Events

We invite you to a panel discussion inspired by the article “From Past to Present: The Journey of Technological Theatre” by R. Kelomees, T. Jansen, and P. Hoppu. The article discusses how technological innovation has been essential in developing theater and the visual arts since the “beginning of time.” Moderated by digital theater researcher Katie Hawthorne, the event promises to be an engaging discussion about the potential and shortcomings of digital technologies in the contemporary world and how this might affect theater and contemporary art more extensively. A moderated panel discussion will follow short presentations by Raivo Kelomees, Taavet Jansen and Liina Keevallik.

This mini-conference is part of the project Acute, Culture Testbeds for Performing Arts and New Technology, which focuses on the development of performing arts and new technologies and is also part of the satellite program of the New European Bauhaus Festival.  Together, we will rethink the role of theater and art in our shared space, discuss how technology and art can connect people in these challenging times, and question the important issues that surround us.

The event take place at Estonian Academy of Arts on April 19th at 4pm(EET), room A101 and will be livestreamed in EKA Youtube.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EYJ93CEUaw

SPEAKERS

Taavet Jansen is an artist and researcher at the intersection of performing arts and technology. He has a rich background in theatre, creative coding, digital arts, and teaching. Taavet studied at Tallinn University and completed a Master’s in Choreography and New Media at the Theater School in Amsterdam. He is a doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Art and Design and a multimedia lecturer at the University of Tartu Viljandi Cultural Academy.  In recent years, Taavet has focused on digitally mediated performance art as a researcher and creator. He is one of the founders of the interdisciplinary art platform e⁻lektron and the technological art network MIMproject. As a researcher, he has been involved as PI in research projects such as “INDEX—Reconnecting the digital audience with the creative team in the online events” and “Online theatre as a research tool,” both of which focus on online theatre through the development of interaction tools that allow real-time audience feedback. His creative work spans a range of theatrical performances, installations, and media design projects where he has been blending his artistic expression with technological innovations. Recent works include “Held in Human,” “Memento,” and “Wolves,” all of which explore interactive digital performances. Taavet’s academic publications explore the confluence of technology and the performing arts, underscoring his commitment to advancing the field through research and interdisciplinary collaboration. Taavet Jansen’s career embodies a dedication to enhancing the performing arts through technological innovation and research to understand and improve audience engagement in digital spaces. 

Raivo Kelomees, PhD (art history), is an artist, art historian and new media researcher. He
studied psychology, art history and design in Tartu University and the Academy of Arts in
Tallinn. He is senior researcher at the Fine Arts Faculty at the Estonian Academy of Arts and
professor at the Pallas University of Applied Sciences. Kelomees is author of Surrealism
(Kunst Publishers, 1993) and article collections Screen as a Membrane (Tartu Art College
proceedings, 2007) and Social Games in Art Space (EAA, 2013). His doctoral thesis is
Postmateriality in Art. Indeterministic Art Practices and Non-Material Art (Dissertationes
Academiae Artium Estoniae 3, 2009). Together with Chris Hales he edited the collection of
articles Constructing Narrative in Interactive Documentaries (Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2014). In collaboration with Varvara Guljajeva and Oliver Laas he edited the
collection of articles The Meaning of Creativity in the Age of AI (EKA Press, 2022).

Katie Hawthorne is a researcher based in Scotland. She is an alumna of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality’s fellowship programme and became a member of staff at the Academy in 2022, with a role focussed on the documentation and dissemination of research. Katie is the author of the first cross-European study Digital Theatre: Digital Strategies and Business Models in European Theatre (2023), commissioned by the European Theatre Convention and first presented at the European Theatre Forum in Opole, Poland. The study drew on her Ph.D research, completed at the University of Edinburgh in 2022, which explored how ‘liveness’ in theatre and performance is evolving through the use of digital tools and technologies. She has given papers at a host of international conferences and institutions, including the IFTR in Shanghai and TaPRA in Exeter, and authored a chapter on the Berliner Theatertreffen in the Edinburgh German Yearbook in 2021. Katie is also an accomplished freelance journalist, and regularly contributes to publications including The Guardian and The Scotsman.

