NART: Exhibition “Facelessness” and Video Game Museum

Video games museum LVLup! in Tallinn used to be the first and only one in the Baltics, but from the 15th of January until the 10th of April the cosy atmosphere of the museum will be recreated in the Narva Art Residency (NART). The project “VGA” invites guests to enjoy retro video games and reflect on the impact they’ve had on our culture through the perspective of contemporary art.

The project “VGA” (Video Games & Arts) is done in cooperation with LVLUp! museum, curator Juhan Soomets and Narva Art Residency. Johanna Rannula, the head of NART, said “In the nineties, video games were played at game rooms that were often located in the basements, so the basement of the residency was perfect for the museum. It’s also a way to bring new people to art exhibitions. Once they’ve finished playing games, the visitors go up the stairs and find themselves at an art exhibition that opens the subject from different perspectives. The two fields have not been juxtaposed in this way in Estonia before. It is unique, especially for Narva.”

In the last month, the project team has collected Soviet-era furniture across Ida-Virumaa. They needed to find 24 floor lamps, 10 sofas, 13 carpets, 4 armchairs, 5 stools, 11 TV tables, 4 curtain rods, curtains, cabinets, 2 coffee tables, many houseplants and a box of old vinyl. Now everything is ready for guests to travel back in time and spend time with friends and family playing Nintendo, Sega, Sony PlayStation, Guitar Hero and other legendary video games.

On the first floor is an exhibition of contemporary art called “Näotus” (‘Facelessness’), which makes sense of the video game collection and gives it new meanings. The exhibition is curated by Juhan Soomets and it includes works by Oleg Frolov (RU), Denisa Stefanigova (CZ), Alexei Gordin, Anna Shkodenko, Henri Hütt, Danel Kahar, Mihkel Kleis, Raul Keller, Kaspar P. Loit (EST).

The project opens on January 15 at 3 pm, admission is free. The opening day program includes curators’ tours, video game tournaments (and prizes for the winners!). The curators, DJ Nextraxx and DJ Суперюкс Лимитед, will be playing the music as well.

From January 16 to April 10, Narva Art Residency will be open as follows: the art exhibition “Näotus” is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The video game museum LVLup! WarpRoom is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 9 pm. Bring your slippers!

The project is being implemented in partnership with the British Council under the People to People Cultural Engagement program.

Photos

Additional information

The exhibition “Remake” of EKA Art Education students can be seen on the information screens of EKA from January 14 to February 4.

The works of the art education students were completed within the “Creative project” subject .

Artists: Inga Ausmeel, Liina Oja, Liina Raidoja, Marju Rajasalu, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Triin Resik, Tanel Roomere, Piret Suviste, Zhanna Toht, Kertu Tort, Kalev Vapper, Merle Vingerfeld, Viire Jagomägi

Supervised by Anna-Kaisa Vita

The works can be seen on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th floors of EKA and on the screen of the auditorium on the Kotzebue street side. Videos with sound on the 2nd floor screen. 

More about EKA Art Education studies

“The Science of Freedom”
Third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”
22.01—26.02.2022
Tue-Sat at 12—18 pm
Opening and curators’ tour: 21.01 at 3 pm.

Curator: Róna Kopeczky
Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “The Science of Freedom” on January 21 at 3 pm at EKA Gallery! The curator will give an exhibition tour at the event. Entrance with Covid certificate.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

18th Tallinn Print Triennial venues: KAI Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Kanuti Gildi Saal

Students, academics, curriculum leaders, study support specialists and management are welcome to join the Feedback Seminar of EKA graduates (2019–2021) on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 from 1 to 3 pm in room A501.

What does the EAA graduates say in the feedback? What is valued and how can we get better? How and what do our current students want to say about this?

What to learn from it? How to?

Register (required for snack planning) by ​​January 21st.

“Body slam/ihu ramm” is both an exhibition and a performance, a collaboration with Mihkel Maripuu and Tarvo Porroson.

While the installation lives independent during the day, on five selected evenings the performers’ bodies and soundscape activate the space turning the exhibition into a performance.

