Events

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).

Forum Wood Building Baltic
26 February – 28 February 2024
Tallinn, Estonia
https://www.forum-woodbaltic.com/

We invite you to participate in the Forum Wood Building Baltic 2024 to be held on February 27 and 28 in Tallinn, Estonia. This year we have more than 40 speakers from 15 countries. 

 There is also an opportunity to participate in the thematic excursions on February 26th. Forum Wood Building Baltic is the main conference for architecture and engineering topics of wooden buildings in the Baltic region. The overarching theme of Forum Wood Building Baltic 2024 is integrated design where different disciplines come together with their own possibilities and limitations to cooperate and push the boundaries of innovation in timber construction.  

The main technical topics will be:

• introduction to the second generation of Eurocode 5 (by the authors of different parts) 
• design for manufacturing and assembly 
• building physics of wooden houses 
• energy performance, fire safety etc. 

The conference is a part of the international organization Forum Holzbau. Local hosts are Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University of Technology.
 

Registration to the conference can be easily done here: https://www.forum-woodbaltic.com

The gala dinner on February 27th is included in all tickets.

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for Everybody, Free of Charge, and May No One Be Left Behind!*”
EKA Gallery
19.–24.02.2024

Open Mon–Fri 12–9 pm & Sat 5–11 pm (part of the reception), free entry

The Institute of Meetings & Non-Meetings opens the Embassy of Utopia at the EKA Gallery on February 19th. On the final evening of the performative installation, February 24th, one hour after President Alar Karis steps up to the lectern at the Estonia Theatre to deliver Estonia’s most anticipated speech of the year, the Embassy of Utopia will present the year’s most unexpected speech.

The speech will not be written by artificial intelligence or a freelance poet. It will be written by those who gather at the Embassy, those seeking poetic refuge.

“We have dealt with speeches in the Institute’s and Paide Theatre’s previous projects and confirmed that the core of a good speech is a clear message. But the world is not clear, and it seems that every speech, aiming to bring clarity, spreads confusion. Therefore, we decided it was time to turn our backs on clarity and create a speech that acknowledges confusion,” says one of the participating artists, Jan Teevet.

“One might ask, what distinguishes the Embassy of Utopia’s speech from any much-maligned internet forum. The answer can be found in the phenomenon of meeting. From Monday to Friday, when the Embassy’s doors at the Estonian Academy of Arts are open to all passersby, dozens of groups will meet there, not aiming for a mediocre compromise, but to build bold connections between views, crises, and solutions that frame their personal realities today,” adds the Institute’s dramaturge, Oliver Issak.

“A clear message, a clear tax system, a clear line between good and evil — we often think that clarity takes care of everything and everyone on its own, not noticing that clarity can often be uncaring. Clear messages are easier to receive and categorize, but how to organise a reception for doubts?” asks sociologist and artist-researcher Margaret Tilk.

The Embassy of Utopia is open from February 19th–23rd from 12–9 pm and culminates in the Embassy of Utopia’s reception on February 24th at 5 pm.

Entry to the Embassy is free for all, and everyone is free to decide whether it is an exhibition, a theatre production, a workshop, a meeting, a political-poetic consecration, a deep hangout, a minimalist opera, or something else entirely. One may also choose not to decide.

The Embassy of Utopia’s daily life and nightly fiction are created and organised by Oliver Issak, Kairi Mändla, Jan Teevet, Taavi Teevet, and Margaret Tilk.

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for everybody, free of charge, and may no one be left behind!” is the fourth event in the series of actions created by the Institute of Meetings and Non-Meetings. The doors of the Embassy of Utopia first opened in May 2023 at the invitation of the international literature festival Prima Vista and the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024, with the subtitle “Longing for a different reality”, and from September, the Embassy of Utopia’s radio action goes live on Klassikaraadio on the last Sunday of every month. On December 31st, 2023, a 5-hour New Year’s Eve special was broadcasted on Klassikaraadio’s wavelength, “Embassy of Utopia: A Thousand Toasts to the Future”.

