Open Lectures

KVI open lectures 2024–2025
Talking decolonisation – practices in dialogue

This academic year, the open lecture series of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts focuses on decolonial practitioners and practices. The series departs from a new wave of decolonisation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, strongly influenced by Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.

The lecturers include prominent researchers and curators who are invited to share their perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonisation in different fields and parts of the world. The series aims to create new comparisons between different decolonising contexts and to contribute to a dialogue between Eastern Europe and Central Asia and other regions.

We want to contribute to the decolonisation processes in Eastern Europe by helping the region to position and vocalise itself in relation to other and often older decolonisation traditions, and at the same time also emphasise the importance of solidarity.

Decolonisation challenges and dismantles grand dominant discourses about history, culture and art. Equally in need of a decolonising perspective are museum and exhibition practices, whose choices have also depended on the colonisers’ view of what is valuable in art and why it is valuable. In addition to students and faculty from the Estonian Academy of Arts, other universities and schools, we therefore invite art, museum and cultural professionals – and anyone else interested – to join us.

The lectures are held in English, free of charge and open to everyone interested.

Programme in 2024/2025:

• 14th October 17:30 in A-501 Klara Kemp-Welch: “Free Movement? Tracking Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe since the early 2000s” – in cooperation with Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts
• 16th December 17:00 at A-501 Inga Lāce (Almaty Museum of Arts) Making a museum, being a guest
• 27th January Sepake Angiama (Institute of International Visual Arts, London) – in cooperation with CCA and Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts
• 12th February Charis Gullikson (Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø) “Decolonisation of Nordic museums” – in cooperation with KUMU
• 12th March Bart Pushaw (University of Tennessee Chattanooga) – in cooperation with KUMU
• 8th April Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews) “Decolonising research and curating in Ukrainian industrial areas” – in cooperation with Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts
• 21st May Macarena Gomez-Barris (Brown University) “Extractivism, Latin America, decoloniality” – in cooperation with KUMU