Seminar, Exhibition “Restart. Transformations in Modern Housing Estates”

Wednesday, October 9 th 2024, at 5 pm

Restart. Transformations in Modern Housing Estates

Seminar and exhibition opening

Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhja pst 7, Tallinn

What are the opportunities and challenges for the renewal of post-WWII housing estates? What has been the shift from collective to total private ownership? Young practitioners from across Europe will look at the innovative housing estates of the past from today’s perspective, revealing their architectural background, current uses and the personal stories behind the facades.

Speakers include Elspeth Lee (Superposition), Rajna Avramova, Hedwig van der Linden and Kevin Westerveld (Dérive), Ena Kukić and Dinko Jelečević (E+D) and the Spolka collective. Students from the Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts present their renovation ideas using the example of typical khrushchevkas in Narva.

The event is organised by the Museum of Estonian Architecture and Architectuul in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts under the European Architecture Platform LINA programme.

The seminar will be accompanied by the presentation of a book on the same topic, edited by Christian Burkhard and Triin Ojari and designed by Indrek Sirkel.
The seminar will be followed by an exhibition opening, designed by Indrek Sirkel and Diana Drobot.

The exhibition will run until October 20, 2024.

The opening of the exhibition A Matter of Scale: Tallinn will take place on Friday, October 11 at 18:00 on the staircase of the EKA lobby.

This exhibition presents the results of the TU Delft graduation studio A Matter of Scale – Architecture for the European City: Tallinn, Estonia. Over the course of two semesters, TU Delft students developed projects for Tallinn, based upon a two-fold analysis: contextual analysis on a series of sites along Tallinn’s coastline, and disciplinary analysis, in the form of a precedent study, investigating Tallinn’s architecture. This analysis translates in a strong anchoring of the projects in the local conditions in Tallinn, in several ways: in establishing a relationship with the historical fabric of the medieval town, with industrial heritage, or the residential neighborhoods such as Lasnamäe; in engaging with local materiality and building practices, or with the local political context. Some of the designs can be seen as “counterprojects”, proposing alternatives to ongoing spatial developments.

With the presentation of the results of the studio at the Tallinn Architecture Biennial 2024, we hope to bring new perspectives to the local architectural debate.

Initiative: TU Delft Chair Methods of Analysis & Imagination: Jorge Mejía, Willemijn Wilms Floet, Klaske Havik

EKA celebrates its 110th anniversary with a birthday week. 

From November 4th to 8th exhibition tours, lectures and film screenings will take place. The week will end on Friday with the opening of the EKA’s new building, the White House and a birthday party. Departments’ alumni parties will take place on Friday. 

Monday

15.30 Defense of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis | Auditorium A-501

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Laura Schmidt (DE) – ZKM_Gameplay. The Next Level (Paul Galloway will be joining us from New York city via screen. In English) | Main hall A-101

Tuesday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (Ava will be joining us from Helsinki via screen. In English) | B-305

19:15 New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The right to forget. Artificial intelligences humanly inspired in contemporary art (Jaime will be joining us from Mexico via screen. In English) | B-305

Wednesday

16.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Linda van Deursen | Main hall A-101

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

17.30 Awarding of inners of applied research and development work | The Hole

18.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Antoine Picon | Main hall A-101

Thursday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

19.00 Cinema: The best of by the Animation Department | Main hall A-101

Friday – PARTY!

16.00 Anniversary assembly and conferment ceremony | Main hall A-101

18.00 Departments’ parties for alumni | EKA Main Building

19.00 Opening of the EKA White House | EKA White House

19.30 Musical performers until the end of the party | Both houses:

• 19.30 – EKA Students Queer Association | EKA white house
• 20:00 – DJ Vaatab jooksvalt | EKA main building
• 21.00 – Karameel | EKA white house
• 21.30 – EKA Chamber Choir | EKA main building
• 21.45 – karaoke with Helina Risti | EKA main building
• 22.30 – Motonormal | EKA white house
• 00.00 – Avemaria | EKA white house

20.30 Auction | Main hall A-101

22.00 EKA 110 gift opening

The programme of events will be updated on a rolling basis.

