Exhibitions

Aivar Tõnso’s solo exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State”
EKA Gallery 3.–6.04.2025
Open Thu–Fri 2–10 pm Sat 12–10 pm Sun 12–6 pm, free entry
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6 pm

Aivar Tõnso’s exhibition “Light Matter in Dark State” continues his experiments in the field of sound art that grew out of his musical work. The spatial sound exhibition, created with the Ebakõlar System, which relies on the sound characteristics of various materials, aims to push the boundaries of the listening experience, inviting viewers not only to listen, but also to actively perceive and participate in the sound space. It is possible to move within a sound composition without a definite beginning and end, which can be entered at any moment in time from any freely chosen direction.

Since sound and imagination are the central themes in Tõnso’s work, he also considers the character of sounds important, and as one way to achieve unique sounds, he often uses the constantly evolving Ebakõlar System built on the basis of various physical materials. Unlike commercial speakers designed for listening to music, Ebakõlar System do not try to play the widest possible sound frequency spectrum evenly. Each speaker has its own unique raw and undesigned character resulting from the properties of the material. It is also a process where the material visible to the eye acquires new hidden meanings due to the excitation by sounds.

Photos of the Ebakõlar System can be downloaded here.

Aivar Tõnso is a musician, sound artist and curator of interdisciplinary cultural events. He has been involved in electronic music creation since the early 90s and has participated in projects such as Hüpnosaurus, Kismabande, Kulgurid and Ulmer. Having long ventured into the fringes of club music and experimental electronic music, he has been active in the field of sound art in recent years both as an artist and as the organizer of the Üle Heli festival.

On Saturday, April 5th at 3 pm, artist Aivar Tõnso will give a guided tour at the exhibition in English.

The event is part of the Tallinn Music Week city program. Check out the full program here.

Graphic design by: Jaan Evart
Light design by: Rene Manivald Tamm
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Sadolin Estonia, Tallinn City and Tallinn Music Week.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

Thanks: Ian Simon Märjama, Maria Aua, Märt Vaidla, Tarvo Porroson, Tiina Tõnso, Timo Toots, Madis Reivik, Raivo Raidvee

Anu Jakobson’s solo exhibition “Finite_Jest.psd”
EKA Billboard Gallery 3.04.–25.05.2025
Open 24/7, free
Opening: 3.04.2025 at 6.30 pm

Anu Jakobson’s paintings explore internet culture by using symbols and images that are widely spread online. Much like ancient civilizations used hieroglyphics and stone carvings for representation to encode power, myth, and collective identity, Jakobson’s work similarly engages with contemporary symbols. The cloudiness achieved with an airbrush emphasizes the virtual, while the painting itself resembles a file of poor quality. By translating these fleeting digital symbols into the physical permanence of a painting, the work reflects a return to classical representation. It suggests that, in the age of excessive information, our need to document and decode reality mirrors the visual storytelling of past civilizations.

Curated by: Kaisa Maasik
The exhibition is supported by Tallinn City.
Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

The Last Spring at the Central Market and the Exhibition in Keskpuur

A new exhibition is now open at the Keskpuur gallery on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The artist Jana Mätas’ “Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole” (There Was Something Here, or Maybe Not) invites viewers to reflect on the past, present, and future of the Central Market through materials, while contemplating the ever-present change in everything. The exhibition will remain open until April 6.

“When preparing for the exhibition, I visited the market quite often. I have always enjoyed environments that are a bit neglected and untidy, but right now, I enjoy it even more the more I think about neatly arranged cobblestones, aesthetically pleasing sales counters, and high-gloss white furniture. The people in these places are different, too.

And then one day, I remembered that the gravel roads leading to my childhood country house came from all directions. The cars passing by always drove with a white cloud behind them. All the plants by the roadside were covered with a thick layer of dust. I remember walking barefoot on the gravel road, the dust thick between my toes, and my calves were gray up to my knees. One had to walk very carefully so that it wouldn’t hurt too much on the soles. Sometimes, among the dusty stones, you could find ones that sparkled.”

Jana Mätas is an artist living and working in Tallinn, whose works are rooted in the physical world surrounding humans. Her pieces often begin with found objects, materials considered of little value, or abandoned items. The artist works largely intuitively to create surreal, worlds that exist outside of words. She has studied Estonian language and literature at the University of Tartu, dance at the Viljandi Culture Academy, and graduated with a BA in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2021). Since 2023, she has been studying contemporary art at the same institution (MA). *Oli siis siin nagu midagi. Või siis ei ole* is her first solo exhibition.

In her works, Jana Mätas combines various material arts, craft techniques, light, space, literature, photography, and moving images.