Liina Keevallik, PhD, has studied scenography at Estonian Academy of Arts and holds a PhD from the University Paris 8. She has done set and costume designs in Estonian theatres as well as abroad (France, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Lithuania), her works ranging from big operas to underground avant-garde. She has also written and directed visual performances. Her latest creations merging art and scientific research are Cloud Opera (2019), juxtaposing data clouds and atmospheric clouds; and It’s Time to Fight Reality Once More. Sentimental Education for Robots (2021), a play written by AI, performed and improvised by robots. She has also designed feature and puppet films and directed short films and documentaries; written texts for theatre, song lyrics and film scripts. She currently works as a freelance scenographer in Paris and Tallinn, pursues her research at BFM (University of Tallinn) and teaches scenography at Estonian Academy of Arts. She has participated in the international media archaeological research project Deceptive Arts (Les Arts Trompeurs); an artistic research project collaborating with AI Machine Acts and she has created the pre-cinema department of the Estonian Film Museum.

Cloe Jancis & Ann Pajuväli
“beginners”
EKA Billboard Gallery 22.03.–02.06.2024
Open 24/7, free
Opening: 22.03.2024 at 6 pm

A beginner’s mindset means letting go of assumptions, expertise, or preconceived notions that might cloud our perception or limit our understanding. In this state, we cultivate curiosity, humility and willingness to learn, even with prior knowledge and experience on the subject. It means embracing a sense of astonishment and discovery by trying things for the first time, which can lead to new perspectives and foster creativity and personal growth.

The artists emphasise that the exhibition is about growing out of the ways of representation they have become accustomed to: “We are in a phase of transition – it is not clear-cut, but it is lively and honest. Going through it means letting go (of former habits) and trusting that work teaches the doer. At the exhibition, we share parallel quests that may have a result, but not necessarily. This is a stopover, one possible version; unfinished thoughts, half-baked ideas, new beginnings and loose ends. The most honest expression of the current situation.

Opening drinks from Punch Drinks.

The Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the spring of 2024 under the general title Unlearning.

The lecture series aims to engage with values, imaginaries and systems of knowledge that shape the contemporary fields of architecture and urbanism. Unlearning is coordinated by Maroš Krivý, professor of Urban Studies.

According to Gayatri Spivak, for example, unlearning concerns not only what is said, but also what is not said as part of an ideological formation. There is now a broad push to transform design from a practice subservient to elite interests to a comprehensive, interdisciplinary practice capable of responding to a range of social and environmental urgencies. As part of this transformation, the four lectures engage with existing architectural imaginaries while proposing alternative ones.

Jess Myers will be the first to take the stage on March 14 in the EKA hall with the lecture Sound and the Built Environment: Unlearning the Visual Regime

In her lecture, Myers will propose sound studies as a critical framework for urban and architectural analysis. Myers challenges architecture’s exclusive relationship with visual communication and proposes instead a practice of “listening.” Myers will make the case for architects’ ears, for how they can be attuned to the soundscapes of the built environment and how a practice of “listening” might impact the dynamics of power in shared and personal space.

Jess Myers is an urbanist and assistant professor of architecture at Syracuse University whose practice includes work as an editor, writer, podcaster, and curator. Her podcast Here There Be Dragons examines the impact of security narratives on urban planning through the eyes of city residents. She holds a BA in Architecture (Princeton University) and a Masters of City Planning (MIT). Her writing can be found in The Architect’s Newspaper, Log, l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Avery Review, The Architectural Review, Places and Dwell.

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 spring lectures:

March 14 at 6 pm Jess Myers (architect, Syracuse University)

April 4 at 6 pm Oulimata Gueye (curator, Pariis)

April 18 at 6 pm Henriette Steiner (architectural historian, Copenhagen University)

May 2 at 6 pm Lara Almárcegui (artist, Rotterdam)

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. See all the lectures: www.avatudloengud.ee

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

The book “About Architecture” by architect and professor Andres Alver has been published.

The book presentation will take place on February 29, 2024 at 6 pm in the EKA Gallery.

The book is introduced by the author Andres Alver. EKA Rector Mart Kalm, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Sille Pihlak and President of the Estonian Association of Architects Andro Mänd will speak.

