Events

Date: Tuesday, 12 May 2026, 13:30–15:00
Venue: Estonian Academy of Arts, Room A202
Admission: free and open to the public

The MAKK&MACA programme (Master of Contemporary Arts) at the Estonian Academy of Arts invites students, artists, educators, and the wider public to an open lecture by contemporary artist, performance maker, and curator Pankaj Tiwari on Tuesday, 12 May 2026.

In the lecture, Tiwari will introduce TENT: A School of Performative Practices — not as a proposal, but as an intervention. TENT is a nomadic, collective, and deliberately unfinished institution that refuses permanence, refuses neutrality, and refuses to wait for permission. Emerging from lived experience and structural exclusion, TENT is built from the ground up: without fixed walls, without inherited authority, and without the illusion that change can happen from within the same frameworks that produced the problem.

“Contemporary art institutions speak the language of inclusion, while their structures remain largely unchanged,” says Tiwari. “This is not a conversation about reform. It is an attempt at construction.”

The lecture moves between dream and reality, critique and action, asking a simple but urgent question: if institutions cannot change, what does it take to build new ones — and who gets to build them?

TENT operates as a temporary, mobile space of mutual learning and collective imagination. It uses interactive formats such as talks, residencies, dinners, and temporal togetherness at host institutions for specific durations to engage with their politics and practice. It is a space for imagining, thinking, listening, and responding to social injustices.

TENT at Kumu Art Museum and Rehearsals for Solidarity
In May 2026, to mark Kumu Art Museum’s 20th anniversary, TENT is erected in the museum’s inner courtyard. Around it, a twelve-day programme titled Rehearsals for Solidarity runs from 9–20 May 2026. The programme responds to a growing need to find common ground at a time when wars and geopolitical and ecological crises are deepening. The challenges affecting our shared lives have grown so large that they demand collaboration — yet we face an increasingly polarised society that undermines our very capacity to cooperate. Rehearsals for Solidarity tackles exactly this: practising the skill of finding common ground in an era when doing so feels ever more difficult. The programme encompasses performances, workshops, reading circles, lectures, communal meals, and more.

Rehearsals for Solidarity is organised collaboratively by Pankaj Tiwari, Kumu Art Museum, Kumu Youth Club, Lasnaidee, and students of the Estonian Academy of Arts’ MA Contemporary Art programme, and is curated by Frederik Klanberg. The initiative is supported by the City of Tallinn.

TENTative Practices — A Satellite Programme by EKA Students
As part of Rehearsals for Solidarity, students of the Estonian Academy of Arts have devised their own satellite programme, TENTative Practices, which unfolds across several days within and around the tent.

On Monday, 11 May, TENTative Practices opens with a communal pillow-making workshop. Instructions, materials, and tools are provided on site; the finished pillows will furnish a cosy reading nook inside the tent, complete with a small library that remains open for the duration of the programme — a space for quiet encounters and playful exploration. That afternoon, artist Ming Zhu presents the performance OOOcarina, an invitation to slow down, attune to one’s breathing, body, and the ground beneath, and to enter a shared space of resonance.

On Wednesday, 13 May, the programme turns to mending and washing — an activation of the tent’s surroundings and the museum’s “backyard” through communal care. The result is a temporary clothesline exhibition to which visitors are invited to contribute their own everyday garments, becoming co-authors of an evolving collective composition. The evening closes with an adapted game of football on the hill beside the museum courtyard — a team-building exercise with the shared goal of getting the ball uphill.

On Monday, 18 May, a new week brings a new format: TENT Radio, featuring interviews, experimental sound works, radio theatre, essays, and more. Local and international artists discuss the relationship between artist and institution live on air. TENT Radio can be listened to at https://oh.eka-gd-ma.ee/.

On Tuesday, 19 May, the programme gathers the texts, drawings, and photographs produced over the preceding days into a collectively made zine — a document of all that has been shared during Rehearsals for Solidarity. The day continues with communal cooking: each participant chops one onion, one carrot, and one clove of garlic, and everything goes into the pot. Many small contributions make one shared meal, enjoyed together.

