Open Lectures

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 +.

May 20th at 16:00 at EKA room A501 Hélène Day Fraser will give an open lecture “Decoloniality? Locating Inadvertent Parallels”.

The Associate Dean at Emily Carr University of Art and Design will share work done with many others on a project called clothing(s) as Conversation. She will speak to material practice in relation to the social and questions she is currently posing of her own work in relation to decoloniality.

She asks how do we locate ourselves? What does it mean to find new routes forward? What are the tropes that trap us? Is it possible to identify, reroute, delink, move away from mainstream assumptions of design/in design?

Hélène Day Fraser is a first generation Canadian, of Welsh and English descent, born in North-Eastern Quebec. She has been formed by life in a small town on the Canadian Prairies, an island in the Philippines, downtown Toronto, Strasbourg, the outskirts of Paris, France and most recently Vancouver and the North Shore. She is the Associate Dean, Master of Design, Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies, Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Hélène was the Principle Investigator of a SSHRC Insight funded research initiative: cloTHING(s) as Conversation. ( 2013 – 2018). Recently, she received CFI funding to help support and develop a Textile Adaptation Research Program (TARP) based out of Emily Carr University. She is also a founding member and Co-Director of the ECU Material Matters research center, and an active member of Emily Carr’s DESIS lab (DESIS is an international design research network for sustainability and social innovation). In her role as Emily Carr University’s Academic Co-ordinator for Sustainability (2012 – 2015) she established Creatives with Intent, a group that promoted agency and communication pertaining to sustainability.

Hélène’s textile and garment-based research addresses concerns and developments in the areas of: sustainability, new digital technologies, craft and legacy practices of making and generative systems. Her work explores modes of social engagement, identity construction and clothing consumption habits.

It is informed by a design education, and a past professional career in fashion, design, and manufacturing. Day Fraser holds a Masters of Applied Arts in Design and a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Fashion.

Making in Mixed Reality: Open Lecture by Fologram co-founder Gwyllim Jahn

The last lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be Australian architect, RMIT lecturer Gwyllim Jahn, who investigates the implications of Mixed-Reality assembly methodologies on architectural design. Jahn will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 9th of May at 6 pm.

Gwyllim Jahn is the co-founder and CCO of Fologram, a Melbourne based design research practice and technology startup building a platform for designing and making in mixed reality. Gwyllim holds an academic position as a Lecturer in Architecture at RMIT where he developed design research in the fields of mixed reality environments, autonomous robotic fabrication, behavioural design systems and creative applications of machine learning. His work has been published in leading computational design conferences and journals including IJAC, ACADIA and RobArch and he has given talks, presentations and workshops at international institutions including MIT, Stuttgart ICD, UCL, AA, Sci Arc and Tsinghua University.

Jahn is one of the authors of Tallinn Architecture Biennale TAB 2019 Installation Competition winning proposal “Steampunk” – installation will be built in August 2019 in front of the green area facing the Museum of Estonian Architecture.

Fologram practice explores how building directly from mixed reality environments can extend the skills and capabilities of designers and builders by improving spatial understanding of design intent and reducing the risk of human error associated with extrapolating 2D instructions to 3D form. They build tools that dramatically improve the ability of conventional craftsmen and construction teams to fabricate structures with significant variability in parts, form, structure, texture, pattern and so on, and in many cases completely reverse design viability as impossibly expensive and difficult proposals become straightforward, low risk and cheap. Complex designs can now be fabricated on standard building sites, with cheap materials and tools, and without expensive expertise or design documentation.

In his lecture, Jahn will discuss work from Fologram that investigates the implications of Mixed-Reality (MR) assembly methodologies on architectural design. Could making in mixed reality allow us to reconfigure CAD-CAM not as a means of working to high degrees of tolerance and precision but instead as a return to craftsmanship, intuition and reflexive making? How will the medium of MR enable new forms of collaboration between designers and manufactures, or between humans and machines? What new architectural forms might be found in this superposition of the digital and the craftsman?

A brief demonstration of the Fologram toolkit on the HoloLens and mobile devices will follow the presentation.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

Dreams and Reality: Open Lecture by Archigram founder Sir Peter Cook

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be British architect, professor, and writer Sir Peter Cook, who has been a pivotal figure within the global architectural world for over half a century. Cook will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 25th of April at 6 pm.