The Embassy of Utopia is a sanctuary for positive uncertainty, bold thought, and untamable imagination. 

* The title is based on the novel “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

The project is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Drinks at the reception provided by Põhjala Brewery.

More info:
Jan Teevet jan@instituut.art
Oliver Issak oliver@instituut.art
Margaret Tilk marga.tilk@gmail.com
www.instituut.art/utoopiasaatkond

MA in Graphic Design
Online info session
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 18:00–19:00h EET (local Estonian time) / 17:00h CET / 16:00h GMT … 

We invite prospective students to join the Master of Arts in Graphic Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts for our Online Info Session on 30 January, 18:00–19:00h EET. This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from teachers and students.

REGISTER HERE

Open architecture lecture “Dumb Emancipatory Housing. Dumb Emancipatory City Planning”: Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder / Büro Bietenhader Moroder

On January 12 at 6 pm in room A-400

The lecture is held in English, is free and open to all interested parties.

The open lecture will finish the “Dumb emancipatory housing Workshop” held by EASA (European Architecture Student Assembly) on January 8 – 12. The workshop at EKA is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder have been working together as Büro Bietenhader Moroder since 2015. Büro Bietenhader Moroder deals with copyness as a positive formal property of architecture, which makes it possible to work formally against the neoliberal architecture of differentiation, flexibilization and individualization. By simultaneously maximizing the formal relations of architectural settings to one another, which is conceptually defined as copyness, Büro Bietenhader Moroder opens up a re-reading of the formal characteristics of social housing of French and Russian revolutionary architecture and that of Red Vienna.

Cities are starting again to build housing as builder-owners to counter the suffocation of urban life through real-estate speculation. This new public housing needs its own architecture. However, the historical formal and aesthetic distinctions between public and free market housing have been lost, all housing mimics or is luxury housing.

In the search for an intrinsically public housing architecture Büro Bietenhader Moroder has discovered a totally overlooked formal quality of architecture: Maximalist intentional sameness, termed dumb copyness. Dumb copyness is fundamentally different than mere serial repetition. Instead, it relies on formal qualities that enhance the maximum sameness of rooms, flats, entire housing blocks or urban settings far beyond mere industrial or functionalist seriality.

Hereby methodological rigor is central. Through a rejection of creative ad-hoc-subversion, deviation on every level, – the ubiquitous demand for ‘smartness’ –, a methodical planning can be re-established that achieves a directness that is greatly and blatantly dumb.

Guided by this focus Büro Bietenhader Moroder seeks to rediscover and reclaim the historical forms and aesthetics of pre-WWII public housing, such as Russian revolutionary architecture and that built by Red Vienna from 1919 to 1934. In this period, we find specific formal articulations of a non-functionalist public housing architecture that is almost forgotten and that gives shape to a collective life that is affordable and emancipatory. Through this critical historical re-reading we are developing a design method for emancipatory housing that is so directly public, so clear and basic that it is dumb.

Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder have been working together as Büro Bietenhader Moroder since 2015. Büro Bietenhader Moroder deals with copyness as a positive formal property of architecture, which makes it possible to work formally against the neoliberal architecture of differentiation, flexibilization and individualization. By simultaneously maximizing the formal relations of architectural settings to one another, which is conceptually defined as copyness, Büro Bietenhader Moroder opens up a re-reading of the formal characteristics of social housing of French and Russian revolutionary architecture and that of Red Vienna.

Sebastian Bietenhader studied architecture at the ETH Zurich (BSc.) and at the Harvard GSD, as well as history and philosophy of knowledge, also at the ETH Zurich (MSc.), where he did a thesis on the development of the computer modelling space, which will be essential for BIM. He headed the student discussion group “Ambitus”. He is a regular guest critic at the ETH and has been teaching architecture at various (non)- institutions.

