Jaana Päeva, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Art and Design, will defend her thesis ‘Everyday Companions. Meaning-Making Process Through Handbag Design’ („Igapäevased kaaslased. Tähendusloome protsess käekotidisaini näitel“) on the 9th of September 2021 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defense will be held in English.
Please, register HERE

Supervisor: Dr Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCAD University)

External reviewers: Dr Rosita Nenno, Dr Malcolm Barnard (Loughborough University)

Opponent: Dr Malcolm Barnard

The subject of this thesis is handbag design. The recent decade has witnessed significant growth in the handbag market since handbags have become an essential everyday accessory, a portable manifestation rather than a functional product. The emphasis is on the cultural construction of the meanings of bags because handbags reflect changing everyday needs and the thinking of the time being relevant both on personal and cultural-historical levels. Handbags are the focus of this thesis and are taken as independent sculptural and functional objects that are close to but separate from the human body; the thesis concentrates on handbag design and designing and excludes the meaning-making involved in product marketing.

The doctoral thesis applies research through design and the semiotic approach to connect the past and the present of handbag design in order to explain the communicative potential and the cultural production of meanings of handbags through linkages between the physical characteristics of bags and their perception past and present. The study asks: How is it possible for a handbag to communicate meaning and how can the designer generate meanings in the handbag he/she designs?

The thesis presents three creative cases. The first case focuses on the novel characteristics of bag design; in particular, those considered innovations and their meanings. In contrast to the novel, the second creative case aims to define a classic bag and concentrates on the most enduring features of handbags. The third creative case focuses on the Estonian-origin handbag designs and the case aims to find specific features of handbag design, which can be identified as Estonian design, or that defines handbags as ‘local’.

Each creative case consists of three phases. First, the historical research examines handbag design in Estonia from 1918 to 1940. The historical period between the world wars was the first period of the independence of Estonia but, more importantly, the period bursting with innovative designing and first social rules towards carrying handbags, both locally and internationally, was chosen as the most inspiring and highly relevant in handbag history from the viewpoint of a designer and a practitioner. Second, the creative outcome of the cases includes three collections of bags whose design processes are informed by the most outstanding features from the historical analysis. The second phase explains the principles of the design process, describes and presents images of prototypes in detail and reflects on the bag making. The third phase collects and analyses contemporary feedback from respondents on the created handbags. Feedback observations and interviews allowed to compare past and present perceptions to detect characteristics of bags in which meanings have remained similar or changed over the years. Feedback analysis helps understand how handbags are perceived and interpreted, thus revealing the potential of meaning-making through handbag design.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr Liina Unt, Dr Anu Allas, Dr Kristi Kuusk, Prof Kirke Kangro, Prof Indrek Ibrus, Dr Danielle Wilde, Dr Kärt Ojavee, Dr Kristina Jõekalda

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Animist Tallinn is a new annual animation festival that offers the audience an overview of the best contemporary films, values animation as an art form, promotes creative thinking and contributes to the distribution of Estonian animation.

The festival centre is located at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where film screenings, workshops, lectures and meetings with authors take place. Close by are several additional screening venues, the attractive and developing North Tallinn area with the city’s best cafes and party locations. Animist brings together animation enthusiasts and filmmakers in a relaxed atmosphere, creates an opportunity to exchange and generate ideas.

In addition to the international competition program, the festival aims to explore the connection between animation and other fields of life. The theme for 2021 is animation and anthropology. Experts in their field will dissect the topic at various film screenings and lectures.

20th August 2021 will also mark the 30th anniversary of the Estonian Restoration of Independence and Animist will celebrate this event with a special screening “The Free Line”.

The festival will also include screenings and events for families and children.

See the full programme here: https://animistfestival.eu/en/

Festival access is free for EKA students!

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/animisttallinn

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/animisttallinn/

The festival is organized by MTÜ Animist Tallinn.

On Friday, August 13th at 11.00, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Darja Poplitova’s exhibition “Tactilite: Stone that Tickles the Gaze“ will take place at Hobusepea gallery. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Darja Popolitova.

