Aivar Tõnso “Light Matter in Dark State” at EKA Gallery 3.–6.04.2025

Aivar Tõnso’s solo exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State”
EKA Gallery 3.–6.04.2025
Open Thu–Fri 2–10 pm Sat 12–10 pm Sun 12–6 pm, free entry
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6 pm

Aivar Tõnso’s exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State” continues his experiments in the field of sound art that grew out of his musical work. The spatial sound exhibition, created with the Ebakõlar System, which relies on the sound characteristics of various materials, aims to push the boundaries of the listening experience, inviting viewers not only to listen, but also to actively perceive and participate in the sound space. It is possible to move within a sound composition without a definite beginning and end, which can be entered at any moment in time from any freely chosen direction.

Since sound and imagination are the central themes in Tõnso’s work, he also considers the character of sounds important, and as one way to achieve unique sounds, he often uses the constantly evolving Ebakõlar System built on the basis of various physical materials. Unlike commercial speakers designed for listening to music, Ebakõlar System do not try to play the widest possible sound frequency spectrum evenly. Each speaker has its own unique raw and undesigned character resulting from the properties of the material. It is also a process where the material visible to the eye acquires new hidden meanings due to the excitation by sounds.

Photos of the Ebakõlar System can be downloaded here.

Aivar Tõnso is a musician, sound artist and curator of interdisciplinary cultural events. He has been involved in electronic music creation since the early 90s and has participated in projects such as Hüpnosaurus, Kismabande, Kulgurid and Ulmer. Having long ventured into the fringes of club music and experimental electronic music, he has been active in the field of sound art in recent years both as an artist and as the organizer of the Üle Heli festival.

On Saturday, April 5th at 3 pm, artist Aivar Tõnso will give a guided tour at the exhibition in English.

The event is part of the Tallinn Music Week city program. Check out the full program here.

Graphic design by: Jaan Evart
Light design by: Rene Manivald Tamm
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Sadolin Estonia, Tallinn City and Tallinn Music Week.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

Thanks: Ian Simon Märjama, Maria Aua, Märt Vaidla, Tarvo Porroson, Tiina Tõnso, Timo Toots, Madis Reivik, Raivo Raidvee

Anu Jakobson’s solo exhibition “Finite_Jest.psd”
EKA Billboard Gallery 3.04.–25.05.2025
Open 24/7, free
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6.30 pm

Anu Jakobson’s paintings explore internet culture by using symbols and images that are widely spread online. Much like ancient civilizations used hieroglyphics and stone carvings for representation to encode power, myth, and collective identity, Jakobson’s work similarly engages with contemporary symbols. The cloudiness achieved with an airbrush emphasizes the virtual, while the painting itself resembles a file of poor quality. By translating these fleeting digital symbols into the physical permanence of a painting, the work reflects a return to classical representation. It suggests that, in the age of excessive information, our need to document and decode reality mirrors the visual storytelling of past civilizations.

Curated by: Kaisa Maasik
The exhibition is supported by Tallinn City.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

The Last Spring at the Central Market and the Exhibition in Keskpuur

A new exhibition is now open at the Keskpuur gallery on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The artist Jana Mätas’ “Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole” (There Was Something Here, or Maybe Not) invites viewers to reflect on the past, present, and future of the Central Market through materials, while contemplating the ever-present change in everything. The exhibition will remain open until April 6.

“When preparing for the exhibition, I visited the market quite often. I have always enjoyed environments that are a bit neglected and untidy, but right now, I enjoy it even more the more I think about neatly arranged cobblestones, aesthetically pleasing sales counters, and high-gloss white furniture. The people in these places are different, too.

And then one day, I remembered that the gravel roads leading to my childhood country house came from all directions. The cars passing by always drove with a white cloud behind them. All the plants by the roadside were covered with a thick layer of dust. I remember walking barefoot on the gravel road, the dust thick between my toes, and my calves were gray up to my knees. One had to walk very carefully so that it wouldn’t hurt too much on the soles. Sometimes, among the dusty stones, you could find ones that sparkled.”

