Open Lecture by Honorary Doctor Linda van Deursen

On Wednesday, November 6 at 4:00 p.m., the newly elected EKA honorary doctor prof. will hold an open lecture in hall A101. Linda van Deursen. 

Linda van Deursen is a graphic designer based in the Netherlands. Together with Armand Mevis, she founded the studio Mevis & van Deursen in 1987, which has collaborated with various cultural institutions: their partners have included the Stedelijk Museum, documenta 14, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the artists Armin Linke, Yael Davids and Aglaia Konrad, with whom they worked on publications and exhibitions.

Since 1990, Linda van Deursen has taught at various schools, for example at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (where she was head of the graphic design department), the Yale School of Art and currently at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague.

Van Deursen is a designer whose approach and design ideas have been among the most influential in the last twenty years. She has also had a great influence on the local design scene, because many Estonian designers have studied under her at various art universities in Europe and North America.

The lecture is held in English

We are pleased to invite you to the opening of Kirke Kits‘s exhibition “Late in October” on Tuesday 29.10 at 18:00 at Täisnurga Gallery.

The exhibition “Late October” plays with the liberation of poetry from the regular print format. As a photograph, diary or painting, poems escape the anonymity of a book page for a while. The possibility of experiencing them is hidden in a specific time and space, and above all related to the present moment before the snow and the final devastation, the place of enlightenment of the senses and sensations before the soporific arrival of winter.

You can find Täisnurga Gallery by entering the back door of the Painting Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts (C201).

The exhibition is supported by the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

You can find the Täisnurga Gallery through the back door of the painting department (C201) of the Estonian Academy of Arts. The exhibition is supported by the Painting Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition will remain open until November 8th.

In the frame of the EAA 110th anniversary celebrations, the Institute of Art History  and Visual culture is organising a festive research seminar with alumni Kai Lobjakas.

Kai Lobjakas. Inventing and institutionalising design. Bruno Tomberg and the museum’s collections

A one-man view of the development of the field of design in Estonia and the links with museum collections.

Traditional Christmas Fair of Estonian Academy of Arts takes place 08.12.2024 11:00–17:00 at EKA building Kotzebue 1.

All of the EKA students, workers and alumni are very welcome to sell their products.

PRICE LIST FOR THE SELLER:

EKA students/workers 20€
EKA alumni 50€
Table rent 10€

Last day for registration is 05.11.2024

Information about the participation fee will be sent to those who got to the fair no later than 11.11.2024. On the same day, the EKA Student Council will also announce the designers and artists who will be attending the fair in the description of the Facebook event and consistently on our social media platforms.

REGISTER HERE

“An Artistic Journey from Sculpture to Animated Film”
Martina Mestrovic Masterclass

November 14th, 5 p.m. in room A-101

In this masterclass, Croatian filmmaker and artist Martina Meštrović will examine her extended work in sculpture and animation.

She will discuss the creative inspirations behind her films, including the animation documentary “A Cat is Always Female” (2019, co-directed with  Tanja Vujasinović) and her recent, mixed techniques film “Her Dress for the Final” (2023) – both of which have traveled extensively within the international film and animation festival circuit. 

A screening of two of her films will be included, and Martina will share a sneak peek of her new animated documentary film in development.

Erik Sigge will give an open lecture “The Worth of Welfare: A Historical Perspective on the Costing and Financing of Public Buildings”

on October 28 at 5 pm at EKA classroom A-501

Since 1993, Sweden has deregulated many of its welfare services, with a majority of the privatization taking place after 2007. In a historical perspective, the longstanding problem of being able to make decisions regarding policies and programs on the basis of social needs – the classic problem of a welfare economy – has gradually been formalized into questions of efficiency and competitiveness.

The talk will address some of the historical changes of welfare policies in relation to building construction and focus on understanding the hidden logics of welfare economics in order to elucidate how architecture and real estate are contingent on the economic policies of its time. Central to “the cost of architecture” is how costing and budgeting are activities that have changed from primarily being conducted in direct relationship to production expenses, to being done in relation to financial opportunities.

Erik Sigge is an architectural historian and preservationist, and Lecturer in theory and history of architecture at the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Lund University in Lund, Sweden. He is Head of Unit of Form, Design, Culture and primarily teaches courses in the bachelor program. Erik gained his PhD in architectural history from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and holds a master degree in Historic Preservation from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York (M.Sc. 2003).

The lecture is organised by Urban Studies Curriculum.

On November 25 at 4:30 p.m., Hanna Norrna’s lecture “Metamorphosis in Weaving” will take place in room A501. 

The lecture focuses on creative practice centered around silk.

Norrna grows her own silkworms, watches the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies and processes their cocoons into silk, which in turn is woven into fabrics. Mythologies, spirituality and materiality intertwine in his practice.

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Hanna Norrna works with weaving as an alchemical formula and ritual gesture – an intertwining of silent knowledge and spirituality, mythology and materiality. Her practice touches how craft, passion, vulnerability, body and sanctity are connected and claims its space.

At the core of Norrna’s weaving process is the silkworm. An originally wild species, domesticated for thousands of years for human needs and productions. In the summers, she breeds silkworms in her home and follow the caterpillars’ growing transformation into butterflies. She processes their cocoons into thread and dye them with symbolic plants.

In her loom, the home-grown silk is placed into systems of bindings and meetings between metallic and animal materials. Layers and fields with various centers of gravity and density grow. In exhibitions, the woven material extends into spatial and site-specific installations.

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

On October 30 at 4:30 p.m., the lecture “The making of Inspiration” by Hanna Kaisa Korolainen will be held in room A501

The lecture focuses on the artist’s research and opens up his work, which extends from textiles to other media as well.

