EKA Summer Academy workshop “Speculative and Critical Design – Special Programs Think Tank”

We invite you to take part in a rare opportunity to serve in the Special Programs Think Tank to envision and create hypothetical “special programs” that Estonia’s government might instate, either in the future or in parallel realities.
This five-day event will provide you with the chance to design preferable paths for government, guided by future-visioning strategists from the Extrapolation Factory. Over the course of the workshop, participants will be introduced to the essential principles of futures studies and will learn to identify signals, extrapolate implications and create future artefacts.
Each program will be announced through physical, print or digital artefacts to be shared with local citizens.

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During the sculptural headwear course, the participants will acquire techniques for moulding and draping headwear and making couture millinery in traditional materials. In addition to innovative and alternative solutions, the course will look into the history, functions and meaning of headwear.
The workshop will introduce, based on the example of the Balenciaga fashion house in Paris, the materials and techniques of handmade millinery in order to popularise the field of millinery design that has become marginal in recent decades. By researching various materials (straws, felt, etc.), the participants will obtain the necessary historical background knowledge to help in maintaining the tradition of wearing innovative couture millinery.

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This workshop is structured on architecture, numbers and cognition with a primary focus on public space/traffic. Two broader topics pervade the workshop. One of them is more physical, involving translating the world into parameters, and the other is mapping social activities/feelings. The broad goal is to find connections between the two sets of topics. The environment around us consists of a number of physically countable and measurable parameters, which we can use to describe it (width of a carriageway, location of a cafe). Which parameters are best in describing or designing the world?

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In cities everywhere in the world, new complex and high density large-scale urban transformation projects are initiated and implemented, like La Defense in Paris, HafenCity in Hamburg, West-Kowloon in Hongkong or Marina Bay in Singapore. These enormous undertakings represent today an established form of practicing urbanism aiming to reconfigure or extend major urban centralities.

These projects, however, tend to behave quite unpredictably. Their long realisation periods often induce changing programmes or building ensembles, political and economic constraints influence their successful completion and, very importantly, their far-reaching impact on the local and global context is mostly not effectively assessed. Therefore, these urban transformations asks for a strategic approach, where phasing, adaptability and adjustment to the context are constantly monitored in order to inform their proper operation.

This is what professor Kees Christiaanse will be discussing during his open lecture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, as part of the Unfinished City research programme. The lecture will take place on Thursday, 6 June 6 pm in auditorium A101.

Kees Christiaanse studied architecture and urban planning at TU Delft. In 1980 he joined the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and was appointed partner in 1983. In 1989 he founded his own company, now KCAP Architects&Planners, in Rotterdam. In 1990 he co-founded ASTOC Architects and Planners in Cologne and was partner until 2002.

Kees focuses in his work on urban assignments in complex situations and on guiding of urban processes. He is an expert in the development of university campuses and in the revitalisation of former industrial, railway and harbour areas and is a supervisor of several international urban developments. Throughout his career Kees has always combined teaching and research with his professional work within KCAP, which has generated fruitful cross-fertilisations.

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Unfinished City is a three-year large-scale research project conducted by the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture in cooperation with the City of Tallinn. The research project asks what could be a good and livable city in the 21st century and how this could be reflected in the urban development of Tallinn. The project focuses on exploring Tallinn’s urban design visions and spatial future scenarios. The research will be carried out thanks to the support from the real estate company Kapitel, which contributes almost half a million euros to the project over three years.

This Thursday, June 6 at 6pm you are kindly invited to take part in a series of lectures by the German conceptual artist Mischa Kuball, Danish artist and experimental designer Charles Michalsen and Spanish born, Brussels and Berlin based artist-filmmaker Alex Reynolds.

Location: Estonian Academy of Arts 5th floor, room A501.

Approximate schedule:
18:00–18:45 Charles Michalsen „Every good idea consists of good material“
18:45–19:30 Alex Reynolds
19:30–20:15 Mischa Kuball „What do we expect when we go public?“

For more info:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19mRR2A_sr804dY-9MyXmZI4LwVJsf8x_?usp=sharing

Charles Michalsen https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/157215/157216
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/475017/475018

Alex Reynolds
http://www.alexreynolds.net/

Mischa Kuball
http://www.mischakuball.com/
http://www.public-preposition.net/

Public lectures are a part of the event Portfolio Café held at the Estonian Academy of Arts Library from June 6 to 7. All the presenting artists belong to this year’s group of experts who have been invited to, within these two days, give feedback to the graduates at the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Fine Arts and Design.

Portfolio Café is supported by the European Union European Regional Development Fund, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Goethe-Institut Estland and Erasmus +.

This Thursday, June 6 at 6pm you are kindly invited to take part in a series of lectures by the German conceptual artist Mischa Kuball, Danish artist and designmaker Charles Michalsen and Spanish born, Brussels and Berlin based artist-filmmaker Alex Reynolds.

