As part of the workshop, EKA students design shoes for children in an orphanage.

12 foreign students from 8 European countries from the departments of product design, jewelery, ceramics, architecture, graphic design, photography are participating, none of whom have made shoes before.

12 children of Tallinn Children’s Home are also learning to design and make shoes. The workshop also marks the 20th anniversary of the orphanage.
Supervisors are Kelian Luisk (EST), Macarena Gimenez (IT), Nicolas Denolle (FR)

Macarena Gimenez is an Argentine-Italian footwear maker with a studio in Denmark. Nicolas Denolle has long been a graphic designer for the world-famous brand Camper and now works for Apple. In this workshop, Denolle will guide the illustration.

The workshop takes place in two parts. For two days, students make shoes for the children and then illustrate them.

According to the color chart and the given theme, the students help the children to make designs for the shoes and then the children transfer their homemade drawings / motifs to their designed shoes.

This is an Erasmus workshop in the Accessory and Binding Design Department of EKA.

Young Artist MA award
07.09.–23.09.2021
opening: 07.09, 5 PM

At the exhibition Hopscotch Aksel Haagensen and Triin Kerge will present elements from their respective childhoods. Both artists approach a broader analysis of memory through their own personal memories.

As a young child in Australia, Aksel drew a lot of birds. There were many birds in Australia and they were all so interesting and colourful and different. Recently, Aksel asked his mother which bird had been his favourite and his mother said there was no such thing, “… you liked them all!” He wasn’t simply fascinated by the common popular birds, instead drawing every bird he could, constantly. Haagensen is interested in the subtle otherness of being an Australian-Estonian.

As a young child, Triin visited her great aunt at Voka, Ida-Viru County. Her great aunt lived in an apartment building and from the window all one could see were prefabricated buildings, sandpits and climbing frames. From Voka, Triin remembers picking chamomile, a machine for walnut-shaped waffles and a dating show on television, which made everyone laugh. Recently Triin visited Voka and while walking towards the shop, she remembered that it was from that very shop that to her great delight a roly poly toy was bought for her. At the exhibiton Kerge looks at the nature and materiality of memories.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Thanks to  Marika Alver, Saskia Lillepuu, Katarina Meister, Irmeli Terras, Marcin Teterycz, Tallinn University of Technology, Valge Kuup

You are invited to the solo exhibition “Presence of People Absent” by Katariin Mudist at EKA Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Maria Helen Känd.

8.07.–12.08.
Tue-Sat 12–6 PM

With her solo exhibition “Presence of People Absent”, Katariin Mudist explores the nature of cleaning work and the corresponding attitudes in society in a multi-layered and playful way. The series of photos and videos completed in the course of working as a cleaner for Airbnb apartments (in 2019 and 2020) expose how we perceive the closeness of strangers and the discomfort of encountering signs of people who have left a space they have used.

The exhibition asks: to what extent is it possible to overcome one’s discomfort of being in close contact with strangers through the mess and objects left behind. Further, it addresses the prejudices against cleaning work as a cultural phenomenon and follows Mudist as she tries to approach cleaning as a mindful activity or more philosophically – the constant alternation of order and chaos as a manifestation of eternity and cyclicality in everyday life.

“Simply cleaning the apartments seemed dull and monotonous, so the idea arose to look for opportunities to get to know the people I clean after and to imagine them based on the state of things left behind,” Mudist describes. By gathering as much information about the guests as possible and documenting the items that carried information, Mudist identified patterns in the guests’ behavior. This was facilitated by the fact that the interior design of the apartments had elements to meet the stereotypical expectations of certain travellers, while remaining universal and clinical, typical for a rental apartment. Later, based on the presumption, hypotheses began to emerge about their reasons for visiting Tallinn, lifestyle, gender, number, relationships, hair color and values.

The exhibition – opening at the time when people are highly aware of the nearest disinfectant and the location of other people in a space – strives to offer ways to overcome the fear of the invisible other and uncertainty that a stranger’s presence evokes.

Katariin Mudist is a second-year master’s student in contemporary art at the Estonian Art Academy, who is currently studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghnet, Belgium. She graduated from the Tartu High School of Art in media and advertising design and has studied animation at Moholy-Nagy University. Mudist mostly works in mediums like graphic drawings, animation and installation. Her works have been exhibited both in Estonia and at international festivals. Mudist’s most recent exhibition “Festival of Disbelief” took place in the Gallery of the Artists’ House of Pärnu City Gallery in cooperation with Maria Elise Remme.

Maria Helen Känd has studied film, theatre and media science at the University of Vienna, cultural theory and comparative literature at Tallinn University and is currently in her second year of master’s in curatorial studies at EKA. Her most recent curatorial projects include the group exhibition “Outside of Oneself” at ARS project space, the group exhibition “east end(s)?” at Põhjala tehas and the joint media project of EKA curators “EKA reality”.

This Friday, 30 April there will be an online symposium “Crafting Situations – Conversations exploring public private boundaries in the (present pandemic impacted) city” in four sessions 13:00–17:00. 

Join the symposium here or on the Crafting Conversations platform here.

“Crafting Situations – Conversations exploring public private boundaries in the (present pandemic impacted) city” is an experimental symposium conducted and developed through a collaboration between the projects Crafting Situations of Knowledge Exchange at HDK Valand Academy of Art and Design Gothenburg, SE, and curation of conversations that investigate the different public private boundaries in the city at Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), EE.

