Category: Support Units

ELEMENTerial — materialisation of the metagrid
EKA algorithmic timber architecture research group exhibition
Authors: dr Sille Pihlak, dr Siim Tuksam

The exhibition “ELEMENTerial” looks at the elements of architecture. What does a house consist of? In an increasingly digital world, a list of materials alone is not enough. In addition to materials and construction methods, the principles of building construction are increasingly influenced by digital tools and sustainability.

With the exhibition we draw parallels between physical and virtual modularity. The digital world is also built from puzzle pieces – algorithms. Algorithms are rule sets that control digital processes. There are also rules in construction, where, what,t and how something can be built – plans and standards. Different materials and technologies, in turn, set geometric constraints. Looking at all these components as algorithmic modules, creates parallels that are easier to understand.

The exhibition describes alternative creative solutions in factory-produced modular wooden architecture developed in collaboration with engineers and wooden house manufacturers over four years of research, and introduces the ideas and methods behind them.

Dr Sille Pihlak is practicing architect, researcher, tutor and co-founder of the algorithmic timber architecture research group in Estonian Academy of Arts, Faculty of Architecture. Sille has studied interior architecture in Estonian Academy of Arts, architecture in Southern California Institute of Architecture and completed her masters in the University of Applied Arts Vienna. After her studies she practiced as design architect in Morphosis Architects in Los Angeles and in Coophimmelb(l)au Vienna. In 2015, together with Siim Tuksam, they started their own office PART–Practice for Architecture, Research and Theory. PART constructed designs have been awarded for their innovative construction techniques, methods of designing and geometry studies, with latest recognition on high voltage electricity pylon Bog Fox. In past five years, Sille has been an active participant in forestry and timber architecture related discussions, as a believer of inevitable sustainability in construction, her work deals with combining algorithmic techniques with local timber industry.

Dr Siim Tuksam is a practicing architect, co-founder of PART – Practice for Architecture, Research and Theory, and a researcher at EKA faculty of architecture, co-founder of the algorithmic timber architecture research group. Siim completed his master studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2013 having spent a visiting semester at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. During his studies he gained experience at various architecture offices, most notably Gehry Technologies in Paris and Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna. Since graduation he has been developing his own practice through exhibitions, installations, writings, and architectural projects. Together with Johanna Jõekalda and Johan Tali, he was the curator of the Estonian pavilion Interspace at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. In 2015, together with Sille Pihlak, he founded PART to curate the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2015 main exhibition Body Building. As a researcher and partner at PART he’s been devoted to developing algorithmic tools for the design and delivery of pre-fabricated architecture and the critical discourse of digital architecture.

Graphic design: Robi Jõeleht (Polaar)

Support by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture, Union of Estonian Architects, Arcwood, Rothoblaas.

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

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.

Exhibition of the EKA Museum
INVISIBLE MONUMENTAL PAINTING
Monumental art by students at the Painting Department of EKA 1962–1995

8.10.–5.11.2020 at the EKA Gallery

The opening of the exhibition and presentation of the catalogue will take place at 5pm on the 7th October at the EKA Gallery. Entrance from Kotzebue Street. Please wear a mask!

The exhibition introduces the fascinating collection of monumental painting designs from 1962–1995 stored in EKA Museum including design proposals for various works in all classical techniques of monumental painting: fresco, sgraffito, mosaic, and stained glass. In order to highlight the technical singularity of monumental painting, 12 completed works are displayed at the exhibition, including stained glasses and mosaics made as student works (and graduation projects) as well as two works removed from the former EKA building on Tartu Road before its demolition: a circus-themed fresco by Valentin Vaher and fragments from Urve Dzidzaria’s remarkable sgraffito which covered the walls of the canteen. Screened at the exhibition will be a video by Kai Kaljo, introducing the fate and stories of destruction of monumental paintings through interviews with artists.