Hanna Kaisa Korolainen is a designer, artist and lecturer at Aalto University. He defended his doctoral thesis The making of Inspiration at Aalto University in 2022.

Korolainen is a visual artist whose diverse production includes textiles, glass and ceramics. She has been living and working in Paris, Beijing, Brussels and Helsinki. In addition to her artistic career, she teaches in Aalto University of Arts, Design and Architecture, and writes about art and design.
Korolainen’s artworks have been presented both in her natal Finland and abroad, consequently her works belong to several public and private collections. Her recent exhibitions include Emma Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Design Museum of Helsinki and Hvitträsk, a historical Art Nouveau site near Helsinki.
Korolainen is fascinated by the idea of time travelling to a fictional past. For her this dialogue between the past and the present represents an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In her creative practice, Korolainen is constantly influenced by old craft techniques; she is interested in updating them for the world of today.

“Sketching is the heart of everything; it is the decisive moment of the process. I try to work as much as possible with my hands and as little as possible with the computer.”

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

On Friday, November 8, starting at 8:30 PM, a public auction will be held as part of EKA 110th Birthday Week, featuring works by EKA faculty and alumni.

The auction will include works from the following artists: Anne Pikkov, Anna Škodenko, Britta Benno, Eero Alev, Holger Loodus, Jaan Toomik, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Mihkel Ilus, Sille Pihlak, and Urmas Lüüs.

The auction will be conducted by Siim Raie, an EKA alumnus and owner of Artrovert Gallery.

Participation is free for everyone, and no prior registration is required.

The auction pieces will be on display in the open area on the second floor of EKA from November 4 to 7. Photos and information about the works will also be gradually added to the EKA 110 auction’s Facebook event feed.

Written bids can be submitted via email to siim.raie@artun.ee from the time the pieces are published online until 12:00 PM on the day of the auction.

Half of the proceeds from each sale will be donated to the EKA Young Artist, Young Designer, and Young Applied Artist Award funds, managed by the Estonian Academy of Arts Foundation. The other half will go to the artist. The starting price for each piece is €110.

Payments for works purchased at the auction can be made in cash, by bank transfer, or by card. Settlement will take place immediately after the auction ends.

EKA 110th anniversary week program: https://www.artun.ee/eka110

See you there!

On Thursday, 24 October at 17.00, Philipp Teufel, Professor Emeritus of Exhibition Design at the Peter Behrens School of Art (PBSA), University of Applied Sciences, Düsseldorf, will give a lecture on Japanese aesthetics, material culture and philosophical approach to life. In the lecture, Teufel will present a travelling exhibition of the same name curated by himself, which opened this summer at the The Japan Cultural Institute in Cologne and will open in Tallinn in spring 2025. The lecture will be introduced by Masayo Ave, a Japanese designer and former professor of product design at the EKA.

The exhibition “Japanese Happiness” presents the joy that the Japanese experience through aesthetic everyday objects. To put together the exhibition, Philipp Teufel asked dozens of curators, artists, philosophers and other creatives well-versed in Japanese culture to propose objects that they believe best represent the symbiosis of everyday objects, a sense of beauty and well-being. The result is a broad-based exhibition of Japanese product design and applied art, including historical folk art, contemporary high-tech design and phenomena from contemporary mass culture. For example, traditional brooms, bonsai scissors, kimono and a high-tech titanium tumbler are among the curator’s choices. Many of these items are made with the utmost dedication in small Japanese factories, employing highly skilled craftsmen. As well as the form and use of the objects, the exhibition focuses on the way in which they are made – the touch of the master’s hand.

Professor Philipp Teufel studied visual communication and scenography at the HfG Gmünd University of Applied Sciences in Schwäbisch Gmünd. From 1985 to 1995, he was a partner at the concept design agency in Frankfurt am Main. Until 2007, Teufel was a partner at the nowakteufelknyrim design studio, and from 2008 to 2017, he was managing director of the malsyteufel studio. As artistic consultant for scenography, he supported the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace from 2010 to 2015. Philipp Teufel has been teaching and researching in the field of 3D communication at Hochschule Düsseldorf – University of Applied Sciences for more than 25 years and is currently a member of the Federal Ministry of Finance’s Art Advisory Board. He has also been a jury member of Red Dot since 2015 and currently curates and designs exhibitions on the Anthropocene and on green urban living (“Grüntopia” and “Transition Now”).

The exhibition is a joint project between PBSA Exhibition Design and the EKA  Interior Architecture, supported by the Identity Foundation, a Düsseldorf-based institution promoting philosophical discourse. The exhibition design was the result of three workshops led by Japanese designer Masayo Ave. The MA students had to create a unique travelling exhibition, which involved the creation, production and installation of a holistic exhibition architecture and modular design, as well as the sensory communication of the content. The exhibition was first exhibited in Cologne at the Japan Cultural Institute from 24 May to 31 July 2024. In spring 2025, the exhibition will travel to Estonia, opening on 6 March in the ARS project space. The Tallinn exhibition will also be set up by students from EKA and PBSA. For this purpose, a workshop will be held at the EKA on 21-25 October under the guidance of Masayo Ave. In autumn 2025, the exhibition will travel to Japan.

Everyone from the fields of architecture, design, art, media and art research interested in the questions of exhibition design and exhibiting design are welcome to join! The lecture will be in English and is free of charge. Thanks for the support from the Erasmus+ programme.

Further information:

Gregor Taul
gregor.taul@artun.ee
Visiting lecturer
Department of Interior Architecture
Faculty of Architecture
Estonian Academy of Arts