The full programme is available at https://kumu.ekm.ee/en/syndmus/pankaj-tiwari-tent-school-rehearsals-for-solidarity/.

About Pankaj Tiwari
Pankaj Tiwari is a contemporary artist, performance maker, writer, and curator from Balrampur, India. Currently based in Amsterdam, he holds a Master’s degree in Theatre & Curation from DAS Theatre Amsterdam. Since 2026, he has been working as a trajectory artist with the international arts centre CAMPO in Ghent.

His works bring Eastern perspectives into Western discourse on socio-political issues. Tiwari is the winner of the 3Package Deal Award (2021–2022) from Amsterdam Funds for the Arts and served as a curator for Gessnerallee Zurich from 2020 to 2024. He is currently the artistic director of Stichting Studio Current in Amsterdam.

Tiwari’s work has been invited and supported by numerous international festivals and production houses, including Thalia Theatre Hamburg, Romaeuropa Rome, Steirischer Herbst Graz, MC93 Bobigny, Theater Rotterdam, Frascati Theatre Amsterdam, Kaaitheater Brussels, DE SINGEL Antwerp, Grand Theatre Groningen, SpielArt Munich, Holland Festival Amsterdam, Zürcher Theaterspektakel Zurich, University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Radialsystem Berlin, Santarcangelo Festival Italy, and performingborderslive UK, among others.

The 2026 graduation ceremonies will be held on Friday, June 19th in the EKA Assembly Hall (room A101, Põhja puiestee 7).

• At 11:00 AM, the ceremony will begin for graduates of the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Art Culture
• At 3:00 PM, the ceremony will begin for graduates of the Faculty of Design

Dear graduates, please arrive 15 minutes early to the lower door of the EKA hall, where you will be guided to your designated seat. This year there is a record number of graduates (for the first time over 300) and unfortunately most of the congratulators will not be able to sit in the hall, they can watch the ceremony on the screens in the lobby or online via EKA TV.

More info:
Elisabeth Kuusik
elisabeth.kuusik@artun.ee

May 7-8, 2026 

Venue: Estonian Academy of Arts,  

Room A501 

The symposium aims to explore how references to the mythological underworld engender, maintain, and revitalize the politics of cultural and social critique in contemporary art of the past three decades (post 1991). The focus of the project is the representation and interpretation of chthonic elements, such as devils, spirits, witches and other beings – human or non-human –, associated with the underworld, the subterranean, the primal grounds of being in Baltic folklore and other cultural landscapes.  

The participants of the symposium will be exploring how the employment of these elements in contemporary art has contributed to the development of a new body of socio-political knowledge, including sensitivity, awareness, and insight into a range of urgent issues such as gender inequality, racism, the climate crisis, consumerism, and gentrification. The “underworld contemporary art” engages uncanny imagery and occult allure to attract and engage audiences, challenging the status quo while fostering debate that promotes social change, reinforces democratic values, and cultivates inclusive and safe societies. 

The project is organized by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, Latvia in collaboration with Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia. Project authors: Dr. Toms Ķencis, Dr. Jana Kukaine, Dr. Ieva Melgalve and doctoral student Maija Rudovska. Supported by Latvian Council of Science “Contemporary Art and Folklore: Unlocking the Underworld” (UNART) (lzp-2024/1-0479) 

Everyone is welcome to attend. 
For the workshops, please register under this link: https://forms.gle/jPLYsRJbSYv6FPSf6  

Visual design: Liana Mihailova 

On May 14, 2026, the Estonian Academy of Arts will host an open conference titled “Metamorphosis as a Creator of the Future” in room A501, featuring internationally acknowledged Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia as the keynote speaker.

The conference will be held in English.

The conference will focus on the philosophy of Emanuele Coccia, with metamorphosis as the key term. Life is an incessant series of metamorphoses that happen everywhere, and the first natural technology is the cocoon, where preparation for transformation takes place. The keynote speaker at the conference will be Emanuele Coccia. The floor will also be given to artists and thinkers who, through their work, have explored change and its impact on the world around us.

