Exhibitions

The opening of the exhibition Hardcore Gentleness by Maria Izabella Lehtsaar and Sarah Nõmm will take place on 25 August at 18.00 at the Vent Space project room.

The first duo exhibition by Lehtsaar and Nõmm focuses on the intertwining of intimacy, mental health, sense of security, control and loss of control in a person’s life through common elements of both artists’ creative practice. In their artistic dialogue, Lehtsaar and Nõmm talk about the challenges of girlhood and coming of age. The artists explore the interdependent dynamics of security and intimacy in different relationships, everyday expressions of gender and sexuality, and the role of everyday rituals in coping with mental health issues.

The tension at the heart of the exhibition is the juxtaposition between categories – such as light and heavy, soft and harsh, safe and dangerous, and acceptable and unacceptable – which is characteristic of the work of Lehtsaar and Nõmm. The aim of the convened duo show is to manifest the role of sexual expression in art and life, emphasising the importance of a sense of personal security and belonging, shared joys and concerns, and the well-being of one’s mind and body.

Curators: Anita Kodanik and Brigit Arop

Graphic design: Michael Fowler

Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (1998) is an artist based in Tallinn who combines textiles, graphics, drawing, installation and text in their work. Their works deal mainly with the themes of queer experience and mental health, often playing on the fragile border between reality and fantasy. Lehtsaar graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Art and is currently studying in the Contemporary Art MA programme. In 2021, they were awarded the Edmund Valtman scholarship.

Sarah Nõmm (1998) is an artist based in Tallinn who works primarily with sculpture, installation, video and performance. Her work deals with the female body and the spaces surrounding it. Nõmm’s works are often based on personal experiences and look at themes of the body through popular beliefs, myths, taboos and everyday rituals. She has a bachelor’s degree in Sculpture and Installation from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2021, she was awarded the Young Sculptor Prize.

The exhibition is open every day at 13.00–19.00 from 26 August to 31 August.

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Special thanks: Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, EKA Gallery, Johannes Luik, Maksim Bondartsuk, Julika Roos

Additional info:

Brigit Arop, curator

brigit.arop@artun.ee

Anita Kodanik, curator

anita.kodanik@artun.ee

Estonian Association of Architects together with Estonian Academy of Arts and SAP Katowice are pleased to invite for an exhibition about the cycle of lectures Masters of Architecture

The opening will take place 18.08.2022  thursday|
18:00 (EEST) I Estonian Academy of Arts | Põhja pst 7
110412 Tallinn | Estonia|

The exhibition opening on the 18th of August will be followed by a polish-estonian panel discussion about the conditions of designing in both countries. Guests invited to participate are Andro Mand, At Ader, Katrin Koov, Matgorzata Pilinkiewicz and Tomas Studniarek.
The discussion will be moderated by Justyna Boduch and Wojciech Fudala.

Masters of Architecture is a series of architecture lectures organized by the Association of Polish Architects in Katowice (SARP Katowice). This special exhibition is created to sum up the historv of all the events.
The series was originated in 2004 and supposed to be a cycle of 5 lectures onlv, given by architects representing 5 biggest European capitals. The speeches about London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam received extremelv wide interest from local architects and architecture students. As a result, the only decision possible was to go on with organization.
The Masters of Architecture series is organized up to now and influenced the education of hundreds of architecture students who received an access to much extensive knowledge than their predecessors from post-communist era. Between 2004 and 2020, the citv of Katowice hosted 70 architects from all over the world, including winners of the most significant architecture prizes.
A moving installation consists of 70 circles, corresponding to 70 architects who visited the city of Katowice and shared their knowledge with Polish audience. All the elements of the exhibition are mobile, what encourages visitors to interact. Besides the circles with the Masters of Architecture names, the installation contains some bigger circles with architect’s portraits, together with their opinions about the city of Katowice.
An extra gesture are mirrors, located at some of the circles. When young architects are visiting the exhibition, the can see their own reflection there. Who knows, maybe
in the future the will become Masters of Architecture as well?