Two women, uninterested in achieving security neither on stage nor in the social sphere, explore the relationship between material and body, giving fragility a form.

Bodies and clay – simultaneously fragile and strong by nature – are placed in a space of dialogue, where experience recreates itself in interaction, materiality carries a question, and an executed act becomes an artwork. Opportunities arise for collision, accident, and the constant construction and deconstruction of the material. There is a system, there is chance, there is mechanics, there is text and sound in fragments and order. The unexpected produces fragility.

Fragile, fragile, strong. The clay, the human body and the presence of a performer. Resisting weight but not a slam. What remains are only fragile bodies of the two women.

Priemere: 8.1 at 7 pm
Opening of the exhibition on 8.1 at 8.30 pm
Performances: 11.1/12.1/14.1/15.1 at 7 pm
Exhibition is open on 10.1–15.1 at 12–6 pm
@ ARS Art Factory Project Room
Artist talk after the performance: 14.01

Sound by Mihkel Maripuu
Technical solutions by Tarvo Porroson
Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli
Photos: Gabriela Leopard
Lenght: 60’

The exhibition is for FREE

Buy tickets at Fienta

Body Slam on Facebook

Book an online date with real EKA student!

From the 17th until the 21st of January 2022, several EKA students will find time to online speed date with prospective applicants and future exchange students to share real insights, inside information and authentic experiences about studying in EKA and living in Tallinn.

Is it interesting to study at EKA? What subjects are most exciting or boring? How to impress during the admissions interview? Is it cold in Tallinn? How much does a cup of coffee cost in EKA cafeteria? Ask them anything!

One date lasts up to 15 minutes. Please let us know what date and time slot would suit you in the registration form below. You will be contacted via email to confirm the exact time for the date.

REGISTER HERE

More information:
Maarja Pabut
Marketing Specialist
maarja.pabut@artun.ee

Ulvi Haagensen
Kodunäitus / Home Exhibition
Lembitu 6-6, Tallinn
8.–10.01.2022
Please register HERE

There are many ways to make an exhibition at home. You could paint the walls white, clear away all traces of everyday life and set up the artwork as you might in a white cube gallery. Or you could set up your work in and around existing everyday objects. Or you could not really do anything and simply invite people to your place and call it an exhibition. Art can after all, be whatever we decide it will be.

Ulvi Haagensen and her three imaginary friends, Thea Koristaja, Olive Puuvill and Artist-Researcher are using Ulvi’s home as the venue for their exhibition. This is an environment that combines home, studio and now also exhibition space. Their aim is to explore the lines between art and everyday life and as they do, they puzzle over distinctions of whether something is art or non-art, practical or impractical, useful or useless, mundane or special. They are curious to know how people will know what they are looking at. Will they know whether something is art or non-art; are they supposed to be looking at this thing or not? But maybe these questions don’t really matter, because maybe what we are really interested in is seeing how other people live.

Ulvi Haagensen was born in Sydney, Australia, but has been living, working and teaching in Tallinn for many years. She studied at City Art Institute in Sydney (BA) and College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales (MFA) and is currently doing her PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts researching the connections and overlap between art and everyday life, as seen through the eyes of an artist, for whom art, work and everyday life are closely interwoven. In her research she is assisted by three imaginary friends – an artist cleaner, an artist bricoleuse and an artist researcher. She has had solo exhibitions in Estonia, Australia, Sweden and Lithuania.

Kodunäitus / Home Exhibitionon is the third pre-reviewed exhibition of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis. The pre-reviewing will take place on 11 January, 11.00 at the EKA, room A202.
The pre-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Ester Bardone (University of Tartu), Dr. Anu Kannike (Estonian National Museum) and Prof. Mika Pekka Elo (Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki).
Supervisors of the thesis are Dr. Liina Unt (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Dr. Jan Guy (The University of Sydney).

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

The EKA Design Showcase, which is taking place for the fifth year in a row, will once again present the best collaboration projects of EKA students with companies and public sector organizations. The event introducing innovative designs born as a result of collaborative projects will take place at EKA on 12 January.

