GD Lecture Series: Eleonora Šljanda

GD Lecture Series is organized by EKA graphic design department, where various graphic designers are invited to speak about their life and practice.

Graphic designer and DJ Eleonora Šljanda will be visiting on April 4.

Eleonora has studied at both the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy.

The lecture will start at 5 p.m. at Estonian Academy of Arts in room C304.

Histories and memories of the 20th and 21st centuries in the Baltic States with its different colonialisms are entangled with the uneasy relations between the past and present. How can we acknowledge this history as layered and nuanced? And which methods could help us to address its blind spots and silences as well as solidarities?

In this presentation, Margaret Tali will introduce the transdisciplinary project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” (2019-2024) and focus on its different ways of engaging artists to answer these questions. At the heart of this collaborative project has been creating synergies between humanities scholarship, artistic research and curation in order to learn from each others’ methods and approaches in order to sharpen and enrich our perspectives to history writing. The exhibition “Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds” co-curated with Ieva Astahovska in its framework at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius (2022) and in the Latvian National Museum of Art (2020) presented its results to a broader public. During the lecture, Margaret Tali will introduce some of the works included by Lia Dostlieva and Andrii Dostliev, Jaana Kokko, and Quinsy Gario & Jörgen Gario.

Margaret Tali is an art historian and curator, who works as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Institute of Art History and Visual Culture. Her research interests include exhibition histories, curating difficult heritage, relationships of visual art and handicraft, and histories of the art museum. She holds a PhD from the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. She is the author of Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums (2018) and co-editor, with Ieva Astahovska, of the Memory Studies special issue Return of Suppressed Memories in Eastern Europe: Locality and Unsilencing Difficult Histories (2/2022). Together with Astahovska she has initiated the project Communicating Difficult Pasts, and as a part of which she co-curated the exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds in the Latvian National Museum of Art (2019) and Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (2022).
margarettali.net

A series of open architectural lectures will be held this 2023 spring under the title “Triggers of Architecture”. The theme brings architects and theoreticians to Tallinn, who analyze the root causes of architecture and the means of making it.

On April 13, 6 pm, Pascal Bronner will take the main hall stage with a lecture “57 Milligrams of Graphite”.

In this lecture he will take us to the journey through his work to date and provide an overview of his research into the ‘Droame’ – a composite realm that connects the physicality of drawing to the different forms of cerebral musings that the process uncovers. “In an effort to construct real spaces made entirely of graphite on paper, I investigate the seductiveness of this metaphysical world alongside its physical manifestation – both of which exist in a borderland between the miniaturised space on the drawing board and in the mind. I have begun to survey and capture these graphite landscapes in microscopic detail through the construction and assembly of various devices.” – Bronner describes his working process.

Pascal Bronner is a senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Greenwich. He was born in Malaysia, grew up in Germany and moved to the UK in 2000 where he still lives and works today. In London, he studied fine art at Central St. Martins, and architecture at the Bartlett, UCL. Pascal was awarded the RIBA Bronze Medal Commendation and the Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing at Part 2. He was also a recipient of the Fitzroy Robinson Drawing Prize and the Banister Fletcher Medal. Pascal is a co-founder of FleaFollyArchitects, and is currently undertaking a PHD at RMIT, where he examines and dissects his perpetual drawing practice.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year.

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge.

The lecture series is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curated by Andres Ojari

www.avatudloengud.ee

Additional information:

Tiina Tammet

E-post: arhitektuur@artun.ee

Tel. +372 642 0071

The annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on April 13th, 2023

EKA hall A501

Please register by April 10th at the latest.

TIMETABLE

9.45 Registration
10.00 Opening words, Dr. Anu Allas, Vice-Rector for Research, Head of Doctoral School

10.10 Key Talk: Prof. Esa Kirkkopelto (University of Helsinki), visiting professor of EKA Doctoral School 2022/23, „On the Possibility of Artistic Research“.

11.10 Coffee break

Art and Design, moderator Dr. Liina Unt

11.20 Taavet Jansen, supervisor Dr. Anu Allas
„Memento – Directing a Hybrid Event as Practice-based Research“. Discussant Nesli Hazal Oktay

12.00 Mia Čopíková, supervisors Prof. Karol Weisslechner, Dr. Nadia Kančevová
„Transformation of the Stones in Jewelry“. Discussant Varje Õunapuu

12.40 Nesli Hazal Oktay, supervisors Prof. Danielle Wilde, Dr. Kristi Kuusk
„Intimacy with Far-away Bodies“. Discussant Mia Čopíková

13.20 Lunch break

Architecture and Urban Planning, moderator Dr. Jüri Soolep

14.10 Johan Tali, supervisors Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Maroš Krivy
„Curious Cases of Exhibiting Architects: Shaping the Mindset Through Displays of Environments and Spatial Interventions“. Discussant Martin Melioranski