The event is under the Honorary Patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage prof. Piotr Glinski, the Ambassador of Poland to Estonia Gregorz Koztowski and the Mavor of Katowice Marcin Krupa.

EAL website

The exhibition Halcyon, by Estonian contemporary artist Kadri Liis Rääk, is happening in the capital of Peru, Lima.

Welcome to the inaugural exhibition of Now: Gallery, in which Kadri Liis Rääk exhibits tufted soft sculptures inspired by the bubbling abundance of life, ceramic forms inspired by symbiotic landscapes and microbes, and chimerically transformed industrial design. In her works, we witness a speculative utopian world built, where various biological life forms meet at the hub of the rhizome, conversing with sensitive ways of being together.

Kadri Liis Rääk’s work evolves from an empathetic worldview where touch carries a crucial role in gathering information and relating to one-another. At the exhibition, she exhibits works prepared in Reykjavík, at SIM residency, but also in the residency which preceded the exhibition in Lima. Halcyon is curated by Marika Agu.

One of the founders and gallerist of Now: Gallery, Renzo Pittaluga remarked on the connection between Kadri Liis’ textile and ceramic practice with traditional Peruvian artforms. “What Kadri Liis has absorbed with her research and experiences is very relevant in the local context,” said Pittaluga.

11.08. – 14.09.2022

Now: Gallery, Av. Conquistadores 780, San Isidro, Lima, Peru.

Roemer van Toorn, external PhD candidate of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend his thesis „Making Architecture Politically. From Fresh Conservatism to Aesthetics as a Form of Politics“ on 7th of September 2022 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defence can be followed in EKA TV  tv.artun.ee.

External reviewers: Prof. Panu Lehtovuori (Tampere University of Technology), Prof. Arie Graafland (Delft University of Technology).

Opponent: Prof. Arie Graafland

The defense will be held in English.

Making Architecture Politically opens with an analysis of the current conjecture of Neoliberalism through the concept of the Society of the And, opposing an understanding of our condition through modes of Eitherorism. It is a voyage, travelling along the many interdependencies of the revolutionary conservatisms of Fresh Conservatism and Progressive Neoliberalism today — parallel to the arrival of a new phase of global modernisation with a special and elaborated focus on the role of contemporary architecture in Dutch society from the 1990s — while its second chapter moves beyond Fresh Conservatism; towards a possible third of emancipation in architecture with its plea for an Aesthetics as a Form of Politics towards a cosmopolitical outlook.

Chapter one, entitled Fresh Conservatism critically addresses how the much-celebrated Superdutch movement in architecture paved the way of an upcoming Neoliberal phase of capitalism. The problem for many was not to make political architecture, on the contrary, its innovative practices — without being too conscious about the political — affirmed what later was called the post-political. With Aesthetics as a Form of Politics of chapter two, exemplary alternative horizons of possibility are being discerned; ones that make architecture politically through their aesthetic regime. It has everything to do with how freedom can be created with constraints, how one can dance with enmeshment, can move beyond limiting adversary, and dare to create lives of sustained optimal wellbeing and joy through the redistribution of the sensible. By grappling with making architecture politically, finding it wanting through critical analysis, observing the exemplary and often a-political role contemporary Dutch architecture played in the 90s and onward, it turns out the problem is not to make political architecture — all architecture is political — but how to make architecture politically.

Making architecture politically is about the creation of running room; a sense of polity — an aesthetic regime redistributing the sensible — that allows for a multiplication of connections and disconnections that reframe the relations between people, the world they live in, and the way they are supposed to act and behave. Such a field of possibility concerns a multiplicity of folds and gaps in the fabric of the common experience of the human and non-human that change the cartography of the perceptible, the imaginative and the feasible. As such, it allows for new modes of political construction of common objects and emancipatory possibilities of collective and private enunciation. Instead of slipping into paternalism or control, the idea of such a radical openness is characterized by indeterminacy, nuance, incommensurability, dissensus and the multitude of encounters it could generate. It is about a becoming that breaks open the conventional way space is experienced, thought and distributed, one that displaces the binary dialectics of colonizer and colonized, the one against the other by introducing a third (And) that belongs to both the one and the other while opening alternative horizons.