Schedule of the symposium:

13:00–13:45 EET

“weaving urban intersections on the crossroads of nature connections” – A Game of Associations moderated through the “Polledge” format

Guest speaker: Ott Kagovere

“weaving urban intersections on the crossroads of nature connections” – A Game of Associations curated by Louise Borinski, Björn Giesecke, Malin Hilding

Format “Polledge” crafted by Hanna Peterson, Emil Söderberg, Fanny Däldborg, Bekhar Azimov, Malene Valentin

14:00–14:45 EET

“Surveillance: Losing Control” discussed “in the Dark”

Guest speaker: Damiano Cerrone

“Surveillance: Losing Control” curated by Nursultan Barun and Bruce Shujun Wang

Format “In the Dark” crafted by Anna Roth, Daniela Kaiser, Shirun Zheng

15:00–15:45 EET

“Outsiders” negotiated via “Bread for the Table”

Guest speaker: Marge Monko & Margit Säde

“Outsiders” curated by Francesca Keaveney

Format “Bread for the table” crafted by Lea Wilhelm, Julia Tienvieri, Daniel Palatz, Hannah Simann Ax, Lucrezia Sterrantino, Victor Nilsson

16:00–16:45 EET

“A Wish to Meet” via “The Pace”

Guest speakers: Marek Glow & Uku Sepsivart

“A Wish to Meet” curated by Paula Buskevica and Katarina Sarap

Format “The Pace” crafted by Julia Niklasson, John Wattström, Ellen Solding, Katarina Frisö, Gabriella Di Feola

About Crafting Conversations

Crafting Conversations is a platform and approach to investigate situations of knowledge exchange as a matter for design. This means, to shift focus from WHAT to HOW knowledge is exchanged, transferred, created and thus shapes/influences WHAT content can be said, perceived, shared and created.

The Symposium “Crafting Situations – Conversations exploring public boundaries in the (present pandemic impacted) city” is the result of a collaboration between the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn and HDK Valand – Academy of Art and Design, Gothenburg. It is conceived and mentored by Sandra Nuut, and Prof. Judith Seng, Berlin/Gothenburg. HDK Valand MFA Design students have developed scores and formats of knowledge exchange and the students of Estonian Academy of Arts have curated topics through the provided formats. The final contributions for the Symposium have been developed through a collaborative rehearsing week in which the relation between HOW and WHAT has been explored by the students.

The Symposium “Crafting Situations – Conversations exploring public boundaries in the (present pandemic impacted) city” takes place as part of the public programme of the exhibition Acting Things VIII – Silent Conversations by Judith Seng and curated by Sandra Nuut at the Tallinn Art Hall, 5 June–1 August, 2021.

Symposium is supported by CIRRUS/Nordplus

Photography course exhibition “Still life” at EKA Billboard Gallery is open from April 6.

This exhibition presents a selection of works completed during the studio photography course of the 2nd year students of the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Artists: Elo Vahtrik, Micaela Dunne, Andra Junalainen, Joosep Kivimäe, Laura Maala, Imbi Sõber, Ivor Lõõbas, Meel Paliale 

The course was supervised by Holger Kilumets

EKA Billboard gallery is located outside on EKa’s building at Kotzebue street.

Portfolio Café is structured around one-on-one meetings that take place between local and international fine arts and design professionals and graduate students. Each meeting takes place about 50 minutes. During Portfolio Café sessions students introduce themselves and their work, and experts share their observations, provide recommendations ask, questions etc. After the first scheduled conversation student moves on to the next selected expert they have signed up for.
All Portfolio Café meetings are in English.

Portfolio Café is a collaborative project between the Faculty of Fine Arts and Faculty of Design.

Registration:
Portfolio Café invites all fine art and design students from the MA level to participate. The spots are limited and participants will be chosen according to the provided portfolios. The reviews are considered as part of the studies and you may receive credits for participating (3 ECTS).

To apply, please fill our this registration form before April 12, 2021 and upload your portfolio.

Find detailed information about our experts in the registration form.

Portfolio Café is supported by the European Regional Development Fund.

Jette Loona Hermanis “Torque Vulnerati”
26.02, 8 PM
27.02, 7 PM
The number of guests is limited, please register at pire.sova@artun.ee

“Torque Vulnerati” is an emotional and expressive fairy tale mystifying transcendence and longing to express an affect. Strongly influenced by the digital age, the material carries a screaming obsession with self-centralization and online persona-portrayal, exhibiting emotional narratives of self in relation to existence and suffering of the soul. Storytelling as a concept from which ambiguous attitudes and ideas emerge. Emo Fairytale drenched in mythological symbolism, the frame – post-internet dark romanticism.

Jette Loona Hermanis, born in1997, is pulsing Baltic blood, Estonian and Latvian. Performance “Torque Vulnerati” is Hermanis’ Bachelor thesis at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, in Art-Coreography curricula.

The performance lasts about 60 minutes. The entrance is for free and from Kotzebue street. Please wear a mask and keep a safe distance!

Kristel Zimmer, Linda Mai Kari, Liisamari Viik, Estookin, Anita Kremm
Curator: Ene-Liis Semper

The project is a result of one and a half year studies of EKA Scenography department students. Dassemperdepot consists of five investigators of metaphorical thought: “We sense, create meaning and space, reflect the world and search for poetry. Our mentors are wise and creative people, including Ene-Liis Semper. Study of Deconstruction is a presentation of creative research about metaphorical thought through deconstruction, body, and space.”.

Durational performances: 10–14.02 at 4–8 PM
Exhibition: 16–20.02 at 12–6 PM
The entrance is from Kotzebue street! Please wear a mask and keep a safe distance!