14.50 Martin Melioranski, supervisor Dr. Jüri Soolep
“Re-writing the Rules – Architecture by Iterative Ideas”. Discussant Johan Tali

15.30 Coffee break

Cultural Heritage and Conservation, and Art History and Visual Culture,
moderators Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Andres Kurg

15.40 Varje Õunapuu, supervisors Dr. Hilkka Hiiop, Ms. Karol Bayer
„How Is it Done? Technical Aspects of the Estonian Medieval Wall-paintings and the Underneath Plaster“. Discussant Mariann Raisma

16.20 Mariann Raisma, supervisors Prof. Linda Kaljundi, Dr. Anneli Randla
„Discontinuance or Continuity? Changes in the Role of Museums as Mediators of Cultural Memory During the Major Changes of the 20th Century“. Discussant Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann

17.00 Mariliis Elizabeth Holzmann, supervisors Dr. Regina-Nino Mion, Dr. Barbi Pilvre
„A Diffractive Approach to Analyzing Horror Films Directed by Women“. Discussant Taavet Jansen

17.40 Coffee break

17.50 Roundtable (Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Liina Unt, Dr. Anneli Randla, Dr. Jüri Soolep, Prof. Andres Kurg)

For more information:
Henry Kuningas Henry.kuningas@artun.ee

On April 1, the EKA Pop-Up Shop selling modern design and new art will open on the shopping street of Telliskivi Creative City, 

The original designs and works of art of the students of the Estonian Academy of Arts on sale in the EKA Pop-Up Shop.

More than forty students bring out their best, latest, most sustainable design and art. Among the many EKA artists, the pop-up shop also features the works of already recognized authors. Among others, fashion student Cärol Ott, laureate of the 2021 Wiiralt scholarship, ceramicist and jewelry artist Elize Hiiop, accessory designer Sandra Luks, performance artist and Master’s student in EKA ceramics, and Keithy Kuuspu will present their creations in the store.

During April workshops and master classes for city residents, tourists, people from abroad will be held. One can find creations varying from graphics, drawings, paintings and photographs to clothing design, accessories, jewellery, ceramics and blacksmithing.

Designs and art works by the following authors will be present:

Markus Vernik
Kaisa Uik
Oliver Udeküll
Keithy Kuuspu
Helen Griffiths
Visa Eino
Triin Türnpuu
Sergei Saprykin
Evridiki Papaiakovou
Daria Dementeva
Kaileen Palmsaar
Natalia Mirzoian
Alp Eren Özalp
Helena Pass
Helen Tiits
Mirjam Aun
Riina Lii Parve
Elisa Margot Winters
Sirje Järv
Mia Felic
Anna Ovtšinnikova
Piibe Tomp
Erle Nemvalts
Cristopher Siniväli
Maria Elise Remme
Valeria Poljakova
Cärol Ott
Anu Kadri Uustalu
Samuel Eff Markkus Savimägi
Elize Hiiop
Villu Mustkivi
Liis Tisler
Zoe Koerbunner
Rita Volkov
Sandra Luks
Heli Haav
Rita Lenore
Valdek Laur
Gontsugova
Morris Motel
Elis Liivo
Kärt Heinvere

The EKA Pop-Up Shop opens on April 1 at 11:00 a.m. and will remain open until the end of the month. 

Opening hours: Mon–Fri 11–19 and Sat, Sun 11–17

Follow the information on the EKA Pop-Up Shop Facebook page

www.artun.ee; EKA üld FB; EKA Pop-Up Poe FB

Info: 

Piibe Tomp

piibe.tomp@artun.ee

Tel 5241780 

Tõnis Jürgens „Dreaming of Babylon“ / „Paabeli ulmad“

Tartu Kunstimuuseum / Tartu Art Museum

18.03.2023–14.05.2023

The main focus of the exhibition is the digital measurement of sleep, which has gained popularity in recent years. Tracking the habits of one’s everyday life is offered to individual users by an increasing number of devices: smartwatches, -bands, -rings, -speakers, -mats, apps etc. These devices track users even when they are sleeping, collecting a steady stream of data about their habits and cycles of sleep.

The measuring of sleep turns a welcome spotlight on the importance of healthy sleep habits. However, the data collected through these measurements are resources and commodities which end up in the data centres of the smart device manufacturers and which can then be resold as data or market information. Therefore, by tracking your sleep habits and interpreting the collected data, you are also working while you are sleeping.

It seems that sleep, which previously seemed to be the last mysterious safe haven where capitalism couldn’t reach, has quietly started becoming part of the machinations of the surveillance society. Through measuring sleep, dreams have turned into side-products in the production process, like the noise surrounding a radio signal or the sediment in a bottle of juice.