Supervisors: Prof. Kadri Mälk and Dr. Raivo Kelomees
Pre-reviewers: Keiu Krikmann and Dr. Maarit Mäkelä (Aalto University)

Exhibition opening: 5 August, 6 PM
The exhibition is open from 5 August to 30 August 2021, 10-18 every day (except Tuesday)

If you come to the exhibition, you will receive:
1) a practical guide on how to create a silver jewellery yourself
2) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to invoke intimacy into your life
3) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to speak a foreign language without mistakes
4) —— ″ —— ″—— ″ —— ″ how to exercise self-control in dealing with a manipulator
5) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to make another person important
6) talisman as a gift (only on Wednesdays)

#C21witchcraft #contemporaryjewellery #technopaganism #hapticvisuality

Artist Darja Popolitova aims to mix ritual features of jewellery with the theme of digitality. At her show “Tactilite: Stone that Tickles the Gaze“ video works, jewellery, and installations create a fictional world where the witch Seraphita helps to cope with the frustrations of everyday life.

“Seraphita is a fictional character who helps me to expand the usual functions of jewellery. For example, to shoot the jewellery so that the viewer would be much more interested in watching a video clip rather than a stand-alone artifact attached to the stand,” the author notes.

Kelly Riggs, a contemporary critic and curator, writes about Darja’s work: “Though the physical jewellery objects are the crux of what Popolitova creates, they are also just a part of the total picture, or the collective persona she presents when she shares that jewellery online.”

Darja Popolitova was born in 1989 in Sillamäe and lives and works in Tallinn. She is also doing a PhD at Estonian Academy of Arts. Darja’s practice includes contemporary jewellery, digital craft and video art. Recently, Darja Popolitova has participated in exhibitions at the Museum Arnhem in Holland (2020), Art and Design Museum in New York (2019), the Kunstnerforbundet gallery in Oslo (2018). Darja Popolitova is represented by the following galleries: Marzee in Nijmegen, Beyond in Antwerp, and Door in Mariaheide. Her work is included in the collection of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Museum Arnhem, and private collections. The work of Darja Popolitova was awarded the Annual Awards of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2020, scholarships of the Ministry of Culture and Adamson-Eric in 2018. She also received the scholarship of Young Jewellery in 2015.

The exhibition is done in collaboration with Jakob Tulve (VFX) and Andres Nõlvak (sound design).

Artists’s gratude goes to: Aleksandr Popolitova and Nadežda Popolitova, Ando Naulainen, Anastasia Dratšova, Doctoral School of Estonian Academy of Arts, Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department of EAA, Estonian Artists’ Association, Elnara Taidre, Karl Kivinurm, Kadri Mälk, Karmo Järv, Keiu Krikmann, Kristo Pachel, Norman Orro, Pire Sova, Raivo Kelomees.

Sponsors: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Moe OÜ, Õllenaut OÜ, Hobusepea Gallery, Orbital Vox Studios.

On 9th July at 7 PM a drawing performance (with heartbeat, breathing) “SHADOW CATCHER” by Ülle Marks will take place in the courtyard of ARS, producing a large-format weather-proof artwork (ca 300×800 cm).

The shadow: Ireen Peegel

Sound engineer:  Hans-Gunter Lock

IT, camera: Robert Luig

Sound mixer: Riho Rausma

18.30 Sound installation

19.00 Drawing is started. It is a process through the summer, autumn, winter, etc…

For people with sensitive hearing and small children, please bring headphones!

God – I – fate.

What chances do I have?

For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he passes like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen afer him under the sun?

Ecclesiastes 7: 12

I and my shadow.

Should I, could I jump over my shadow?

A drawing is turning into a shadow, until it is hard to distinguish the artist from her work.

Man is like a breath;

His days are like a passing shadow.

Bow down your heavens, O LORD,

and come down;

Touch the mountains,

and they shall smoke.

Psalm 144: 4-5

Idea for this performance came up after a car accident on May 13th, 2021.

Our guardian angel was with us. Suddenly the world had changed.

We are thankful.

We are living in a time of insecurity, diversity and pluralism. Different type of artworks can collaborate and create new conversations. For the three glass artists Mare Saare, Kazushi Nakada and Kristiina Uslar the common nominator has always been the material – glass. Albeit all three have worked in glass daily for years, sometimes different materials and approaches are used. For Nakada, here it is ceramics and video.