Members of the Defence Committee: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Renee Puusepp, Prof. Maros Krivy, Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Claus Peder Pedersen.

Please find the PhD thesis HERE.

Screening of EKA Animation graduate students’ films in cinema “Sõprus” on Monday the 20th June at 16.30 p.m.

Films by:

John Francis Quirk, Aspasia Kazeli, Sophia Michele Bazalgette, Lukas Manuel Winter, Jass Kaselaan, Anne Mirjam Kraav, Hleb Kuftseryn, Andrei Bljahhin, Kadi Sink, Ida Lepparu, Sameliina Paurson, Anna Dvornik.

Please come to the screening and bring your family, friends, colleagues and everyone you want to share your works with!

Free entrance!

Cinema “Sõprus”, Vana-Posti 8

See you at the screening!

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Heleliis Hõim’s personal exhibition “The Mars Chronicles” in ARS Project Space

Opening on June 18 at 7 p.m.

Performance at 7:30 p.m.

The performance will feature music and soundscapes created by a group of vocalists led by Lauri Lesta and Kaie Sauga, inspired by the works exhibited at the exhibition.

The artist invites the viewer to relate to the planet Mars as a borrowed environment in order to gather thoughts of beliefs, isolation, limited thinking, and silence, right after a person has left.

The Chronicles of Mars draws parallels with science fiction, citing Ray Bradbury’s book of the same name. In a collection of short stories, Bradbury describes how a person wants to inhabit Mars, despite its inhabitants and advanced civilization. Mankind wants and demands more than they have. Or there was, because a polluted and war-torn planet is left behind.

The artist focuses on a collage of a kind of planned and then abandoned environment, on the basis of which it is possible to feel the thoughts of the deceased, the creation of the environment, beliefs, dreams.

The exhibition is supported by EAA, the Estonian Artists’ Union, the Estonian Cultural Endowment

Facebook event

The exhibition is open from 20.06 to 12.07.2022

Mon-Wed 12 – 18 / Sat – Sun 12-16

Maria Kapajeva’s exhibition is a part of the permanent exhibition “Landscapes of Identity: Estonian Art 1700–1945”.

This exhibition is an artistic experiment: presenting a research process as an installation. What can you do and what would you do with a random collection of photographs? Eight years ago, Maria Kapajeva came across a few old photographs online for sale.

This was a quite random purchase for me. An American dealer who runs an online shop selling old images from all over the world agreed to put together ‘a collection’ of photographs, which he thought might be from Estonia. So, this is how this 105-piece collection of ‘loose photos, odds and ends’ (according to the dealer’s description) ended up in my hands. In his message he added ‘I am so glad these photos are “going home”, so to speak’.

“I had no knowledge of the images or how they ended up in the US.”

At the end of 2021, when I started to prepare for this exhibition, I tried to contact the dealer again, but I learned that he had unexpectedly died a week before. It was sad to realise that I had had those eight years to ask him questions, but I hadn’t and now I could not. So, I hope with the help of visitors to the exhibition, I can get answers to some of my questions.

Kapajeva experiments with different ways of opening up the potential of the often undervalued, under-researched, marginalised heritage of vernacular photography. In the age of automated face recognition software – partly developed by historical archives, but even more so by state and military institutions and international corporations – her project demonstrates the benefits of “slow recognition”. As she slowed down for an artistic exploration of this collection, Kapajeva also made this a part of her own homecoming, as she has lived abroad for years, just like the photos she is exploring.