Programme:

15.00 Opening words and introduction

I session: Contemporary Art and Language as a Form of Transformations

Bjarki Bragason (artist, educator, Iceland University of the Arts):
The Garden That Was: Memory, Ecology and Transformation

Ene-Liis Semper (artist, stage director, educator, Estonian Academy of Arts)
Large-Scale Performances as the Agents of Change in Society

Hasso Krull (poet, essayist, philosopher, Tallinn University)
A Metamorphic Event: Hommages à Artur Alliksaar and Emanuele Coccia

16.00 Coffee break

16.15 II session: Philosophy of Metamorphosis

Marek Tamm (cultural historian, theorist, Tallinn University)

Philosophy as Metamorphosis: Emanuele Coccia

Emanuele Coccia (philosopher, Italy/France, EHESS)

Metamorphosis as the Creator of Future

17.30 -18.30 final panel: Metamorphosis as the Creator of Future

Coccia, Bragason, Semper, Krull, Tamm – moderated by Kirke Kangro

Emanuele Coccia is Associate Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has been a visiting professor and researcher at numerous international institutions, including universities in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Düsseldorf, Columbia University, Harvard, Penn University and New York University. His work bridges philosophy, ecology, contemporary art, architecture, and visual theory, proposing a renewed understanding of life, form, and habitation on a planetary scale.

He is the author of several books translated into many languages, including The Life of Plants (Polity, 2018; Gallimard, 2016), Metamorphoses (Polity, 2021; Rivages, 2020), and Philosophy of the Home (Penguin, 2024; Rivages, 2024) and A Treatise on Modern Love (Flammarion and Einaudi 2026) . Together with photographer Viviane Sassen, he published Modern Alchemy (JBE Books, 2022), a book on photographic theory and image-thinking; with Paolo Roversi, Lettres sur la lumière (Gallimard, 2024), a philosophical epistolary on light as a principle of visibility and creation; and with Alessandro Michele, creative director of Valentino, The Life of Forms. Philosophy of Re-enchantment (HarperCollins, 2024). His forthcoming book, New Natures. Planetary Museums (Park Books, 2026), co-authored with author and curator Béatrice Grenier and architect Jeanne Gang, examines the emergence of planetary museums as living ecologies at the intersection of nature, architecture, and culture.

In 2019 and 2021, he contributed to Nous les Arbres, presented at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, where he is also a member of the Academic Committee. Together with Olivier Saillard, he curated The Many Lives of a Garment (ITS Arcademy, Trieste 2024) and Borderless (ITS Arcademy, Trieste, 2025), two exhibitions reflecting on the philosophical and social metamorphoses of fashion.

With Yuko Hasegawa, he co-curated Dancing with All at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, centered on ecology, coexistence, and the poetics of movement. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Power Station of Art of Shanghai. In 2024, Coccia was awarded the Mondriaan Prize for his theoretical and curatorial work bridging philosophy, art, and architecture.

Bjarki Bragason (b. 1983) studied at the Iceland University of the Arts, Universität der Künste Berlin and CalArts in Los Angeles. He is Associate Professor and Dean of the Fine Art Department at the Iceland University of the Arts and has taught at institutions internationally since 2014. His work has been represented in numerous solo- and group exhibitions internationally, and is in the collection of museums and private collections.

Hasso Krull (b. 1964) is an Estonian poet, translator and philosopher who has published nineteen books of poetry and eleven collections of essays that include literary criticism as well as writings concerning art, cinema and society. During 1990–2017 he was teaching cultural theory at the Estonian Institute of Humanities (special courses on continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, creation myths and oral tradition). From 2019 he has been teaching creative writing in the Estonian Academy of Arts. His latest books are The Eternal Recurrence (2025) and Twilight Remembrance (2025). He currently works as a researcher at Tallinn University.