For all three, art is to express social, philosophical or political questions to societies. Art cannot help people physically or change the world systematically. But art has the power to make people think, realize and react. The exhibition “665448” – a code combined of the authors’ ages at present – brings together works of artists whose different dates and places of birth and environmental backgrounds create an interesting starting point for raising and/or solving problems in multiple ways.

A Stranger in the World

At a certain point in my life, I came to the conclusion that instead of words, glass is my means of expression. The comprehension seemed nothing to be ashamed of any more. Having passed through the world for sixty-six years, I decided to summarize the results in a series of glass pictures where the main characteristics of glass – transparency – is practically missing. Several significant places and fancies are documented as an afterimage, unique moments interpreted.

Mare Saare

My Archeology / Replica

Even though I have worked on My Archeology project for several years, I sometimes ask myself whether this may be called “art”. However, this project enables me to express social, philosophical, political questions. What I am urged to explore, is not artistic matters but the whole entity of human being and on-going events around the globe. Global economy has created our consumer society. And it seems to bring us some kind of “happiness”, even though there are so many problems increasing around the world such as climate changes, poverty or pollution. Ironically, our living style became convenient in many ways but today, it seems that the economy has become the most vital criteria for evaluating our values, way of living, and life itself.
The art project “Replica” may be interpreted in various ways. It has questions but not answers. Certainly, it does not demand “agreement”. By presenting the images that visually conflict each other, it allows us to focus on some critical issues around the globe and enables us to look at them from different perspectives beyond superiority and importance of the economy. Following the progress of an art project, my thoughts are also increased. Researching, experimenting and endless indulging in thought are the most funny part of art process. The art process is still very bizarre in a way. If there is something I attempt to make a statement of, it would be easier to verbalize or write a text. Obviously, no need of colours, shapes or objects at all… But I am aware of my nature that using a language of visual sensations enables me to express “something” intervening between the reality I observe and the imagination I have in my mind.

Kazushi Nakada

Conditions 2021
There are conditions that shrink down into seconds, stretch out for years or lock us up for an eternity. In some conditions, a second could last for hours and a week could pass like a day. Knots inside and around us affect our conditions and bend space and time. There could be several different conditions behind one particular knot and vice versa, one condition could consist of many knots from the past, present and future. There are some knots that will be untangled with time, and some knots that cannot be untied without cutting the knot. However, all knots are interconnected with each other by sharing the information and in this way, determining our current condition right now.

Kristiina Uslar

You are invited to the solo exhibition “Presence of People Absent” by Katariin Mudist at EKA Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Maria Helen Känd.

8.07.–12.08.
Tue-Sat 12–6 PM

With her solo exhibition “Presence of People Absent”, Katariin Mudist explores the nature of cleaning work and the corresponding attitudes in society in a multi-layered and playful way. The series of photos and videos completed in the course of working as a cleaner for Airbnb apartments (in 2019 and 2020) expose how we perceive the closeness of strangers and the discomfort of encountering signs of people who have left a space they have used.

The exhibition asks: to what extent is it possible to overcome one’s discomfort of being in close contact with strangers through the mess and objects left behind. Further, it addresses the prejudices against cleaning work as a cultural phenomenon and follows Mudist as she tries to approach cleaning as a mindful activity or more philosophically – the constant alternation of order and chaos as a manifestation of eternity and cyclicality in everyday life.

“Simply cleaning the apartments seemed dull and monotonous, so the idea arose to look for opportunities to get to know the people I clean after and to imagine them based on the state of things left behind,” Mudist describes. By gathering as much information about the guests as possible and documenting the items that carried information, Mudist identified patterns in the guests’ behavior. This was facilitated by the fact that the interior design of the apartments had elements to meet the stereotypical expectations of certain travellers, while remaining universal and clinical, typical for a rental apartment. Later, based on the presumption, hypotheses began to emerge about their reasons for visiting Tallinn, lifestyle, gender, number, relationships, hair color and values.

The exhibition – opening at the time when people are highly aware of the nearest disinfectant and the location of other people in a space – strives to offer ways to overcome the fear of the invisible other and uncertainty that a stranger’s presence evokes.