EKA Birthday Week events are free of charge and open to all.  

Events of EKA Departments as part of the EKA 110 Celebration

Monday, November 4th

• 18:00-21:00 – EKA Open Academy Open Lecture: “EKA 110 | How to Collect Art?” (in Estonian)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Paul Galloway (US) – Video Games at MoMA

Tuesday, November 5th

• 16:30 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design present: Open Archive of the Design Faculty 1966-1994 (open area on the 2nd floor, A300)
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design panel discussion: Design Thinking – Establishing Design in Times of Change (EKA lobby)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (room B305)
• 19:15 – EKA New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The Right to Forget: Artificial Intelligences in Contemporary Art
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Art: Exhibition of Nominees for the Edmund Valtman Young Graphic Artist Scholarship (EKA glass gallery)

Thursday, November 7th

• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Raivo Kelomees – Metamorphoses of Media Art (room A101)

Friday, November 8th

• 16:00-00:00 – EKA Textile 110: Installation Textile in 110 Squares (room D504)
• 10:00-17:00 – EKA Interaction Design and Animation Departments’ installation Godseed (Kotzebue 10 basement)
• 17:00 – Opening of EKA New Media 30th Anniversary Outdoor Exhibition: Video Installations
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – EKA Glass Department Book Launch Glass Painting – Painting with Light (room B604)
• 22:00 – EKA Architecture / PAKK – Opening of EKA’s Gift (Kotzebue 2)

Alumni Gatherings on Friday, November 8th

• 17:30 – Ceramic Department Gathering: Viewing of Past Works and Identifying Authors (room B602)
• 17:30 – Fashion Design Alumni and Faculty Gathering, Tour of Workspaces and Works (room D507)
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar and Gathering of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – Design and Innovation (formerly known as Applied Art) Room Open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends! (room D404)
• 18:00 – Product Design Alumni and Student Gathering and “Cafe” (room C301)
• 18:00 – Interaction Design Alumni and Student Party (room D306)
• 18:00 – Textile Design Alumni and Student Reunion (room D505)
• 18:00 – Photography Department Gathering at Maitselabor. Opportunity to tour department spaces and studios. Wide Angle Gallery Exhibition (room B407)
• 18:00 – Faculty of Architecture Introduction and Social Space (room A400)
• 18:00 – Glass Department Book Launch, Formal Gathering, and Studio Tour (room B604)
• 18:00 – Accessory and Bookbinding Department open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends. Showcasing the accessory and bookbinding studio; recent student work exhibited in the glass display at the entrance. Leather drink bar by accessory artisans! (rooms B510 and B511)
• 18:00 – Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department open! Tour of department spaces and workshops (room B504)
• 18:00 – The Department of Heritage Protection and Conservation invites its alumni and friends to the sculpture conservation studio (room D308)

Art historian and curator Kai Lobjakas will give an open lecture, “Was there design in Eastern Europe? Retrotopia Case,” on Tuesday, 24 September, at 16:00 in room A501. In her lecture, she will discuss the research and exhibition project “Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” (2023).

“Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” was a project that led to a comprehensive exhibition during the summer of 2023 in Berlin at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, initiated by Claudia Banz. The aim was to search for the traces of the almost unknown visions, design practices and contexts both for the public and private spehre of the former Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia in order to add a layer to the prevailing Western perspective in design history and research.

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski’s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all.

Kai Lobjakas is an art historian and curator, from 2014 head of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (ETDM). Her focus of interest lay both in the post-war and contemporary applied art and design practices, especially the intersections of these fields. Besides building the design collection at the museum, she has compiled and edited catalogues with a focus on Estonian design phenomena, including the Between Art and Industry. Art Products’ Factory in Tallinn (2013), Local Beauty. Tarbeklaas (2016). She has initiated and curated exhibitions, such as Design as Experiment. Tõnis Käo (2014), Kitchen. Changing Space, Design and Applied Art in Estonia (2016). A permanent exhibition of Estonian design curated by her was opened at ETDM in 2022. She was the chair of ICOM ICDAD, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Decorative Arts and Design during 2019-2022 and is chairing the national committee ICOM Estonia.