Ene-Liis Semper (b. 1969) is an Estonian video, performance, and theatre director, and professor in the Department of Scenography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2004, she co-founded Teater NO99 with Tiit Ojasoo, where she worked as artistic director and stage director until the theatre closed in 2018. Semper has created numerous set and costume designs for both drama and opera productions, and is known for her visually powerful and grandiose style. Her solo exhibitions have been held at prestigious museums, including the Kumu Art Museum (2011) and the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM) (2024). Her most recent major production projects include the concert-performance “Where Are You?” (2026), “The Master and Margarita” (2024, Riga Dailes Theater), “Macbeth” (2023, Estonian Drama Theatre/ERSO/Estonian Concert), “Now We Can Talk About It” (2023, Theater Expedition), and many more.

Marek Tamm is professor of cultural history in Tallinn University and head of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History. His primary research fields are cultural history of medieval Europe, theory and methodology of history, and cultural memory studies. He has recently published Breakthroughs in Cultural Psychology (ed. with Jaan Valsiner; Tallinn University Press, 2024), The Fabric of Historical Time (co-authored with Zoltán Boldizsár Simon; Cambridge University Press, 2023), and The Companion to Juri Lotman: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (ed. with Peeter Torop; Bloomsbury, 2022).

Event on Facebook

Moulds for the Wilderness / Vormid tühermaale
Odie Lap Chun Chow
Location: Hanger, Põhjala tehas, Marati tn 5, Tallinn
Opening 8.05 at 18:00
Visting hours: 8.05–19.05 WED-SUN 11:00-17:00
Defence date: 12.05 at 10:00

Moulds for the Wilderness is a showcase of Odie Lap Chun Chow’s journey into mould making, inspired by ceramic casting production and self-experience in identity seeking. Gypsum, clay, and photography became the materials Odie used to explore and reflect on his struggle to find self-identity, bound to the city he came from. Here, he raises the question of whether moulds give limits or freedom to one, and whether one can create their own “wilderness”, a space without borders.

Perfect Dupes / Täiuslik duplikaat
Maia Hellman
Location: Kopli tn 2a
Opening: 9.05 at 18:00
Visiting Hours 9.05–30.05 THR-SUN 14:00-19:00
Defence date: 12.05 at 15:00

The remnants of the honey shop linger here, in the elongated shelves that run the walls and the price stickers from the beekeeping and gardening equipment they once sold. The same shelves now hold objects that arrived here with their own histories. Second-hand tableware, ceramic pieces, raw materials. Things that have passed through other hands before reaching these shelves. Some of them have passed through mine.

Lyly Pudi-Padi Pood, Lyly’s IJzerwinkel, La Quincallerie de Lyly
Lyly Letzer
Location: Keskturg Kiosk 168
Opening date: 10.05 at 11:00
Visiting hours: 10.05–17.05
Defence date: 13.05 at 11:00

A “ijzerwinkel”, “quincallerie” or “pudi-padi pood” is a place where you can find glue, a flower, a plate or someone to talk to. // Pudi-padi pood on koht, kust võib leida nii liimi, lilleõie, taldriku kui ka vestluse. // Une quincaillerie est un endroit où on peut tout trouver, un clou, une assiette, un savon et une personne à qui parler. // Ik ga naar een ijzerwinkel om van alles en nog wat te vinden: een tas, een koek of een babbel.

Unfolding Gestures / Avanev käeliigutus
Mariam Mestvirishvili
Location: Angaarinstituut, Põhjala Tehas, Marati tn 5, Tallinn
Opening 8.05 at 18:00
Visiting: 8.05–24.05 WED-SUN 11:00-17:00
Defence date: 13.05 at 15:00

Unfolding Gestures brings together practices of ceramic and textile making, exploring what lies beyond their surface and unfolds through them. By focusing on the process of making, the coexistence of material and maker as beings in their own right becomes visible, resulting in a series of works that reveal the traces of the process and its inherent mundanities.