The exhibition features 46 artists (and also a few anonymous authors) totalling 138 works. Most of the works at the exhibition come from the collection of the Museum of EKA, with added works from the private collections of the artists themselves. The oldest exhibit is a fragment of the fresco mural by Dolores Hoffmann removed from Rahu Cinema before its demolition (1962–1963); the most recent work displayed is a part of Ivika Luisk’s graduation project in mosaic technique (1995).

The exhibition is accompanied by a 160-page catalogue which provides an overview to the teaching of monumental painting at the EKA in 1962–1995 illustrated with documentary photographs and reproductions. It also sheds light on the fortunate occasions when students were able to realise their ideas in buildings. Worth mentioning here is Dolores Hoffmann’s collaboration with Aate-Heli Õun, lecturer of interior architecture. The catalogue also includes the list of artists who graduated in the specialty of monumental painting, and their graduation works, and provides information on student works which cannot be brought to the exhibition hall. Monumental paintings finished as integral part of architecture are introduced through photographs. During our research we managed to identify 44 works of which only half are available today. The catalogue and its lists of monumental paintings are compiled by Reeli Kõiv. She is also the author of the overview article printed the catalogue.

The catalogue also addresses the fate and status of monumental painting today. In addition to the essay based on Kai Kaljo’s memories, various opinions emerge in a discussion group of painters moderated by Gregor Taul, where artists from different generations talk about monumental painting, its possibilities and future place, drawing on their personal experience.The catalogue is designed by Tiina Sildre, edited by Kristi Metste and translated into English by Epp Aareleid.

Curator of the exhibition: Reeli Kõiv

Exhibition design: Kristi Kongi

Graphic design: Pärtel Eelmere

Exhibition team: Heldur Lassi, Mihkel Ilus, Karmo Migur, Hilkka Hiiop, Taavi Tiidor

Many thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, OÜ JÄRSI, OÜ Grano Digital, EAA Gallery, Dolores Hoffmann, Kai Kaljo, Epp Kubu, Gregor Taul, Tiina Sildre, Kristi Metste, Epp Aareleid, Enn Põldroos, Tiit Pääsuke, Urve Dzidzaria, Eva Jänes, Mari Roosvalt, Uno Roosvalt, Kaarel Kurismaa, Jüri Kask, Heldur Lassi, Hilja Nairis-Piliste, Saima Vaitmaa, Robert Suvi, Üüve Vahur, Heli Tuksam, Valentin Vaher, Andrei Lobanov, Valev Sein, Kalli Sein, Tiina Tammetalu, Inga Aru, Ivika Luisk, Rene Aua, Kaido Ole, Kai Kallas, Heinart Puhkim, Ilmar Köök, Tiina Meeri, Heie Marie Treier, Aate-Heli Õun, Epp Maria Kokamägi, Iris Uuk, Reet Reidak, Hilkka Hiiop, Solveig Jahnke, Sirli Aavik, Pire Sova, Pärtel Eelmere

Each year, the Estonian Academy of Arts Research and Development Office, in conjunction with the Tallinn City Enterprise Department, holds an applied research and development projects competition to motivate the Academy’s members to apply their academic and research activity in the public and business sectors and to highlight successful collaborative projects.
This year the competition welcomes research and development projects and students’ graduation works with a clear applied output – projects benefitting a company or an institution or with potential to better social well-being in a broader sense.
The works must be completed between 01.09.2019–31.08.2020.
The author(s) of the best project are awarded 1000€, the author(s) of the second best work a prize of 800€.

To submit a project to the competition a completed form together with additional materials must be sent to tao@artun.ee no later than 14 September 2020. The e-mail addresses of all authors of the work must be included among the e-mail recipients.

More info

The exhibition focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. We are not so much interested in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. We focus on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era. We define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. We wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. The exhibition takes its name from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book La ressemblance par contact: archéologie, anachronisme et modernité de l’empreinte, 2008.

The exhibition curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts features artists from Europe and the Americas and is accompanied by a film program.

