Open Lectures

From Breaking Illusions to Becoming a Unicorn. Artist talk by Mare Tralla

Mare Tralla’s first public solo performance, Breaking Illusions (1993), and her most recent performative video work, Becoming a Unicorn, exhibited last month in Edinburgh, represent two significant milestones in her artistic journey. In her first performance, Tralla began with a quiet, symbolic action of destroying the perceived notion of a (young) woman / herself. In many ways, Becoming a Unicorn continues this exploration, presenting a self-ironic and humorous act of creating a queer self. Between these two works lies a journey of feminist inquiry, spanning art, activism, and life.

Mare Tralla (b 1967, Tallinn) is queer-feminist artist and activist. Her professional art career started in Estonia in the early 90s, where she was one of the very few conducting a feminist revolution in the field of contemporary art. Drawing from her personal history and everyday experience her practice was in direct critical response to how the transition period of Eastern European societies affected women. In her art practice she employs and combines a variety of media: video, photography, performance, interactive media, painting and various traditional crafts. As an activist she has been involved with Act Up, London, Catwalk4Power, No Pride in War coalition and LGSMigrants. Her recent performative projects deal with queer experiences, gender issues, investigate sustainability and economics. Currently Mare Tralla lives and works in Edinburgh.

Recent exhibitions include: ‘Duck and Cover’, Vabaduse Gallery Tallinn (2024), ‘In the Name of Desire’, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (2024); ‘We Don’t Do This. Intimacy, Norms and Fantasies in Baltic Art’, MO Museum, Vilnius (2024);  ‘Same Subject Continued’, Edinburgh Palette, Edinburgh (2023);  ‘Consequences’, Out of A Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh (2022); ‘Atishoo, A-tishoo, We All Fall Down’, EKKM, Tallinn (2019); ‘Machine Divas’, steirischerherbst’20, Schaumbad, Graz (2019);  ’Woman&Woman’, City Gallery, Pärnu, 2019; ‘The X-Files [Registry of the Nineties]’, Art Museum of Estonia KUMU, Tallinn, (2018-2019); ‘Give Up the Ghost. Baltic Triennial 13’, Kim?, Riga, (2018);  ‘Bastard Voices’, Baltic Triennial 13, evening of performances, South London Gallery, London, (2018); ‘Women’, Threshold Artspace, Perth, UK (2017-2018).

Recent text contributions in books: Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms, ed. Katy Deepwell, Valiz 2020; Watched! Surveillance, Art and Photography, eds. Louise Wolthers, Dragana Vujanovic, Niclas Östlind, 2016; re.act.feminism a performing archive, eds. Bettina Knaup and Beatrice Ellen Stammer, 2014; quite queer, ed. Claudia Reiche, 2014

www.tralla.net 

The talk will be held in English.

Permalink

Design specialist Steinar Valade-Amland will hold a public lecture on Tuesday, October 29.

Design has slowly and perhaps unfortunately slipped away from one of its historical hallmarks; that of safeguarding the aesthetical value of solutions by giving them form and beauty. Many designers dream about being allowed to focus more on the aesthetical resonance of their work. The need to develop more compelling – and at the same time more responsible products, services and systems, could be their big chance of doing so because trade-off design can never be utilitarian, or spreadsheet-driven. Design to foster more responsible choices and a more sustainable way of life hence must be more attractive, more captivating, more fun or more enriching than what is already out there.

For more than a decade, Steinar Valade-Amland has acted as an independent consultant, working for a wide range of private sector companies, NGOs and public sector organizations, as well as for the European Commission since he stepped down after twelve years as CEO of the Association of Danish Designers in 2012. He has written numerous articles for trade magazines, contributed to several books – including the “Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design”, and played an active role in processes focusing on design policy, design practice and design education – in particular on a European level. He’s the author of “INNOLITERACY – From Design Thinking to Tangible Change”, published in Denmark in 2016, and in English by Business Expert Press in 2018, as well as co-author of “Design: A Business Case – Thinking, Leading and Managing by Design” together with Brigitte Borja de Mozota, published in 2020. Re-published as a tool-book under the name “Strategic Design for a Responsible Future” in collaboration with designer Hervé Collignon in February 2024.