28.09.–20.10.2024

Dear colleague,

I am Marta Konovalov – designer, researcher, craftivist, mender and a gardener by heart, lecturer and a doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Arts. I act like a forager in my garden. I sow confusion to forage knowledge. The garden is a place for mundane practices and my practice-based research. I see a plot of land the same way I see a hole or a stain in a garment – as an opportunity to add layers and to engage. The survival of us, the gardeners, on this planet relies on our response-ability, resilience, care and adaptability, the ability to rethink the garden and our relationships with the garden. 

I invite you to the periphery and to my garden at Viljandimaa. With the aim to investigate, entangle, respond, slow down, decompose patterns, regenerate, repair and shift the aesthetics. I will exhibit my practice of textile repair and the research artefacts.

28th of September from 14–18 the opening, walkabout with soilshifter Markus Pau, co-creating and delivering findings to textile design

3rd and 5th of October from 14–18 exhibiting the research artefacts in dialogue with Viljandi Heritage Festival

13th of October from 12–18 exhibiting the research artefacts and the possibility to attend a textile repair workshop

20th of October from 14–17 exhibiting the research artefacts, walkabout with artist Jane Remm and the possibility to attend a textile repair workshop

We will meet at Saarde talu, Veisjärve küla, Viljandimaa
58,0815866, 25,7876976

Attending the events is for free.

Please let us know when you wish attend:

https://forms.gle/kSHitYeaa8v3FDHC8

FB: https://fb.me/e/2im0227Fl

https://www.artun.ee/et/kalender/disainer-edasihoidlik-aednik-marta-konovalov/

https://www.instagram.com/repair_and_regeneration/

This exhibition is part of the project PR02049 ”Artists and designers as researchers, rethinkers and partners of nature in the context of degrowth”  funded by Estonian Ministry of Culture, where we, together with artist Jane Remm, develop creative research methods with the aim to engage with nature.

The Viljandi Heritage Festival introduces the phenomena of intangible cultural heritage and opens various perspectives of folk culture knowledge that help find economical solutions to economic and environmental problems; shares tips on how to bring changes to your own life and of course also brings various entertainment.

https://sisu.ut.ee/parandusfestival2024/?lang=en

See you soon,

Marta

On 4 October the peer review event of Jane Remm’s project “Interspecies Social Sculpture” will take place in Karula National Park. The event begins at 13:00 with a tour of the exhibition (starting point: Mähkli bus stop https://maps.app.goo.gl/fidsotPcnY2HtJgc9) and continues with the review at 15:30.
“Interspecies Social Sculpture” is the second peer-reviewed project of Jane Remm’s artistic research doctoral thesis.

Supervisor: Dr. Urve Sinijärv
Project reviewers: Prof. Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts), dr Taru Elfving (CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago, Finland)

“Interspecies Social Sculpture” conceptualizes the garden and the forest as a multi-perspective creative environment. Expanding Joseph Beuys’ concept of social sculpture into a multifaceted context, the artist explores what it means to harness everyone’s creative potential in a modern age, when the world in an ecological crisis needs to adapt to degrowth.
“Interspecies social sculpture” combines the ecological dimension in the form of increasing biodiversity, the dimension of interspecies co-creation and the social dimension through public events. The experiential exhibition tour opens up different perspectives on the garden and forest through active participation. Read more.

Jane Remm is an artist, art teacher and artistic researcher, doctoral student at EKA and art didactics lecturer at Tallinn University BFM. Jane Remm’s work focuses on the representation of the experience of nature, co-creation and communication with different life forms. She is interested in what are the possibilities to understand and interpret the life experience of other species and communicate with them as equal dialogue partners using the means of art. She values manual working and co-creation with other species as a way of perceiving herself as part of nature.

