects for the protection and rescue of monumental art have taken place in recent years.

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