Location: Estonian Academy of Arts 5th floor, room A501.

Public lectures are a part of the event Portfolio Café held at the Estonian Academy of Arts Library from June 6 to 7. All the presenting artists belong to this year’s group of experts who have been invited to, within these two days, give feedback to the graduates at the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Fine Arts and Design.

Approximate schedule:
18:00–18:45 Charles Michalsen
18:45–19:30 Alex Reynolds
19:30–20:15 Mischa Kuball

To find out more about the lecturers and topics see the documents attached to the invitation.

Portfolio Café is supported by the European Union European Regional Development Fund, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Goethe-Institut Estland and Erasmus +.

The course teaches icon painting. The painting process follows the authentic icon painting technique – egg tempera mixed from dry pigments, multi-layered painting, etc. Each participant will have the opportunity to paint their own icon.
Parallel to the painting process, the participants will receive an overview of the iconographic principles and meanings in icon painting, the materials and techniques used, as well as their conservation process.

The participants will learn essential skills in historical icon painting and get an introduction to the history, significance and conservation process of icons.

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The Department of Ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts invites you to participate in an international Clay 3D Printing workshop. Ceramics have properties that allow them to be used in the most disparate fields. We usually don’t consider that ceramics are all around us, not just in kitchenware, but also in bathrooms, swimming pools and public interiors, and that stoves and fireplaces, and even houses, are made of fired clay. Top-quality ceramics can be found in medical equipment, audio technology and the air and space industry. Clay is a sensitive, flexible and versatile material with its own technological limits, which the participants will learn during the workshop.
3D printing in clay allows us to print three-dimensional objects or models at a lower cost and more easily. For ceramists, it represents a new technological possibility, while for others it gives a chance to convert digital sketches into real three-dimensional objects.
During this course, participants will learn the technical skills of 3D printing and printing in clay: creating G-code and STL files, plus preparation of the clay and printing.
The aim of the course is to use innovative thinking to discover new ways of printing, using clay and printed ceramics. The end of the workshop will feature a pop-up exhibition of the objects created.
Every participant needs to bring their own laptop. All other materials are provided, and students may keep the objects they print.

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Silvia Sosaar would like to request the honour of your presence at the opening of her exhibition “Unconscious Patient” on 31 May 2019 at EKKM at 5pm (Põhja pst 35, Tallinn). The exhibition is on view until August 30th 2019.

How to prepare, mobilise and attune a person to experience contemporary art?
Smells are the trigger of contextual memory. Smells are a central element of sensory processes, which are necessary for the development of a functioning memory and based on which the contextual memory is able to conjure up the past. The contextual memory functions when we associate a space with an event (because something once took place in that space) or associate a song with a special person, enabling us to be able to access a past reality once again – the same applies to the sense of smell. Smells affect moods and emotions. The aroma installation at the Showcase Gallery is open to visitors throughout the summer and will form the “basecamp” for the aroma-tours/performances that will take place in June, July and August in Tallinn’s urban space and in large shopping centres, Smell-O-Rama film screenings and a lecture on aroma marketing. Dates to be finalised.

In addition to the events at the Showcase Gallery, with the aroma installation in collaboration with EKKM café, the artist would like to direct visitors’ attention to the fact that many Estonian companies use aroma machines in their work environments daily – dentists, mini golf courses, spas, hotels, clothing stores, etc. across the whole of Estonia and the world, as well as the Estonian National Museum all implement the “scent marketing” service. Normally, people are not aware of this or don’t even notice that something is different; that their state of mind, desires and the most primary levels of their moods are being manipulated. This is also used in the military industries of various countries, where those entering war-zones are acclimatised with synthetic analogies to the smell of burning human flesh, spent gunpowder, sewage with the aim of softening the effects of the trauma awaiting them.

Silvia Sosaar (born 1979) is an interdisciplinary artist living in Tallinn. She works with photography, video, performance and installation. The main focus of her interest is the person – tackling the encounters between artist and subjects. Sosaar graduated from the photography department (BA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2017. In the same year, she started her master’s studies in contemporary art, faculty of fine arts at EKA, where she is presently studying. Sosaar is a member of the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU).
In addition to Estonia, she has participated in group exhibitions in London, Milan and Madrid. Sosaar’s short film “Finding Elvis” participated at the “60 Second Intl. Film Festival” in Islamabad.
Her first solo exhibition “Shiny Shoe Salon” took place in 2017 at EKA Gallery in Tallinn.
She is one of the co-founders of ;paranoia publishing and has participated at numerous performances connected to presentations of publications.  She is a founding member of skaala publishing.

The artist would like to thank the department of photography at Estonian Academy of Arts, EKKM Café, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, aroomiturundus.ee, Marten Esko, Aksel Haagensen, Cloe Jancis, Marge Monko, Immanuel Poltimäe, Eve Roosna, Hanno Soans.