CV: https://www.etis.ee/CV/Jane_Remm/, creative portfolio: www.janeremm.ee

You are warmly invited to “A little bit calmer than before” by Eleftheria Irene Kofidou

Opening and a performance: 18.09 18:00

Exhibition opening times: 19.09-02.10 on the weekdays 14:00-18:00; 21.-22.09 14:00-16:00; 28.09-29.09 closed

A little bit calmer than before, is an additional instructional comment by composer J. Strauss for his musical piece Don Quixote op. 35 variation VII – The Ride through the Air. As ‘a little bit’ is a vaguely countable amount, it becomes very hard to place it inside a spectrum, unless someone has access to the other variables of the equation. In Kofidou’s installation the composer’s directory line lies out of context, as there is no before, nor afterwards to compare the present moment to, but in a quixotic analogy to her homeland’s socio-political situation.

“I will pay off for my everyday victories by losing the war” states the burnt slogan on the gallery wall, a recreation of a graffiti that existed in Aristotle University Campus, during the artist’s teenage years. As Orthodox tradition has it, during Easter, believers mark the sign of the cross on their door frames, using the flame of the holy light from their candles; an act of shielding the household from evil and a wish for good luck. The campus looks very different now, the once messy wall is now white, the legendary punk squat of the Department of Biology is closed down and a new special police unit is established. The slogan, long gone, is recreated again, burnt on the wall as a tribute to the missing particles, the lost fractures of collective memory. But enough with pessimism in politics; Under its surface, it doesn’t wish to become another loaded message in limbo; fights will be given at any cost, even the cost of an already foreseen outcome. In the Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin mentions “There was a wall. It did not look important (…) But the idea was real. It was important. (…) Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.” There are two walls, one that already exists and another one; fractured and initially horizontal; is it there to dominate or to seal?

The installation becomes a set and the objects act as props for the performance; trying to grasp this certain type of calmness that comes after the strong fumes of anger have evaporated and resides in the process of preparation of oneself; the anticipation for something that is coming and is not calm at all. Is it there to be later broken?

The artist wishes to thank: Anu Vahtra, Ats Kruusing, Eleni Kofidou, Erik Hõim.

Graphic design: Eleni Kofidou

Eleftheria Irene Kofidou (1995) is a Greek artist based in Tallinn, who is mostly working with installations, performance art and text. Her art practice is often interconnected with poetry and focuses on processes of layering meanings, socio political connotations related mostly to her background and exploring ways that language triggers movement.

Design historian, curator and professor Alexandra Midal will give an open lecture, „Design is not anymore an Accident“, on Tuesday, 17 September, at 16:00 in room A501.

Midal’s lecture will be based on her book „Design by Accident: For a New History of Design“ (Sternberg Press, 2019).

Alexandra Midal writes that design history was written by accident. In her lecture, she draws attention to the forgotten history of design and raises the possibility of a 100% and all-pervasive new historiography that reformulates a design discipline.

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski‘s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all; however, the seminar following the lecture will be held for the course students.

Alexandra Midal is a professor at the University of Art and Design HEAD-Genève and Head of the Department of Critical Thinking at Ensci-Les Ateliers, Paris. Art and design historian, she combines practice and theory-based research as an artist-curator, theoretician and film essayist. Her research explores the blind spots and grey areas of design history, as evident in her two latest books, The Murder Factory (Sternberg Press, 2023) and Design by Accident: For a New History of Design (Sternberg Press, 2019). She studied literature, architecture and art history at Princeton University (NJ) and in Paris (Paris-Sorbonne). She has curated a number of international exhibitions on visual culture, design, film, and politics. She is the guest curator of the next Biennale Bio28, Ljubljana, Slovenia, entitled Double Agent: Do You Speak Flower?

The exhibition “Joint Double” by Jüri Kermik engages with the dynamics of the design process and its involvement in looking forward and looking back. “It originates from my long-term interest in regional design and my experience of places I consider home, Estonia and Suffolk,” shares Kermik.