Professor Sir Peter Cook RA is a founder of Archigram, a former Director at the Institute for Contemporary Art, London (the ICA) and Bartlett School of Architecture at University College, London. His ongoing contribution to architectural innovation was recognised via the conferral of an honorary doctorate in April 2010 by the Lund University, Sweden. Cook’s achievements with radical experimentalist group Archigram have been the subject of numerous publications and public exhibitions and were recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2002, when members of the group were awarded the RIBA’s highest award, the Royal Gold Medal.

In 2007, Peter was knighted by the Queen for his services to architecture. He is also a Royal Academician and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic. Peter is currently a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London. His professorships include those of the Royal Academy, University College London and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Staedelschule) in Frankfurt-Main, Germany.

Peter has from the very beginning made waves in architectural circles, however, it is since the construction of his Art Museum in Graz, Austria (The Kunsthaus Graz) that his work has been brought to a wider public, a process continuing with the completion of the Vienna Business and Economics University’s Departments of Law and Central Administration Buildings and Bond University in Australia’s Abedian School of Architecture. Peter has also built in Osaka, Nagoya, Berlin, Frankfurt and Madrid. More info about the projects from Crab-Studio’s (co-founded with Gavin Robotham) website: http://www.crab-studio.com.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali
www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

Erinn M. Cox artist talk at her solo show “loneliness is the slowest death : a requiem for longing”

Join the artist for a conversation about the works from her new series titled Longing, including a personal tour of the exhibition at EKA Gallery. The artist talk is in English.

For more about the artist, visit www.erinnmcox.com

The exhibition is open until April 27.
Supported by Põhjala Brewery.

The lecture takes place in EKA Main Hall (Põhja puiestee 7) on Tuesday, 16 April 18:00 and is open to everyone.

We experience so many innovations daily that we tend to forget that before their acceptance, many of these innovations have been met by resistance among the public, or by people whose livelihoods are threatened by them.

By looking into past innovation case studies we begin to understand the underlying reasons for resistance of innovations and become better equipped to propose innovative designs for our uncertain future to ultimately become the designers of tomorrow.

In the third open seminar for IxD.ma, and the second for IxDA Tallinn, we invite Haig Armen, Head of Interaction Design at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, to talk about designers’ role in creating the future.

As one of Canada’s most respected and innovative digital designers, Haig has been designing brands, advertising, and interactive projects for two decades. He has received a variety of awards throughout his career, including three The Webby Awards, two Prix Italia for Web Arts and Drama and a Gold Medal from the Art Director’s Club of New York to name only a few.

For the past six years, Haig holds a position as the Head of Interaction Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His research explores the intersection of design and programming, focusing on data visualization, gestural interfaces and music technology.

Interaction design (IxD) is a theme that has emerged to address the ongoing advancements in technology and the way it relates to people. At IxD.ma we keep a broad view on the field and cover more areas than what is related to digital technology.

Tuesday, 9th of April at 18.00 Finnish artist Tuukka Kaila will hold a public presentation of his work in room A202 at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Tuukka Kaila (b. 1975) is a Helsinki-based artist working at the intersection of visual art, research and publishing. Since the late 90’s, Kaila has been actively involved in independent publishing, artist-run spaces and the cultivation of other forms of self-organized cultural production taking place outside of and occasionally overlapping with the institutional. Through various initiatives such as Numero Zine (1998-2004), Värinä darkroom co-op (2002-), Myymälä2 gallery (2003-), Bookies publishing event (2012-), Vallilan risopaja micro press (2017-) and Rooftop imprint (2017-), Kaila’s practice has consistently gravitated towards enabling a shared learning experience through participation and placing the means of artistic production and distribution at the hands of artists.

Kaila’s practice often materializes as photographs, texts and public events. Kaila’s recent works find their point of departure in questions concerning the production of knowledge. The works evolve organically through the use of a wide variety of artistic forms and epistemic strategies from dialogue to practice-based research to darkroom experimentation and printed matter.

Tukka Kaila was invited to Tallinn on behalf of the Department of Photography of Estonian Academy of Arts. During April 8–12, he is giving a workshop on analogue colour photography printing.

Unusual landscapes inspiring architecture: Open Lecture by Austris Mailītis

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be Latvia architect Austris Mailītis, one of the most original thinkers of the new generation from the Baltics. Mailītis will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 11th of April at 6 pm to talk about unusual landscapes and cultural context that has inspired his own work, introducing among others, the Shaolin Flying Monks Temple as well as the Latvian National Open-air Stage project.