Beyond Wearability / Kantavusest kaugemal
Peixuan Lin
Location: ARS Kunstilinnak, Stuudio 53, Pärnu mnt 154
Opening 11.05 at 18:00
Visiting hours: 11.05–15.05
Defence date: 14.05 at 10:00 EKA A403

Beyond Wearability builds on the personal experiences and theoretical research of designer Peixuan Lin, exploring how accessories transcend from wearability to becoming fluid symbols of identity. It shows how materials, myths, and everyday use collectively transform accessories into vehicles for personal narratives.

Souvenirs from Home / Suveniirid kodust
Sylvia Burgess
Location: Pika Jala väravatorn, Pikk Jalg 3
Opening: 16.05 at 18:00
Visiting hours 16.05–14.06 THR–SUN 12:00-17:00
Defence date: 14.05 at 14:00

Souvenirs from home is an exhibition of small objects and jewellery drawing on motifs, techniques and materials gathered through the three homes Sylvia Burgess has experienced in the past two years.

KULTIVEERITUD KEHA
Joanne-Heleene Sõrmus
Location: EKA Stenograafia stuudio, B304
Opening: 14.05 at 19:00 (performance)
Defence date: 15.05 at 10:00

At the culmination, the focus shifts away from the body to what remains of it: its traces, forms, and surfaces that are transferred into the garment. Performance KULTIVEERITUD KEHA explores the moment when the body ceases to be the objective and instead becomes a trace – a shell no longer defined by physical perfection, but by the aesthetic and emotional residue left by the pursuit of it.

Extensions / Pikendused
Marite Kuus-Hill

Location: Kopli 70a, II floor/korrus
Opening 12.05 at 18:00

Defence date: 15.05 at 14:00

Extensions is a collection of events surrounding a handmade 4 m x 4 m quilt. This project presents a series of proposals and brings forth open-ended questions about space and space making, while expanding the notion of a quintessential cultural object, the quilted blanket.

Collection of public events:

April 17th 18:00
Thesis Assembly
Marite Kuus-Hill & Chloé Gourvennec
Krulli maja, Kopli 70a, Tallinn

May 6th 14:00
Patchnotes: Line Arngaard
Haron Barashed & Marite Kuus-Hill
oh.eka-gd-ma.ee / EKA sea terrace, Põhja pst 7, Tallinn

May 12th 18:00
Twelve Proposals for an Unfolding Event
Lili Maud Dobell & Marite Kuus-Hill
Krulli maja, Kopli 70a, Tallinn

May 13th 18:00 (invitation only)
Quilting Bee and Talking Bird
Jordy Weaver & Marite Kuus-Hill
ETC Space, Niine 8, Tallinn

May 22nd – 23rd 11:00-17:00
Quilt Space
Fair Enough Art Book Fair
Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design
Lai 17, Tallinn

June 3rd 14:00
Patchnotes: Alek Green
Haron Barashed & Marite Kuus-Hill
oh.eka-gd-ma.ee / EKA sea terrace, Põhja pst 7, Tallinn

/please note that the event will be in Estonian only!/

The Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EMTA), Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), and Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (TLÜ BFM) invite you to this season’s last Science Café!

Clothing is not merely an object, but an environment that influences our perception, emotions, and behavior. This year’s final Science Café introduces artistic research that approaches fashion as an embodied system — a dynamic environment shaping the wearer’s physical and psychological experience. Drawing on concepts of embodied interaction and affective technology, we explore how material, sound, movement, and smart textiles function not only as aesthetic elements, but as sensory agents.

At the Science Café table, design, technology, body awareness, and traditional embodied knowledge come together to interpret clothing as a sensitive and responsive interface between the body and the environment — a system in which historical material practices and contemporary technology intertwine to create a new experiential space.

The discussion will be moderated by senior researcher Kristi Kuusk (EKA)

Speakers:

• Prof Piret Puppart (EKA)
• Prof Paula Veske-Lepp, (Tallinn University of Applied Sciences)
• senior lecturer and doctoral student Einike Leppik (EMTA / Milan Conservatory)

Thank you for signing up here so that we know how many people to expect!