In 2017, having settled to live and work in Suffolk, Kermik noticed similarities and differences between Estonian and Suffolk chair-making traditions. The lightweight vernacular chairs, marked with signs of the conditions they evolved from – whether bodgers’ outworking camps in the woods or seasonally operating village workshops, featured variations of the common frame construction. While observing similarities in the construction of these chairs, one unique difference stood out for the designer. Instead of the seat formed by spindles placed between the legs, a typical Suffolk chair has its seat frame jointed to the front legs from above. Kermik’s designs for Suffolk Chair I & II, and the Wedding Chair explore the design opportunities offered by this joint and the thresholds it sets for structural interventions, proportions and ways of sitting.

In parallel with the “Joint Double” project, Kermik started to work on the site of his ancestral farmstead on the Sõrve peninsula in Saaremaa. The process of building a small hut Mikuelu allowed him to experience how the space could be reimagined. “While constructing a new space, I was unearthing the old. Through the processes of digging and moving earth I found buried components of the activities of the inhabitants and evidence of the layout of the site as it had been.”

Tools and objects are connected to land cultivation and farming: plough blades, cowbells, parts of horse bridles, woodworking chisels and rope-making spikes. Some of these unearthed things will be re-used in constructing the new Mikuelu, and some will be presented in this exhibition as an ‘’archaeological toolbox’’.

Compiled and designed by Jüri Kermik
Graphic design: Stuudio Stuudio
Production team: Kai Lobjakas, Ketli Tiitsar, Toomas Übner

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition is part of the Tallinn Design Festival programme.

On September 19 at 6 pm Elina Alatalo will hold the lecture “Creating shared spaces together: the power of the new roles of architects”.

Elina Alatalo is an architect and researcher in Environmental Policy of Tampere University, Finland. Her recent work has concentrated on new proactive forms of urban activism, getting vacant spaces back into use and developing sustainable urban neighbourhoods. Elina is a co-founder of Insurgent Spatial Practices, a collective that explores the valuable knowledge that alternative cultures and grassroots develop in the city. She also teaches Landscape Architecture in Aalto University in Helsinki and coordinates interaction for societal impact in Co-Carbon research project of urban nature.

In her work, Elina focuses on co-design methods and self-organising community approaches. In this lecture, she will discuss how to create meaningful participatory processes and how to deal with the messy-quirky situations arising in them. She will also share some theoretical lenses that help in making sense of the dynamics in these processes. The power of the new roles of architects will be illustrated through three inspirational projects. From realizing a community sauna to facilitating the development of a network of self-organising coworking spaces and making the typology of Nordic Superblock real, we will see that co-creation is worth embracing.

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture.

All lectures are held on Thursdays at 6 pm in the EKA main auditorium. All lectures are in English and free of charge.

Schedule of the autumn 2024 lectures:

September 5 at 6 pm Jonas Janke (architects, b+)

September 19 at 6 pm Elina Alatalo (architect, Tampere University)

October 31 at 6 pm Christian Pagh (curator, Oslo Architecture Triennale)

November 28 at 6 pm Petra Marko (architect, Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava)

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

The Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the autumn of 2024 under the general title S*cial – Values in the built realm, curated by Mattias Malk, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture.

The lecturers will focus on the ongoing shift in planning practice, where considerations other than pure economic viability increasingly play a role in decision-making.

Mattias Malk, curator of the autumn lecture series, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, describes the main theme of the lecture series as follows:

Participative practices, the valorisation of social space and the changing role of architects, especially in the public sector, are gaining ground in Europe’s spatial development, but things are still moving slowly in Estonia. So far, our economic growth has been based on environmental degradation and, despite rigid market-driven planning, we are among the weakest in the EU in resource use. However, the foundations of a smarter spatial policy, which is more useful than profit, are still undefined and untested.

One of the aims of the lecture series is to define and rehabilitate the word ‘social’ in Estonian spatial policy, including the social responsibility mentioned in the new planned public procurement. All the invited lecturers deal with the issues of space and sociality in their daily work and will share their experiences of the changing role of architects through examples. 

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

www.avatudloengud.ee