Permalink

Artist talk by Family Connection

For the exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds (curated by Margaret Tali and Ieva Astahovska, until Oct 20 on show at the Tallinn Art Hall Lasnamäe Pavilion) Family Connection has researched Black people present in historic Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian popular cultural and brought them in conversation with each other. From Mauritius, the patron saint of the Blackheads Brotherhood, to Eewar, the Jamaican maroon in Lydia Koidula’s “Juudit or the Last Maroons of the Jamaica Island”. In their artist talk two members from the collective – Rudsel Martinus and Quinsy Gario – will present about their works and discuss the themes present in the collective’s presentation. Martinus will be presenting via zoom from the Caribbean island Curaçao and Gario will be present in Tallinn. As part of their contribution to the exhibition, Gario will also be performing on Saturday, Oct 19, 18.00 at the House of the Blackheads. During the talk he will also speak about that performance titled In the Presence of Blues Part II.

Family Connection is an artist collective founded in 2005 from Curaçao and the Netherlands. The members are part of the Martinus family who were based in the Buena Vista neighborhood on Curaçao. For each presentation the participating artists vary. In Tallinn works are presented from Glenda Martinus, the co-founder of the collective; her brother Rudsel Martinus; and the children of Glenda Martinus – Jörgen Gario and Quinsy Gario. The group has worked together to present an installation consisting of paintings, audio, video and sculpture. Their work is concerned with decoloniality and presenting speculative histories. The subject matter differs per exhibition, but the collective actively relates their positioning in the Caribbean with the local context of their presentations. Previously the collective has presented work in Riga (Latvia), Berlin (Germany), Utrecht (the Netherlands), Eindhoven (the Netherlands) and on Curaçao.

‘Contemporary Art and Context’ is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art.

The artist talk will be held in English, everyone is welcome to join!

Permalink

The Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the autumn of 2024 under the general title S*cial – Values in the built realm.

The lecturers will focus on the ongoing shift in planning practice, where considerations other than pure economic viability increasingly play a role in decision-making.

On October 31 Christian Pagh will hold the lecture “Mission Neighbourhood – (Re)forming communities”.

The neighbourhood is a fundamental physical and social horizon for human life. Yet, the intricate mix of relations that makes up a neighbourhood is rarely given the attention it deserves in policy making or urban planning. As Director and Chief Curator of the Oslo Architecture Triennale from 2021-2024, Christian Pagh dedicated his curatorship to exploring neighbourhoods as a horizon for reforming urban and societal development. The lecture – and book – Mission Neighbourhood – (Re)forming Communities, offers insight into how to form more sustainable, diverse and meaningful neighbourhoods, and explores the urgent urban issues of our time – from social infrastructure, nature and biodiversity, to mobility and urban governance – from a neighbourhood perspective. Intent on inspiring action, the lecture includes best practice projects, perspectives and hands-on advice from Pagh’s experience in the intersections between urban planning, design and culture.

Mattias Malk, curator of the autumn lecture series, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, describes the main theme of the lecture series as follows:

Inclusion, the valorisation of social space and the changing role of architects, especially in the public sector, are gaining ground in Europe’s spatial development, but things are still moving slowly in Estonia. So far, our economic growth has been based on environmental degradation and, despite rigid market-driven planning, we are among the weakest in the EU in resource use. However, the foundations of a smarter spatial policy, which is more useful than profit, are still undefined and untested.

One of the aims of the lecture series is to define and rehabilitate the word ‘social’ in Estonian spatial policy, including the social responsibility mentioned in the new planned public procurement. All the invited lecturers deal with the issues of space and sociality in their daily work and will share their experiences of the changing role of architects through examples.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Faculty of Architecture of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year.

Schedule of the autumn 2024 lectures:

September 5 at 6 pm Jonas Janke (architects, b+)

September 19 at 6 pm Elina Alatalo (architect, Tampere University)

October 31 at 6 pm Christian Pagh (curator, Oslo Architecture Triennale)

November 28 at 6 pm Petra Marko (architect, Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava)

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Permalink

“Paljassaare Palimpsest. A journey Through the Interstices of Trash and Treasure.”

On October 18 from 13:00 to 17:00 in Paljassaare

The first-year urban studies students have once again spent half a semester exploring Paljassaare peninsula – the very edge of the capital where today the entire city’s waste is directed… but also where the new focal point of the future Tallinn, the contemporary urban centre of the Nordic capital, is imagined. This Friday, October 18, the students invite everyone who is interested to join them on a journey between trash and treasures in the (post)industrial heart of Paljassaare, to explore what processes and value judgments shape today’s space.

Gathering on October 18 at 13:00 in front of the Maleva 2A building.

The approximately 5-kilometer journey takes place outdoors in changing landscape and weather conditions and ends around a campfire near Pikakari beach. The event is in English.