Keskpuur is a gallery located on the second floor of the Central Market building in Tallinn. The new construction of the Central Market will begin this coming summer, and the market, along with the gallery, will disappear.

Graphic design: Jana Mätas, Grete Kangro

Open 21.-28.03.2025
Every day 14:00-18:00
and by appointment (+37253437533)

Opening: 20.03.2025 at 18:00

“The Scattering of Times to Dust ” is a spatial installation by Riin Maide at Uus Rada Gallery. The exhibition builds a cityscape from paper that takes the viewer beyond a border – to a place that has been left behind and worn thin. It’s a way to imagine nonexisting pasts and to feel nostalgia for the future.

Through mainly photo-based staged structures, the artist aims to find wistful beauty and material warmth in the languages of absence and arbitrariness. Paper and cardboard are tools to highlight the transience of architecture, to explore the fragmentation and dispersion of the city, and to create spectacles that barely exist. Both creation and decay are observed at once.

Riin Maide is an artist and scenographer based in Tallinn, whose practice focuses on indeterminate and intermediate areas and displaced spaces. She deals with topics such as memory and presence through playful installations and staged environments. Riin has received various awards, for instance the EKA Young Artist Award (2020) or the Eduard Wiiralt Scholarship (2022). She holds a BA degree of graphic arts from EKA Faculty of Fine Arts and has also studied in Vienna and Prague, and is currently a master’s student in the Department of Scenography of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On Tuesday, March 18th, we’re reading a series of writings by the EKA Craft Studies MA programme students.
All texts were composed through research, writing and editing supervised by Lieven Lahaye and Else Lagerspetz. The event takes place at the Craft Studies Krulli studio (Kopli 70a, II floor), from 18:00-20:00

There are 8 texts as part of the components required for graduation, reflecting on a diverse range of topics and approaches relevant to the students’ individual practices and the expanded field of design and craft, with links to the making and footwork-handwork-headwork relations.

Belongings

Written by Kati Saarits
This text is exploring local material culture history through the lens of industrial ceramics heritage, touching on questions of how sentimentality settles into material and how surroundings shape our perception of home.

Creature. Maker. Mire. 
Written by Alyona Movko-Mägi
Through the entanglement of organic and digital materiality Creature. Maker. Mire explores the bog as an archive — where bodies, landscapes, and crafts are preserved, transformed, and reinterpreted across time.

Reblow toolset
Written by Rait Lõhmus 
Reblow toolset examines ways to upgrade premade glass objects and explores the causes of devaluation and potential for revaluations.

Through the hammer, through the body

Written by Elias Sormanen
A deep look into the importance of skill in making, as seen through the craft of a metal hammerer.

Hääbuda, et taas tärgata.
Written by Juulia Aleksandra Mikson
A poetical observation of decay as an integral part of the cyclical process of life, while approaching it with acceptance and a sense of hope.

On Extractivism and Care for Landscapes:
From Mines to Mountains in the East of Estonia
Written by Hannah Segerkrantz
This text explores the post-industrial mountains of mining waste in the east of Estonia through questions about how we relate to our surroundings and their materiality.

Movement Matter. Embodied knowledge in material practices
Written by Iohan Figueroa
Series of dialogues between materials and the way we embody our practice, the importance of contact during the making process.

A Book of Mashed Potatoes
Written by Sofiya Babiy
A contemplation on shades of vanishing through photography, trees, cinema, land, time, death and family.

Artist Karl Joonas Alamaa and curator Mikk Lahesalu will lead three guided tours at the exhibition “Daily Play and Bread” at EKA Gallery:
– on Thursday, March 13 at 4 pm, in Estonian
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 4 pm, in English
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 5 pm, in Estonian

Participation is free of charge.

More info:
https://www.artun.ee/en/calendar/karl-joonas-alamaa-daily-play-and-bread-at-eka-gallery/

The head of EKA Sculpture and Installation Department, Taavi Talve will open the exhibition “The Man who Fell Down on the Ground in His Head” at the ARS Showroom on March 6th.

Taavi Talve lives in Tallinn. He graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in sculpture. Since 2005, he has been involved in various collaborative projects and has also been involved in solo work.

ARS Showroom Gallery

6–28.03.2025
Mon–Fri 12–18

FEAST. Shared moments. 

Piret Hirv, Eve Margus, Erle Nemvalts, Taavi Teevet

Between the done and the undone, between the cooling forge and the warming skin, we gather—not as revellers, not as mourners, but as those who wait, as those who celebrate the passing of time.

The feast is not yet consumed, yet neither is it untouched. Hands have shaped these fragments of time, folded process into form, cast intention into weight and curve. Nothing is whole, and yet everything is full.

Each piece contains its own becoming — the long roads walked, the hesitations, the moment a choice cleaved one path from another.