Gradual identification of the photographers and the people portrayed by them reveals new perspectives on Estonian (micro-)history, which gain new meaning in the context of the permanent exhibition focusing on “landscapes of identity”. By focussing on the faces of the photographed people, their stories and some other forgotten facts which she learned from these images, Kapajeva shows her appreciation for each person and every individual story in our history.

Kapajeva invites everyone to contribute to the installation as a continuous research process. Please look at the photos closely and if you recognise anyone, please write down their names or stories, add the photo number(s) and attach this information to the wall.

Exhibition design: LLRRLLRR – Laura Linsi, Karolin Kull
Graphic designer: Maria Muuk
Exhibition coordinator: Magdaleena Maasik
Exhibition technician: Andres Amos
Artist’s research assistant: Ketlin Käpp
With contribution in kind by Linda Kaljundi, Annika Toots and Karmen-Eliise Kiidron

Special thanks to Liisa Kaljula, Merilis Roosalu (Tallinn City Museum – Museum of Photography), Aado Luik, Janeli Suits, Piret Karro, Lembi Anepaio, Aljona Kapajeva and the Sokk family

In autumn 2021, a workshop The Alchemy of [Painting] was held at the Chair of Painting at the EKA.

Inspired by a still life of strange parts and wet preparations, the aim was to open up the concept of alchemy from the point of view of painting and using the tools of painting. In addition to the practical work, there were lectures and discussions on phenomen of alchemy from the perspectives of art, literature, music and film, on a timeline from the Middle Ages through popular culture to the present day.

The paintings were created using Cobra water-based oil paints from Royal Talens.

Tutors: Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Mihkel Ilus, Holger Loodus

Artists: Georg Kaasik, Samuel Lehikoinen, Noah Emanuel Morrison, Brenda Purtsak, Marleen Suvi, Egert Tishler, Triin Türnpuu

KERTU RANNULA
“SNAPCHAT DYSTOOPIA”
12/06/2022 – 16/07/2022

Kanal gallery

While analyzing the essence of social media’s beauty filters, the relation between the filter and the user is under observation – is a beauty filter a sticky parasite who is made to be a part of the system, which splits our self-image and profits from our insecurities, or is it a symbiosis, where a filter is soon becoming a part of our daily beauty routine?

When Photoshop or 3D-technologies are still mainly for the tech-savvy, beauty filters that circulate on all social media platforms, allow self-modification with only a single touch. From pure entertainment to a powerful tool, filters have made manipulating with our reality easier than ever before.

Filters, that distort faces and bodies, are widely spread in typical social media users but also within famous influencers. In China, even posting an unedited photo of a friend, is considered a violation of the social norm; and going to a plastic surgeon with an edited selfie has become so frequent that this state of mind has led to a new termin called “Snapchat dysmorphia”.

In the background of the blurred lines of real and virtual world, the exhibition addresses the affect that social media filters have on our daily lives and behaviour.

The centre that connects the installative works together is the artist’s own face. The face has become a moldable material which transforms through different mediums. Visitors are invited to step into an alternative reality, where the bodily roles of the human and the filter have been reversed in the exhibition room.

Kertu Rannula (b. 1997) lives and works in Tallinn. Through site specific photo- and video installations, she is researching the relationships, signs and symbols of the contemporary human and culture. Rannula holds a Bachelor’s degree in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has also studied liberal arts in Iceland University of the Arts and sculpture and installation in Belgium PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Rannula has participated in shows in Estonia and abroad. In 2020, she took part of ISSP Riga Residency.

Graphic designer: Henri Kutsar

Supporters: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Võru city

Thanks: Alari Toomsalu, Siim Asmer, Ago Paabusk, Kairit Onno

KANAL GALLERY
Thu–Sat 12–18
www.liivaate.ee
Facebook, Instagram @kanalgalerii

More information:
Stella Mõttus
Kanal Gallery’s gallerist
stella.mottus@gmail.com
+372 55 999 609