Jana Mätas is an artist living and working in Tallinn, whose works are rooted in the physical world surrounding humans. Her pieces often begin with found objects, materials considered of little value, or abandoned items. The artist works largely intuitively to create surreal, worlds that exist outside of words. She has studied Estonian language and literature at the University of Tartu, dance at the Viljandi Culture Academy, and graduated with a BA in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2021). Since 2023, she has been studying contemporary art at the same institution (MA). *Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole* is her first solo exhibition.

In her works, Jana Mätas combines various material arts, craft techniques, light, space, literature, photography, and moving images.

Keskpuur is a gallery located on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The new construction of the Central Market will begin this coming summer, and the market, along with the gallery, will disappear.

Graphic design: Jana Mätas, Grete Kangro

On March 27 at 4:30 p.m in room A501

Formed by Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre,  EJTECH [ˈeɪtɛk’] is an polydisciplinary artist duo working with hyperphysical interfaces, programmable matter, and augmented textiles as media to investigate sensorial and conceptual relationships between subject and object, aiming to rediscover networks of emerging structures and immanent causality within realist metamaterialism. 

Sound, space, light and time as material building blocks are paramount elements in their practice, analyzing the process of unfolding patterns between technology and the human body. Driven by material research, resulting in performative installations, multichannel sonic sculptures and dynamic surfaces. Influenced by the philosophy of New Materialism, Holonic Theory and Somaesthetics, EJTECH aims to provide tools for exploring liminality, thirdspace, and the elusive state of now.

Their work has been presented in galleries, festivals and exhibitions such as Japan Media Arts Festival, European Media Arts Festival, Sensorium Festival, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Design Museum Holon, Ludwig Museum, Budapest Kunsthalle, LRRH Gallery, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Trafo House of Contemporary Arts, HayArt Center in Yerevan, Eastopics Gallery, Horizont Gallery, LOM Art Space, iii Instrument Inventors Initiative, Rewire among others.

EJTECH has created commissioned art pieces for cultural institutions and commercial brands such as DIOR, Blade Runner 2049, Dune: part two, Material ConneXion.

They regularly hold workshops and lectures on new media art and creative technology internationally. Founded the Soft Interfaces Lab in 2020 for further research in soft technology and material ecologies at MOME.

The artist duo currently works and lives in Budapest, Hungary.

Textile 110 is a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of EKA’s textile design education, as part of which a series of open lectures focusing on textiles will be held, a series of publications will be published, and a selection of works from the EKA Museum’s textile collection can be seen throughout the year.

The lecture series opens up the spectrum of diverse opportunities in the field of textiles, both in design, industry, and creative practices, bringing out different roles and methods of creation in the field through various invited guests.

Supported by the Research Fund of EKA and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Artist talk by Tris Vonna-Michell at 17:30 on March 4th in EKA, A-501

The artist is visiting EKA to run a workshop in the department of photography on March 24-26, 2025 together with Henrik Follesø Egeland.

Tris Vonna-Michell (1982) is an artist, publisher and guest professor in Expanded Performance and Installation at the Royal College of Art in Stockholm.

Recent works can be found in public collections such as Serralves Museum, Porto, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate Modern, London, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Vonna-Michell has exhibited widely, most recently at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

Vonna-Michell’s work utilises a plethora of technical devices, modes of presentation and installational approaches, encompassing performance, audio recordings, slide projections, poetry, sound poetry, printed matter, photography and film. Since 2010 he has been co-running the publishing space and analogue studio Mount Analogue.

https://www.vonna-michell.com

Annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on 10 April 2025.

Please register by 01.04.