To wear is to bear witness, to become part of what came before and what is yet to follow. The place matters, the moment matters — the object is a whisper in the silence before speech, a moment before something is revealed.

This is the nature of all things held and passed on, touched and released. We do not own, we do not keep. We pause here, at the edge of time’s turning, knowing the feast is both here and elsewhere, both now and then. The weight of all things rests lightly, just for this moment, before the silence breaks and we move on.

We come together. Everything might change. We come together. Everything might stay the same.

Opening days & hours:

Opening 12.03 (Wednesday) 19:00
13.03-14.03 (Thursday-Friday) 12:00 -18:00
15.03 (Saturday) 12:00 – 16:00

Exhibition supporters:

Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian National Culture Foundation

From 6 March, exhibition by artist and graphic designer Andrew Hill, titled “Scaled Views. Details from CCA Archive”, showcasing findings from the archive of Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art will be open at the library of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Influenced by his experience of working at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design library and archive, Andrew treated the CCA archive as material deposit and shaped his findings to be exhibited in various compositions of the A4 format. Therefore, the showcase focuses on rendering of scale and the indefinite potential of archival material and possible interpretation and not so much on reconstructing past events. In this exhibition, the focal point lies on the infrastructure of the exhibits, on the quotidien information carriers, which shape the material into a bureau aesthetic exposition.

Andrew Hill is an artist and graphic designer from Nova Scotia, Canada, currently based in Tallinn. He is a founder of the Halifax Art Book Fair and OTCHO, a periodical about fingerboarding. His work in public libraries and immigration archives informs his approach to publishing and organizing. He dreams of being illuminated by an Emeralite, next to a stack of yearbooks, sleeping in a banker’s box.

The exhibition is curated by Marika Agu from the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art.

The exhibition will be open until 6 May 2025.

Karl Joonas Alamaa’s solo exhibition “Daily Play and Bread”
EKA Gallery 7.–30.03.2025
Open Tue–Sat 12–6pm Sun 12–4pm, free entry
Opening: 6.03.2025 at 6pm

Artist and designer Karl Joonas Alamaa is interested in personal and collective power — how the strength of individuals can oppose authority and politics. The exhibition is based on interviews with people from different parts of the world who have been forced to leave their home countries for various reasons. Working with archival materials and collecting personal stories, their works highlight the power of seemingly small actions to unite people and create social change.

“The basis of the research is the story of my great-aunt Leili, who was deported to Siberia during the Stalinist purges,” explains Alamaa. “In Siberia, Leili was sent to work in a birch forests. On another day of work, she carved her name and family details into the bark of a birch tree. Unexpectedly, that log reached the workshop where her father worked, and he happened to see it after a long time of separation.” This notion of hope amidst extreme repression raises critical questions about the nature of hope, resilience, and resistance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. How can individuals find hope in the most desperate situations? How do small, personal acts of resistance challenge the carefully designed power structures and contribute to broader social change?

The title of the exhibition is derived from the aphorism of the ancient Roman poet Juvenal “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” This refers to bread as a cross-cultural symbol, representing everyday well-being and basic needs as well as their use as a tool of oppression. The exhibition brings together textile sculptures and other interactive and playful works that explore memory and society, delving into the themes of finding hope and purpose in a world that often feels suffocating and restrictive.

Karl Joonas Alamaa (2000) has studied fashion at the Estonian Academy of Arts and costume design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In their practice, they often engage with the notion of the mundane, exploring the potential of everyday phenomena and small actions to create change, working with historical archival materials, personal memories, and experiences. The exhibition has grown out of their master’s project, for which they have received the Mathilde Horlait-Dapsens Prize, the JAT Prize and the Future Proef Award.

Cheerful trio: Karl Joonas Alamaa, Linda Mai Kari, Mikk Lahesalu

Language editor: Olivia Soans

Lighting designer: Mikk-Mait Kivi

Technician: Erik Hõim

Graphic designer: Fatima-Ezzahra Khammas

Special thanks: Myriam Van Gucth, Esther Severi, Vaast Colson, Helena Kask, Martin Lahesalu, Visa Nurmi, Andres Alamaa, Siiri Alamaa, Peeter Kari, Asmus Soodla, Jim Wockenfuß, Lisette Sivard, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Eesti Vabaõhumuuseum.

The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Mathilde Horlait-Dapsens Foundation and Tallinn City.

Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

See photos of the opening here.

Artist Karl Joonas Alamaa and curator Mikk Lahesalu will lead three guided tours at the exhibition “Daily Play and Bread” at EKA Gallery:
– on Thursday, March 13 at 4 pm, in Estonian
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 4 pm, in English
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 5 pm, in Estonian

Participation in the tours is free of charge.