Artists: Ann Pajuväli (EE), Ari Pelkonen (FI), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Cecilia Mandrile (US/UK), Claire Hannicq (FR), Elena Loson (AR), Dénes Kalev Farkas (EE/HU), Inka Bell (FI), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Liis-Marleen Verilaskja (EE), Lina Nordenström (SE), Maria Erikson (EE/FI), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (EE), Maria Valkeavuolle (FI), Riin Maide (EE), Tatu Tuominen (FI), Viktor Gurov (EE).

Curators: Liina Siib, Maria Erikson (Department of Graphic Art, EKA)
Exhibition design: Kaire Rannik
Graphic design: Viktor Gurov
Translators: Tiina Randviir, Richard Adang
Risograph printing: Pärtel Eelmere

We thank: Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Graphic Art and Department of Graphic Design; Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tartu Art House, EKA Gallery, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tanel Asmer, Pire Sova, Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Saarepuu, Hans-Gunter Lock.

On Wednesday, August 19th at 15:00, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Ulvi Haagensen’s exhibition „From the Archive: a Collection of Funny Things” will take place at Tartu Art House Small gallery. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Ulvi Haagensen.

Supervisors: Dr Liina Unt, Jan Guy (The University of Sidney).

Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: Villu Plink and Ester Bardone

The exhibition is open from 30 July to 23 August 2020.

This exhibition is by imaginary artist, Olive Puuvill, who creates work in the manner of a bricoleuse, cobbling, tinkering and using whatever is close at hand. In her latest work she combines patterns, lines, textures and light to create an installation where objects, situations, materials and ideas are juxtaposed in a slightly chaotic arrangement, but one that nonetheless has a logic of its own. All this bears the traces of her intentions, aims and ideas as physical evidence of the working processes where Olive’s everyday life clashes, meets and melds with her art practice.

Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral research is about the line between art and everyday life. By merging a multi-disciplinary art practice that combines installation, sculpture, drawing, performance and video with everyday experiences – mainly cleaning, one of the more mundane aspects of everyday life – she works across and along the lines between everyday life and art to discover the lines, overlaps and boundaries between art and the everyday.

Together with three imaginary characters and using an autoethnographic approach that includes the methods, tools and attitudes of an artist who uses ‘what is at hand’ and ‘makes do’she uses the everyday, not only for inspiration, but also materials, tools and techniques.

As her characters move between their roles and various places of work and everyday life, they explore notions of the everyday and the specialness of art, especially from the viewpoint of an artist for whom art and art making are very much a part of the everyday and therefore quite un-special.

On 19 June at 6 pm, Estonian Academy of Arts will open the graduation show TASE for the first time as an online exhibition.  The opening will be broadcast on ERR Cultural News portal, on EKA TV at live.artun.ee as well as Facebook Live channel.  Instead of a regular gallery space, the works of the fresh graduating architects, artists, designers, and researchers will be exhibited online at tase.artun.ee

Live TV show will begin here June 19 at 6PM

“The decision to hold the exhibition online stemmed from the special situation of the coronavirus.  The graduates had to adjust to the changes quickly and in many cases rethink their physical works or ideas,” explains the head organiser, gallery manager Pire Sova and adds:

“In a normal situation, most of the fine arts and many graduation works from other specialties are created considering the meeting of the audience and the work in a physical space.  In this case, they have tried to solve the task of how to relay their ideas with immediacy and optimally in the internet space.  Exhibiting works online brings many new questions: what type of documentation media to use, how to combine and support them with text etc?”

TASE’20 online exhibition will show more than two hundred graduation works from the graduates of the architecture, design, fine arts, and art culture faculties.  The exhibition gives a complete overview of master’s theses from all EKA specialties as well as most of the bachelor graduation works and portfolios.

According to the Dean of Fine Arts, Kirke Kangro, the isolation period was an especially big challenge for the graduating young artists:
“There was no access to studios and workshops, the works had to be completed in hallways and kitchens.  I am certain that this year’s graduates carry the footprint of the global moment more than ever before – either knowingly or through the creative process itself.  The audience, who otherwise was able to attend the defences in a physically limited space, are able to hear the young artists via their theses defences through an internet link.