Concepts, prototypes and final results for innovative products and services will be presented, featuring new developments in the field of design. Students of the Faculty of Design of EKA and Design & Technology Futures (TalTech and EKA joint curriculum) will speak about their collaboration project with companies and organizations such as PERH, ABB, Magnetic MRO, etc.

All enterprises, EKA’s present and future cooperation partners, and enthusiasts of innovative design are kindly invited to attend!

The event will be held in EKA (room A101) but will also be broadcasted on http://tv.artun.ee/ and Facebook.

PROGRAMME

14.00 Greeting and introduction. Moderator Andres Lõo

14.10 – 14:30 Inspiration speech by digi-evangelist Marten Kaevats

14.30 – 14.45 EKA x PERH. EKA rector Mart Kalm and Agris Peedu, Chairman of the Board, North Estonia Medical Centre

14:45 – 15:50 Presentations of EKA collaboration projects:

• “Tallinn Signage System” – graphic design students and city of Tallinn
• “Bringing Private Guardians Closer to the Special Care Services Provided by AS Hoolekandeteenused” – interaction design students and Hoolekandeteenused AS
• “Sleeping Beauty” – media graphics students and Estonian Society of Hematology, North Estonia Medical Centre, Tartu University Clinic and Tallinn Children’s Hospital

15:50 – 16:05 Coffee break

16.05 – 17.10 Project presentations of the joint curriculum of EKA and TalTech Future of Design and Technology, in collaboration with Environment Agency.

• “Transitioning to better digital habits” – project dealing with digital pollution
• “Transitioning to more useful food” – project dealing with food waste in storage
• “Transitioning to healthier traditions” – project dealing with negative social and environmental effects of our traditional celebrations
• “Transitioning to more resilient cities” – project dealing with climate change effects that will manifest in the cities
• “Transitioning to better ecological decisions” – project dealing with how we cope with changing food sources in the future
• “Transitioning to a better relationship with the outdoors” – project dealing with people spending too much time in the unhealthy indoor environment

17.10 – 17.25 Coffee break

17.25 – 18.25 Presentations of EKA collaboration projects:

• “ABB alajaamade sobitumine keskkonda” – industrial and digital product design students and ABB AS
• “Sensory modular carpet” – textile design students with Tallinn Support Center JUKS
• “Baby cot design for airplane interior” – accessory design students and Magnetic MRO

Presentations are in Estonian and English, without translation.

Additional information:

Karin Kiigemägi
Ettevõtlussuhete koordinaator
karin.kiigemagi@artun.ee
5035096

The event is funded by European Union Regional Fund

Architects-critics Andres Sevtšuk and Lily Song from the USA will take part in the mid-term evaluation of the 5th year master’s projects. They create public discussion, giving feedback on the work and criticizing it.

The mid-term open evaluation of masters projects will take place in room A-501
Mon, December 20 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tue, Dec. 21 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We do ask you to carry your COVID vaccination certificate or proof of having had COVID and cover your nose and mouth with a mask. Academy students are subject to the usual in-house rules.

Andres Sevtšuk is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning at MIT, where he also leads the City Form Lab. He was previously an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has worked as an urban planner, designer and researcher in Estonia, France, Singapore, Indonesia and the USA.

Lily Song is an urban planner and scholar activist whose research, teaching and practice seek to accomplish infrastructure based mobilisations and experiments led by frontline communities and organisers in American cities and other decolonising contexts. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment at Northeastern University.

The season of open lectures is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

The Department of Animation invites prospective MA students to join the programme’s Online Open House on Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 17:00 (Tallinn time, GMT+2).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the programme, and to meet and ask questions directly from people behind the programme – both the teaching staff and the current students. The open house event will be hosted online over Zoom.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

Registration is closed.

Recording of the session HERE.

More information about the Animation MA programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/animation
• https://www.facebook.com/EKAanimatsioon
• https://vimeo.com/ekaanima

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2022 and application deadline is 1st of March 2022.

https://artun.ee/admissions