Matthias Moroder studied architecture (AA Dipl.) at the Architectural Association in London, art history (BA) and philosophy (BA) at the University of Vienna and history and theory of architecture (MAS) at the ETH Zurich. Besides the work as Büro Bietenhader Moroder, since 2018 he is co-leading MAGAZIN, an independent exhibition space for architecture in Vienna. He is currently a PhD candidate at the department of art history of the University of Vienna and has been teaching architecture and architectural history and theory at various (non)- institutions. Matthias is also co-founder of the Vienna Architecture Summer School.

On January 25, 2024, the EKA Design Showcase gala will present to the audience the best cooperation projects of EKA students from the last year with companies and public sector organizations.

We are waiting for all current and future cooperation partners of EKA and those interested in future design to take part in the event!

REGISTRATION

Concepts, prototypes and ready-made solutions of innovative products and services created by students of the Faculty of Design of EKA during the last year for companies and organizations such as the Estonian National Library, Estonian Prison Service (Ministry of Justice), Antonius ÕU (Tartu Creative Economy Center), Eesti Energia, Pagulasabi MTÜ, Cignomet OÜ, Liven AS, GraceFit, Swedbank, Xarus Cosmetics OÜ, Integration SA (Ministry of Culture) and PERH will be presented.

The most influential and innovative projects will also receive awards!

These are projects created within the framework of the new business cooperation program LAETUS of the EKA Faculty of Design.

EKA has accumulated a very strong wealth of experience in carrying out cooperation projects over the years, and the LAETUS program, launched in 2022, has further expanded this field of activity. The program brings together EKA’s design field courses and business challenges of companies, offering synergy and fruitful cooperation, resulting in sustainable research and development projects that move all parties forward.

Come to the Design Showcase and get new knowledge and inspiration on how to take your organization’s products or services to the next level with the help of new generation design and open innovation in cooperation with EKA!

THE PROGRAM

15:00 EKA house tour for those interested (pre-registration required)

16:00 Start
Welcome words by moderator Jan Teevet and dean of EKA’s Faculty of Design Ruth-Helene Melioranski.

16:15-17:30 Presentations of cooperation projects

“Service Design Sprint with Real Life Challenges in Tallinn’s Biggest Hospital” – MA students of social design and service design and PERH

“Personal City – Let’s Walk!” – MA students of social design and Integration SA (Ministry of Culture)

“How to Become President?” – MA students of social design and Integration SA (Ministry of Culture)

“What Happens when a Schoolchild gets to the National Library?” – interaction design MA students and the Estonian National Library

“Nuclear Energy Experience in 2035” – MA students of interaction design and Eesti Energia

“Making Estonia a Stepping Stone” – MA students of interaction design and Pagulasabi NGO

Sustainable Natural Cosmetics Brand Concepts “PIXEL” and “æsce” – BA students of design and innovation and Xarus Cosmetics OÜ

17:20-17:45 Coffee break

17:45-18:50 Presentations of cooperation projects

“Giving Agency to Prison Inmates by Establishing Digital Communication in Tallinn Prison” – Design & Technology Futures MA students and Prison Service (Ministry of Justice)

“Empowering your fitness journey on GraceFit” – MA interaction design students and GraceFit

“National Library Service System to Support Adults with Dyslexia” – BA students in digital product design and the Estonian National Library

“Onboarding for Swedbank Based on Design Thinking” – BA students of digital product design and Swedbank

“Modular Storage of Electric Bicycles for Public Space and Apartment Associations” – BA students of industrial design and Cignomet OÜ

“Small forms of the Outdoor area of the New Residential Quarter” – BA students of design and innovation and Liven AS

“Rebranding of Antonius Õu Located in Tartu’s Historic Jaani Quarter” – BA students of design and innovation and Antonius ÕU (Tartu Creative Economy Center)

18:50 Acknowledgments and presentation of awards

19:00 The End

Presentations will be held in Estonian or English, without translation.

It is possible to participate both on site at EKA (room A101) and watch the broadcast http://tv.artun.ee/ .

We look forward to hearing from all current and future cooperation partners of EKA and those interested in future design!

Watch a video reminder of last year’s event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykpI2Jevyn0