Andres Alver, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, has taught several generations of architects at the EKA Faculty of Architecture since 1985.

The book is on sale at the presentation.

The book has parallel texts in Estonian and English.

Editor: Triin Ojari

Language editor: Aime Kons

Translators: Refiner Translations OÜ

Design: Tiina Alver

Printing house: Omaraamat

ISBN 978-9916-4-2204-5

The publication was supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On March 4th and 5th, the PhD Vitamin event will once again be hosted at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

PhD Vitamin aims to support and pave the way – and inspire artists with a research approach on their way to doctoral studies. The goal is to introduce artistic research and advise potential candidates for postgraduate studies in planning a doctoral thesis project. In a program consisting of public lectures and one-on-one consultations, artists and experts discuss their approach to artistic research and share individual advice.

This year’s conference will focus on the problem of public space and its art. How can we decide what would be visible to all?

How do ethical challenges, the responsibility of the artist, historical and political issues and the authorship rights intertwine? What are the possibilities for artists to contribute to shaping past-present-future through the political aesthetics of public space? During the ongoing war in Ukraine, questions of what to do with the ‘red monuments’ left in the public space have come to the fore in Estonia. The debate is part of a global discourse that includes the Black Lives Matter movement. It touches on our social environment and tests our ability to ‘be good’.

Artists, designers, alumni of EKA and other creative universities, and graduate students interested in artistic research methods are invited to participate.

PROGRAMME

March 4th, Monday, room A501

10:00 -10:30  Coffee and welcome

10:30 -11:15  Victoria Fareld “Responsibility in a Polychronic Present”

11:15 -11:45  Kristina Norman “Looking Back at After-War (2009) During the War”

Lunch break

12:30-13:15 Esther Shalev-Gerz “From the Monument Against Fascism to The Shadow”

13:15-13:45 Gregor Taul “Monumental Trouble”

Coffee break 

14.00-14:45  Moderated discussion: Victoria Fareld, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Gregor Taul, Kristina Norman, moderator Kirke Kangro.

March 5th, Tuesday, room A501 

10:00-12:00 Individual consultations with Victoria Fareld and Esther Shalev-Gerz

SPEAKERS

Esther Shalev-Gerz, based in Paris, is internationally recognized for her seminal contributions to the field of art in the public realm and her consistent investigation into the construction of memory, history, the natural world, democracy and cultural identities. Her works challenge the notion and practice of portraiture and consider how its qualities may contribute to contemporary discourse about the politics of representation. Her monuments, installations, photography, video and public sculpture are developed through active dialogue, consultation and negotiation with people whose participation provides an emphasis to their individual and collective memories, accounts, opinions and experiences which then become both represented and considered.

Victoria Fareld is professor of intellectual history at Stockholm university in Sweden. Her research revolves around questions of historical guilt, responsibility and historical temporalities.

Gregor Taul is a lecturer, critic and curator. He has studied semiotics at Tartu University and art history at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is about to defend his PhD thesis on art in public space in the Baltics. He is currently working as a lecturer at the General Theory and Interior Architecture departments at EKA.

Kristina Norman, based in Tallinn, is an artist whose interdisciplinary work includes video installations, sculpture, and projects in the city space, as well as documentaries and performance. She is interested in the issues of collective memory and forgetting, the memorial uses of the public space, but also the subtle sphere of the body politics that transgresses the boundaries between the public and the private. In 2009 she represented Estonia at the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia with a solo project, a multilayered mixed media installation After-War. The project was a study of a conflict around the relocation of a Soviet monument in Tallinn. In 2022 Norman represented Estonia at the 59th Venice Biennial within an ecocritical exhibition Orchidelirium. An Appetite For Abundance. Norman’s experimental film trilogy commissioned for the Pavilion, offers multiple ways to reflect on the legacies of colonialism from a specific Eastern European perspective.

The event will be held in English.

Please registrate through following LINK.

To participate in individual consultation to discuss your PhD proposal, please fill out the FORM. A detailed consultation schedule will be sent to your email after registration. Be quick – the number of participants in consultations is limited!