The topics of the 46 diploma works are broad and as custom to artists, both empathetic and critical.  Introspection and the yearning for forest, the connection between local and expat Estonians with Australia – or even Siberia, the reflections of the world of justice, questions of the body and status,” says Kangro.

The largest faculty of EKA, the Design Faculty will bring 87 student works to the TASE web exhibition.

“We are proud of our graduates who despite the difficult situation were able to complete their Bachelor and Master’s works.  The projects in all our specialties are dense, the topics immensely wide: from clay musical instruments to the innovation of structural building, from board games to theoretical research that questions the core principles of design,” rejoices the Dean of Design, Kristjan Mändmaa.

The Faculty of Architecture is represented by 43 architecture Master’s and interior architecture Bachelor students.  The young architects engaged in the most serious and painful aspects of society: the space around the deathbed, prison, rehabilitation for juvenile delinquents, a more effective educational space for high school and so on.

In previous TASE exhibitions, the Art Culture master theses have remained a bit hidden among the creative objects, but the Dean Lilian Hansar hopes that the web exhibition will give a wonderful opportunity to find out more about the written theoretical works from art history, heritage and conservation, as well as art education.  44 graduates present their works at the show.

In August, 45 more graduation works will be added to the exhibition and on 17 August the regular TASE show will open in the EKA gallery and other spaces, but the online TASE will remain open as long as the internet lasts.

This year’s graduates have the advantage, compared to all previous years, to show and share their creations regardless of physical distances – to their relatives in the countryside or outside of the capital city, to the families of international graduates and potential colleagues at the other side of the world.

Come see TASE’20 on tase.artun.ee and join the opening ceremony on 19 June at 6 pm at live.artun.ee !

TASE Team
Head Organiser: Pire Sova
Communications: Solveig Jahnke, Mart Vainre
Graphic Design: Robin Siimann, Elisabeth Juusu, Kersti Heile; adviser Associate Professor Indrek Sirkel
TASE.artun.ee Web: WWW Stuudio

TASE is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

The annual conference of EKA Doctoral School takes place on June 10 at the Estonian Academy of Arts (Põhja pst. 7) room A101 and via Zoom.
To participate in the conference registration must be completed by June 8 the latest.

TIMETABLE 

10:00 – 10:15 Welcoming words

Vice Rector for Research Epp Lankots, head of programmes

Architecture and Urban Design 

10:15 – 10:55

Sille Pihlak. “Prototyping Protocols: Protocolling Prototypes* Identifying and systematising design methodology for contemporary modular timber architecture”. Discussant Markus Vihma

Art History and Visual Culture Studies

10:55 – 11:35

Merily Salura. “Flow and time: the temporality of a creative process in Gadamer’s aesthetics”. Discussant Maria Hansar

11:35 – 12:15

Hanna-Liis Kont. “From relational aesthetics to Arte Útil. Selected theoretical frameworks for analysing current curatorial practices related to community engagement and social wellbeing”. Discussant Darja Popolitova

12:15 – 12:45 coffee break

Art and Design

12:45 – 13:25

Ulvi Haagensen. “The art of cleaning: crossing the line between art and everyday life”. Discussant Merily Salura

13:25 – 14:05

Darja Popolitova. “Haptic Visuality of Jewellery”. Discussant Ulvi Haagensen

14:05 – 14:45

Markus Vihma. “Eco Design competencies”. Discussant Sille Pihlak

14:45 – 15:15 coffee break

Cultural Heritage and conservation

15:15 – 15:55

Maria Hansar. “Media Archeological Approach to the Archeological Monument – Narva Case Study”. Discussant Nele Rent

15:55 – 16:35

Nele Rent. “Changes in the use of terms and language over time on the example of the Heritage Protection Act”. Discussant Hanna-Liis Kont

16:35 – 17:00 concluding discussion