At the exhibition Dreaming of Babylon, Tõnis Jürgens follows the afterlives of the data collected by the surveillance society, as well as dreams that have been written down by dreamers. At the centre of the display is a staged bedroom filled with traces of somebody’s life. In the room, a film is projected – scenes of server racks towering over uninhabited landscapes – which is accompanied by a shifting narrative of the descriptions of dreams.

The exhibition is part of the Tartu Art Museum exhibition series Young Tartu.

Tõnis Jürgens (b 1989) is a film projectionist, a writer and an emptiness aficionado. He has a bachelor’s degree in culture studies from Tallinn University and a master’s degree from the Department of New Media at the Estonian Academy of Arts, including an additional year as an exchange student at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM). The exhibition is a continuation of Jürgens’s creative research at the Doctoral School of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Saturday the 1st of April has an open door day at the Copperleg Artist Residency in Vaskjala, roughly 12 km outside of Tallinn.

Polish painter Katarzyna Pitek and Dutch sculptor Jonathan Stavleu (EKA Contemporary Art MA) will display the art they made during their month long residency.

Janno Bergman and Erik Alalooga will be performing. The open door day takes place from 13:30 to 16:30.

Copper Leg Residency

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An evening with noise music, nostalgic irony and cake.

Nele Tiidelepp’s play “When we reached the end of the sentence, we forgot where it started” is performed again.

A fluid collective consisting mainly of performers, artists, musicians and art workers with a background in EKA, Riin Maide, Gregor Kulla, Henri Särekanno, Ekke Janisk, Andreas Kübar, Ats Kruusing, Oliver Issak, Raul Markus Vaiksoo and Leon Allik, are Tiidelepp’s companions on this journey to the end of the sentence, where the predominant activity is the attempt to forget the past and the predominant mood is anxiety, chaos, alienation and sincerity due to its impossibility.

Director: Nele Tiidelepp

Performers: Nele Tiidelepp, Riin Maide, Henri Särekanno, Gregor Kulla, Ats Kruusing, Andreas Kübar, Ekke Janisk

Artist: Riin Maide

Dramaturgical support: Oliver Issak

Illuminator: Leon Allik

Choreography: Raul Markus Vaiksoo

Project manager: Kaie Küünal

Co-production: Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Nele Tiidelepp

Support: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia 

The performances will take place on March 29, 30 and April 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Nele Tiidelepp’s play “When we reached the end of the sentence, we forgot where it started”.

The number of places is limited – grab your ticket now!

The first thought I had when I walked into the hall was that I felt like I was walking into someone else’s class night. It’s a certain pseudo-nostalgic feeling associated with the experience of a class night. An experience that has been somewhere before and you long for it. – Karin Allik, Kultuur ERR

Some scenes also seemed almost like a quote from something earlier and more distant, as if the performers, despite the prism of irony, were nostalgic for some distant, indirectly experienced times, when neon was in fashion and Janika Sillamaa sang about hope in a bright voice – Brigitta Davidjants, Sirp

Don’t cross their boundaries!
17.03-25.08.2023
Opening: 17.03, 4 pm at EKA lobby
EKA Billboard Gallery, Kotzebue 1

Participating artists:
Kristiina Aarna, Karola Ainsar, Katharina Grepp, Kärt Heinvere, Annika Hint & Irmeli Terras, Maria Kapajeva, Sanna Kartau, Hanna Eliise Kask, Karis Kivi, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Annemarie Maasik, Marlene, Susanna Mildeberg, Katariin Mudist, Enn Nazarov, Liisa Niit, Katerina Rothberg, Pamela Samel, Tiina Sööt, Daria Titova, Kadi Viik, Laura Vilbiks

Feministeerium and EKA Gallery invite you to the exhibition “Don’t cross their boundaries!” opening on March 17 at 4 pm in the EKA lobby!

72% of Estonian university students have experienced sexual or gender-based harassment at least once. The most common types of harassment that the students have experienced are stereotyping remarks, sexually suggestive language, ambivalent jokes and inappropriate staring.*

Everyone has the right to decide for themselves about their bodily integrity. However, how personal boundaries are established depends on the cultural norms and on the social contract, institutionalized in the form of civil laws. Any sexual relation must be based on the explicit free consent of all parties. Free consent means that the parties of a sexual relation can decide whether they want to continue or end it at any time, fully assured that their boundaries will be respected. Consideration of each other’s needs creates an emotionally safer space and is a step towards defying stereotypes that contribute to violence and inequality.

The 2017 Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, also ratified by Estonia, advocates for changing the definition of rape in the Penal Code, so it would be based on consensual sexual relations as the norm, while deviation from consent constitutes rape. Alongside the law, it is important to establish a popular understanding across the society that everyone has the right to physical and mental self-determination and integrity. 

For this exhibition, we have selected submitted artworks that address the principles of sexual consent culture and confront the problems created by stereotyping attitudes.

* Based on the 2020 Federation of Estonian Student Unions survey Gender and Sexual Harassment in Estonian Higher Education Institutions.

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Active citizens fund