The event is free and open to all interested participants and is supported by the Estonian Research Council’s science popularisation programme.

From April 27 to May 15, EKA Library will be open from Monday to Friday from 10 to 21.

From 18 to 21 o’clock, the library is open only to students and staff of EKA.

EMTA, EKA and BFM invite you to the Science Café!

On Tuesday, 28 April at 18:00, an evening of discussion will take place at Apollo Plaza bookshop, bringing together artistic researchers from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EMTA), the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) and the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School at Tallinn University (TLÜ BFM) to share the thinking behind their practice and research, and to explore the nature, methods and outcomes of artistic research.

This edition of the Science Café focuses on the theme “Artistic Research: Reality and Fiction”. The creative process involves imagination: the ability to envision things and bring new objects and worlds into being. The research process, including artistic research, involves argumentation, verification and the scrutiny of facts. How, then, can artistic research reconcile factuality with imagination and fantasy, which are, in essence, forms of fabrication, or the making and presenting of things in ways they ordinarily are not? This Science Café explores the connections between reality and fiction in artistic research through the interests and works of researchers from different fields.

The discussion will be held in English.

Moderator: Liis Nimik (TLU BFM)

Participants: Sveta Grigorjeva (EMTA), Jaak Sikk (EMTA), Jaana Päeva (EKA), Carlos Eduardo Lesmes Lopez (TLU BFM),

To participate, if possible, please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSf07GGetTWMi2…/viewform

The event is free and open to all and takes place with the support of the Estonian Research Council’s science outreach programme.

Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities.
Date: 24/04/2026
11.00 – 18.00
Room: A-501
Estonian Academy of Arts
Põhja puiestee 7
Tallinn 10412
or online.

Print culture has long been recognised as a driver of new identities (McLuhan 1962). In particular, print media have enabled the imagining of national communities, thereby shaping modern national consciousness (Anderson 2006). Typefaces, as cultural artefacts embedded in books, documents, and ephemera (Shaw 2017), are a tangible expression of this process. This theoretical framework is particularly evident in the Baltic context, seeing typography and identity intertwine throughout history and today. The conference explores this Baltic print and typographic heritage, including historic and contemporary examples. It builds on the initial findings of the Ministry of Culture Creative Research Grant (KUM-LU)Constellations in Type: Estonian Print Identity, 1918-1940, while extending the discussion to encompass perspectives from further regions.

Please register here: https://forms.gle/HkJ2z96vvVftYM9t9
The conference is also available online.

Please make it known in the form if you would like to attend online and we will send a link.

Speakers:

Aleksandra Samuļenkova
Paweł Schulz
Laimė Lukošiūnaitė
Lewis McGuffie
Julia Syrzistie
Danila Rygovskiy
Ivar Sakk

Conference program

10.30 Coffee and arrivals

11.00 Welcome and Introduction Danila.

11.30 Aleksandra Samuļenkova

12.15  Paweł Schulz

13.00 Lunch Break

14.00 Laimė Lukošiūnaitė

14.45 Lewis McGuffie

15.30 Coffee break

16.00 Julia Syrzistie

16.45 Ivar Sakk

18.00 Close

The EKA Graduation Show Festival TASE ’26 opens on May 27, 2026 at 17:00.

At the graduation festival, the faculties of architecture, design, art culture, and fine arts will present this year’s final projects.

TASE ’26 will take place on the EKA campus in Kalamaja – in the EKA main building (Põhja pst 7 / Kotzebue 1), as well as in the buildings at Kotzebue 4 and 10, and on the Kotzebue 2 plot.

At the opening event, the Young Artist, Young Applied Artist, and Young Designer awards will be presented to bachelor’s and master’s level students.

The TASE ’26 exhibition will remain open from May 28 to June 19, daily from 13:00 to 19:00.

TASE chief organizer:
Kaisa Maasik-Koplimets, kaisa.maasik@artun.ee