Mailītis’ portfolio includes several unique art and architecture projects, including the Latvian pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the Latvian National Open-air Stage – the biggest open air stage in the world. During recent years, Mailītis designed the Latvian national pavilions at the 55th and 56th Venice Art Biennale and worked on a unique building for levitation – Shaolin Flying Monks Temple in China. In 2011, he was awarded Latvian national architecture award for his contribution to the development of Latvian architecture. In 2014, his work was nominated for EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture, Mies van der Rohe Award 2015 for the temporary pavilion designed for Esplanade park in Riga to mark the city’s year as the European Capital of Culture in 2014.

His architecture studio Mailitis Architects is based in Riga. In 2017, Mailitis Architects received the the Latvian Architecture Award for Shaolin Flying Monks Temple in China. At the moment, Mailitis Architects’ focus is on the reconstruction of the Open-air Stage in Mežaparks.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali
www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

All design enthusiasts are welcome to an open lecture by Dr. Jonathan Ventura on Tuesday, April 16, at 4 pm at Estonian Academy of Arts room A301. The guest researcher at the Royal College of Art, Helen Hamlyn Center for Design Center, focuses mainly on social and medical design, design theories and methodology, spatial and urban design, visual and material culture, and applied anthropology. In the open design lecture at EKA, he gives an introductory overview of contemporary design theory.

Design is rapidly becoming much more than an amalgam of history, practice and theory, yet as a defined sub-discipline, design theory is yet to reach its full potential. Furthermore, the schism between design theoreticians, historians and practitioners should be overcome to offer a more holistic approach. In this lecture/workshop, I wish to elaborate on the potential of teaching and practicing design as a social and material language. Moving forward from classic semiotic theories, using hermeneutics as a platform to shape design differently will help in the integration of history, practice and theory.

In this innovative outline, I see the designer not as a problem-solver, nor a “mere” translator or mediator, but rather as an active interpreter and maker of vehicles of meanings that, for example, denote and signify marital or social status,  manifest ideas, refer to previous styles of design, and symbolize their zeitgeist Accordingly, this lecture or workshop will present the semantic, referential, or expressive qualities of design objects, and of design objects that interpret their surroundings or lend themselves to interpretations within hermeneutic circles, thus generating visual-material languages.

Though design is a ubiquitous ontological and aesthetic phenomenon, and a flourishing practical discipline that is broadly taught in the academia, and while design history has developed into a respected discipline—the philosophy of design is still in its early stages. Design methodologies have been outlined and discussed. However, the long-lasting segregation between the various sub-disciplines of design, coupled with an inherent division between the philosophy of design and its practice and history cripple the overall reach of design research. Additionally, design has been sometimes considered to be a tool for devising aesthetic packaging meant for the enhancement of consumerism. In the light of global anti-consumerism, economic crises and socio-cultural changes, the designer’s role in society is starting to change.

Shifting our definition of the practice of design from semiotics to interpretation, or more broadly and accurately to design hermeneutics hold great potential to both research and pedagogy. For example, through redefining the act of prosthetic design transforms the designer to a physical interpreter, redefining the patient’s body. Thus, integrating practice and theory will help us create better-suited lessons to our complex reality.

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https://hadassah.academia.edu/JonathanVentura

Dr. Jonathan Ventura is currently researching the multilayered world of the industrial designer, focusing on medical and social design vis-à-vis applied anthropology. He is a visiting research fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art in London. He has completed a post-doctorate at the RCA and presented his PhD dealing with anthropological dimensions of industrial design, in a joint program of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (the Department of Sociology and Anthropology) and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem (the Department of Industrial Design). He teaches at the Department of Inclusive Design at Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem and at the Design Graduate Program at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. Jonathan focuses mainly on social and medical design, design theories and methodologies, theories of space and urbanity, visual and material culture and applied anthropology.

You are welcome to the Open Lecture of glass artists Krista Israel and Jacky Geurts on Thursday, 21th March at 5PM in room B604.

“The use of multiple techniques to come to complex works is based on the complexity of society. I try to capture its ambiguity in layered, ambiguous works that touch both personal and universal feelings. My work reflects how I see the world around me. References, experiences, memories, questions. I am deeply interested in the impact of our hyper-complex world on each of us as a modern person.” Krista Israel.

Krista looks for answers to those questions with her objects; especially personal answers that the viewer can think for thought. No ready-made solutions, but moments of reflection.

“Getting outside is nurture for the soul. On my daily walks I wonder about the beauty around me, the little things. But I also notice how humans interfere with nature. How we fail to protect the source we all need as a species to survive”. Jacky Geurts

Inspired by nature, human life and interaction, observing in all its details, Jacky Geurts searches for understanding of the world around myself, both on a small and larger scale.

More info about the artists:
http://www.krista-israel.com/