Additional info: kati.saarits@artun.ee

We will hold the EKA information session, where the main results and conclusions of the self-evaluation report for institutional accreditation will be presented. The info-hour will take place on Wednesday, 21 February, at 15:00 in the EKA auditorium (A-101). It will be conducted in Estonian. This is a great opportunity to understand the current state and future directions of the academy.

Institutional accreditation evaluates the academy’s overall management, work organisation, teaching and research activities, and the quality of the study and research environment, its compliance with both legislation and EKA’s vision and development plan.

GENTLE GESTURES OF SELF
7.–31.03.2024
Opening: 7.03. at 6 pm

Participating artists: Andre Joosep Arming, Annamaari Hyttinen, Cloe Jancis, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Taavi Rekkaro, Johanna Saikkonen, Marleen Suvi, Elo Vahtrik
Curator: Kaisa Maasik

The group exhibition “Gentle Gestures of Self” brings together a selection of contemporary self-portraits. The paintings and photographs primarily depict the faces and hands of the artists, pointing at the emotions brought out by their facial expressions and gestures.

Culturally, hands are attributed with a great expressive power: in addition to conveying mood, depicting hands in specific positions can communicate deep feelings and meanings. Anthropologist Ethel J. Alpenfels has said: “Hands point or lead or command; hands cry out in agony or lie quietly sleeping; hands have moods, character, and, in a wider sense, their own particular beauty.”

The exhibition stems from a curatorial perspective focusing on relationships, inner experiences and moods. It approaches hands’ special ability and vulnerability to convey all emotions, even those that people have learned to control in facial expressions.

Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

EKA Gallery
Kotzebue 1, Tallinn
Open Tue–Sun 12–18, free entry

More info:
eka.galerii@artun.ee

17.30–18.00
Performative gathering “ “
Yuko Kinouchi, Tea Lemberpuu, Jane Muts, Maria Elise Remme, Jake Rhys Shepherd, Elo Vahtrik

We warmly invite you to slow down with us through a guided participatory gathering.

We were searching for a pause, stillness. So we ran through forests, we slept in caves, we followed the waters. Everything to escape the noise man has created. The rumor about the man-made room for silence reached our ears. We met John. He told us that after a while all you hear is the blood running within you. Heartbeat and all the sounds we were made of. There are things we can’t turn off.

In “ “ we ask you to join us to slow down, pause, and turn the attention within.

P.S. We ask you to leave your shoes and phone outside the room on arrival.

18.00–19.30
Workshop “Leaf Pounding”
Chloé Geinoz, Sven-Aleksander Mantsik, Vitor Pascal, Liza Tsindelian

The ‘Leaf pounding’ (this is the name of the technique of hammering plants onto paper or fabric in order to print them on it) project is a printing workshop using ecological and sustainable materials.

Our workshop is based on the different practices of the people in the group. It was important for us that everyone’s personal artistic touch could be found in the project: Liza uses second-hand materials, Chloé uses plants a lot, Vitor and Sven have a practice linked to printing techniques and critical text.

18.00–19.30
Installation “I Like Earth and Earth Likes Me”
Eleftheria Kofidou, Jana Mätas, Caroline Pajusaar, KitKit Para, Kadri Vahar, Edgar Volkov

The vertebral column is the main supporting structure of the body and mind, as the nerve cells within the spinal cord carry all the signals that are required to sustain the organism. These interlinked systems – all connected with our spine – control our every activity; our waking, dreaming, and sleeping and our stability depends on their successful collaboration. Our tired bones are only resting when lying on this soil, yet the Earth’s skin is becoming more and more occupied. What would become of our body landscapes after all? Our artificial remains shall be Earth’s new spine.

18.00–19.30
“Can I speak to the manager? It’s about the anthropocene”
Yvette Bathgate, Mihhail Boitsov, Katariina Kesküla, Merilin Põldsam, Kristi Vendelin

Collectively we explore interconnection through the process of binding; artworks, papers and text. A short manifesto style text, alongside five artworks will bind our individual expressions together and will be presented in installation and hand bound booklet formats.

The works have been made as part of the “Art in the Age of the Anthropocene” course for the EKA Contemporary Art and Design & Crafts MA students (supervisors Sandra Kossorotova, Linda Kaljundi).