Katariin Mudist is a second-year master’s student in contemporary art at the Estonian Art Academy, who is currently studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghnet, Belgium. She graduated from the Tartu High School of Art in media and advertising design and has studied animation at Moholy-Nagy University. Mudist mostly works in mediums like graphic drawings, animation and installation. Her works have been exhibited both in Estonia and at international festivals. Mudist’s most recent exhibition “Festival of Disbelief” took place in the Gallery of the Artists’ House of Pärnu City Gallery in cooperation with Maria Elise Remme.

Maria Helen Känd has studied film, theatre and media science at the University of Vienna, cultural theory and comparative literature at Tallinn University and is currently in her second year of master’s in curatorial studies at EKA. Her most recent curatorial projects include the group exhibition “Outside of Oneself” at ARS project space, the group exhibition “east end(s)?” at Põhjala tehas and the joint media project of EKA curators “EKA reality”.

??? Summer School is a week-long experimental workshop with a focus on type design and typography, taking place on August 15-22 in the beautiful countryside of Oandu village, Lahemaa National Park, Estonia.

Typography is often closely related to the urban environment but ??? Summer School aims at finding new methods and inspiration in the practice of typography by experimenting with it in rural Estonia.

??? Summer School is being held for the 2nd time and the theme of 2021 is: GRAVITY.

We welcome graphic designers, artists, architects, theorists, critics, curators and everyone else interested to participate.

Our tutors are Laura Linsi & Roland Reemaa (UK/EST) and César Rogers (FRA/NL) + guest lecturers.

Apply to ??? Summer School HERE

More info on our official website

Most current info on our Instagram account

All questions You can send here: info@qoqoqo.ee

From June 22nd, the exhibition “In your skin you carry me” by Jana Mašková can be viewed in the Showcase Gallery of the Department of Photography of the Estonian Academy of Arts. 

The exhibition will be open until August 1st and can be viewed 24/7.

Showcase gallery, Põhja pst. 35 / Rumbi 3, Tallinn, 10415
June 22 – August 1, 2021

We carry a lot of weight on our shoulders.
In our heads, our hands, our feet, our muscle memory, our skin.
It remembers people that do not have to be in our lives.
It remembers the touch, the feel, the taste, the warmth or the cold.
It remembers things we do not own anymore.
It remembers things we do not remember.
It is not just our mind. It is us as a whole.
One day, I do not have to be here, but you may remember how I felt.

Jana Mašková (b. 1999, CZ) is a Prague-based artist working mainly in video and photography mediums. Mašková is obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Installation in Public Spaces in the Faculty of Arts and Architecture of the Technical University of Liberec. Currently, she is doing her Erasmus exchange studies in the Department of Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Mašková has been studying multimedia and art since 2014, and previously her main methods were exploring digital technologies and postproduction. Her subject matter varies through many topics; primarily, she works with different intimate and public themes. Recently she has concentrated on portrait photography to capture different people’s presence and stories.

The Graduation Ceremonies of this year will take place on Friday, June 18th in the EKA assembly hall (room A101, Põhja puiestee 7, Tallinn).

• 11 am – Faculty of Design
• 1 pm – Doctoral School and the faculties of Architecture and Art Culture
• 3 pm – Faculty of Fine Art

Seating is reserved for the graduates in the assembly hall, family and friends can watch the ceremony from the big screens placed in the open areas of the 1st floor or via tv.artun.ee.

“Kakuke frying onions aka the kitchen side of graphic art” is an exhibition about food, imprints, collaboration and yellow paint.

On the menu:
The appetizer  à laserigraphy
The main course  typesetting and paper from TYPA
And for dessert, lithography.

The process stems from Catherine Brooks’ text “Three Ways To Use Yellow”. The workshop is transformed into a kitchen, with pigments, spices, cloth pieces and wooden letter boiling away in a witches cauldron. The artist- witches play around with recipes and try to understand the mystery of graphic art.

Collective Kakuke:
Eva Eller
Lilles
Maria Pruuden
Johanna Rannu
Kärt Heinvere
Pavel Dodatko
Adam
Anna Petruželovà

Supervisors: Britta Benno, Charlotte Biszewski, Maria Erikson, Liina Siib

EKA Department of Graphic Art, class of 1st year BA studies

Exhibition is supported by Estonian Artists’ Association