PROGRAM

08.20 – Registration
08.30 – Opening words
prof. Linda Kaljundi (EKA Vice Rector for Research)

Panel 1: Cultural Heritage & Conservation, moderator prof. Victoria Donovan
08.35 Footwear Fashion in Late Medieval Europe
Tuuli Jõesaar (supervisors dr. Erki Russow, dr. Marquita Volken)

09.10 Climate Impact on Wall Paintings and Salt-Induced Decay
Mariam Sagaradze (supervisors dr. Lisa Shekede, dr. Anneli Randla, prof. Hilkka Hiiop)

09.45 Rethinking of Historical Wood Waste
Aljona Gineiko (supervisors dr. Mihkel Kiviste, dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.20 Eiffel’s Lighthouses and the Theseus’s Paradox: A Study of Identity and Change
Indrek Laos (supervisor dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.55 – Coffee, tea, snacks (15 min)

Panel 2: Art & Design, and Art History & Visual Culture, moderators dr. Jaana Päeva and prof. Andres Kurg
11.10 Painting as a Mirror: Symmetries and Reflections.
Sirja-Liisa Eelma (supervisor dr. Alari Allik)

11.45 Listen To My Scream: Autotheory in Practice-Based Research
Maria Kapajeva (supervisors dr. Redi Koobak, prof. Annika von Hausswolff)

12.20 What Kind of Art is Expected in School Buildings?
Karin Paulus (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Kara Diane Brown)

12.55 Oak Night: Looking for Any-Space-Whatevers in the Poststructuralist Thicket of Estonian Experimental Art and Literature in the 2000s
Sven Vabar (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Jaak Tomberg)

13.30 – Lunch break (30 min)

Panel 3: Architecture & Urban Planning, moderator dr. Jan van Schaik
14.00 Non-manifold Topology in Digital Architectural Models: Bridging Spatial Design and Industrial Production
Kaiko Kivi (supervisor dr. Renee Puusepp)

14.35 New Force Majeure in Urban Greenery: Nature Restoration and Amending
Regulation of the European Parliament and The Council
Karin Bachmann (supervisors prof. Urve Sinijärv, prof. Mart Kalm)

15.10 Climate Branding, Local Perceptions, and the YIMBY-NIMBY Conflict: The Case of Putukaväil Place-Making
Karina Vabson (supervisor prof. Maroš Krivy)

15.45 Chapters of Temperate. The Challenge of Doing More with Less in Urban
Greening
Anna-Liisa Unt (supervisor dr. Epp Lankots)

16.20 – Coffee, tea, snacks (10 min)

16.30 – Decolonising Research and Curating in Ukrainian Industrial Areas (= Institute of Art History and Visual Culture open lecture)*
prof. Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews), moderator prof. Linda Kaljundi

17.50 – Break (10 min)

18.00 – The Work is the Knowledge (= Faculty of Architecture open lecture)*
dr. Jan van Schaik (RMIT University, MvS Architects, Melbourne), moderator dr. Siim Tuksam

* The lectures are organised in cooperation with the Estonian Doctoral School. Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

More information:

Triin Metsla, triin.metsla@artun.ee
Mirje Tammaru, mirje.tammaru@artun.ee

13 March at 18.00, as part of the exhibition “Japanese Happiness“, we will be screening the documentary Soundscapes of Japan in room A-400, which portrays the master metalworkers of Tsubame-Sanjo. The film will run for an hour. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Open 21.-28.03.2025
Every day 14:00-18:00
and by appointment (+37253437533)

Opening: 20.03.2025 at 18:00

“The Scattering of Times to Dust ” is a spatial installation by Riin Maide at Uus Rada Gallery. The exhibition builds a cityscape from paper that takes the viewer beyond a border – to a place that has been left behind and worn thin. It’s a way to imagine nonexisting pasts and to feel nostalgia for the future.

Through mainly photo-based staged structures, the artist aims to find wistful beauty and material warmth in the languages of absence and arbitrariness. Paper and cardboard are tools to highlight the transience of architecture, to explore the fragmentation and dispersion of the city, and to create spectacles that barely exist. Both creation and decay are observed at once.

Riin Maide is an artist and scenographer based in Tallinn, whose practice focuses on indeterminate and intermediate areas and displaced spaces. She deals with topics such as memory and presence through playful installations and staged environments. Riin has received various awards, for instance the EKA Young Artist Award (2020) or the Eduard Wiiralt Scholarship (2022). She holds a BA degree of graphic arts from EKA Faculty of Fine Arts and has also studied in Vienna and Prague, and is currently a master’s student in the Department of Scenography of the Estonian Academy of Arts.