Semele Kari
The 2020 Vello Asi Student Prize laureate Semele Kari is a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Arts bachelor’s programme in interior architecture and is currently continuing her research into space while working toward her master’s degree in the same field.
Semele likes to draw connections between her professional and private life, to experiment and provocate. Drawing on personal experience, she sets creative goals intuitively, but also enjoys a structured working process when it comes to attaining results. She cares deeply for the cultural development of smaller rural communities, how different forms of coexistence are expressed spatially and Estonian railway landscapes along with architecture along the railway.
Semele’s Bachelor degree thesis “The cancelled wait – the marked time. Spatial solution of the waiting area in the railway landscape” exemplifies how to best combine the theoretical and practical knowledge acquired over three bachelor studies’ years, and apply it in a mature and simultaneously practical and poetical manner. The intervention provided by Semele’s thesis fairly minimal in its manner, but a good springboard for further discussion on the topic of the future of old railway station buildings.
For several decades, our beloved professor emeritus Vello Asi was one of the key figures in the education of interior architecture students, gently guiding the development of their creative personalities and their professional selves. His principles, ethics and attitude towards his work and art are values that we hope to see in today’s young interior architects, too. This is the reason why the student prize, awarded in cooperation by the board of the Association of Interior Architects and the Estonian Academy of Arts Department of Interior Architecture, is called the Vello Asi Prize.
From the entire interior architecture department: congratulations, Semele!