Things to bring along:

• snacks + drinks
• headphones
• a mug
• warm clothing
• waterproof footwear

More information on urban studies social media: https://www.facebook.com/urbantallinn

Permalink

On Monday, 21 October 2024 at 17:00, artist talks by Berit Schneidereit and Saskia Fischer will take place at EKA A-501. The artists will be in Tallinn to conduct masterclasses in the photography department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Berit Schneidereit’s artistic work revolves around the question of the nature of photography and the physical and bodily act of looking. Rooted in photography, her practice extends to spatial installation and sculpture. Using a variety of techniques, Berit Schneidereit creates constellations of closeness and distance, reality and suggestion, with which she creates a constant oscillation between image space and reality.

Berit Schneidereit (b. 1988, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she graduated as a master student in 2017. She has been exhibited at Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf; G2 Kunsthalle in Leipzig; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen; CCA in Andratx, Mallorca; at NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein; de Warande in Turnhout, Belgium and Goethe Institut Paris, among others. She received the Stiftung Kunstfonds work grant, the dhCS-studio grant from the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, as well as the van-Rinsum grant for the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. She lives and works in Düsseldorf.

https://www.beritschneidereit.de/

instagram: beritschneidereit

Saskia Fischer is an interdisciplinary artist working with images, objects, texts, and environments.

Her research is concerned with the paradigms that form and inform landscape as a reflection of cultural and social values. She examines the ways Western understanding separates anthropological urbanity from a colonial concept of nature, reinforcing problematic notions of femininity and what is ‚natural‘. Her working motifs draw on transitory architectures and the fabricated barrier between nature and the commons. This interdisciplinary research is expressed through photographs and installations synthesizing diverse media blending materials and motives from architecture, mobility, urban planning, landscape design, horticulture, gender studies and art history.

Currently working as a lecturer at the Mathilde Planck Stiftung and State Academy of Art and Design, Stuttgart, DE. She has obtained MFA at the Goldsmiths, University of London, UK 2016 – 2018 and studied photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, DE, 2010 – 2015.

https://www.saskia-fischer.com

https://www.instagram.com/___saskia_/

Permalink

«In 1972 there was still grass…»: Design Activism at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment by Kjetil Fallan

Design historian Kjetil Fallan will give a lecture ““In 1972 there was still grass…”: Design Activism at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment” on Thursday, 17 October at 16:00 in room A101. 

Kjetil Fallan’s talk will explore design interventions at, and in the wake of, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. What can design activism tell us about the conference’s influence on future political decision-making? Or about the development of environmental thinking and ecologically informed design ideology in Scandinavia? 

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski‘s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all; however, the seminar following the lecture will be held for the course students.

Kjetil Fallan is a Professor of Design History at the University of Oslo, where he currently leads the project Designing with/out Extractive Materials (deXmat), funded by the Research Council of Norway. His most recent books are Ecological by Design: A History from Scandinavia (MIT Press, 2022); Nordic Design Cultures in Transformation, 1960-1980: Revolt and Resilience (Routledge, 2023) (Co-edited with Christina Zetterlund and Anders V. Munch); and The Culture of Nature in the History of Design (Routledge, 2019). Fallan also serves as editor of the Journal of Design History.

Permalink

14th October at 17:30 in the room A-501 Klara Kemp-Welch will give an open lecture Free Movement? Tracking Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe since the early 2000s

Klara Kemp-Welch is Reader in 20th Century Modernism at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She works on modern and contemporary art from Eastern Europe. She was educated at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and University College London and is the author of Antipolitics in Central European Art. Reticence as Dissidence under Post-Totalitarian Rule 1956-1989 (IB Tauris, 2014), Networking the Bloc. Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965-1981 (MIT Press, 2019) and co-editor of A Reader in East-Central European Modernism 1918-1956 with Beata Hock and Jonathan Owen (Courtauld Books Online, 2019). She is currently completing a monograph entitled “Free Movement? Documenting Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe”.

This lecture introduces her current research project, “Free Movement?”, which is structured around three core themes: labour mobility, displacement, and border politics. With reference to a selection of lens-based case studies, I examine how contemporary artists have represented Eastern European experiences of migration and mobility since the early 2000s.

Lecture will be held in cooperation of Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and  Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts

Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

Permalink

EKA celebrates its 110th anniversary with a birthday week. 

From November 4th to 8th exhibition tours, lectures and film screenings will take place. The week will end on Friday with the opening of the EKA’s new building, the White House and a birthday party. Departments’ alumni parties will take place on Friday. 

Monday

15.30 Defense of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis | Auditorium A-501

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Laura Schmidt (DE) – ZKM_Gameplay. The Next Level (Paul Galloway will be joining us from New York city via screen. In English) | Main hall A-101

Tuesday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

18:00 New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (Ava will be joining us from Helsinki via screen. In English) | B-305

19:15 New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The right to forget. Artificial intelligences humanly inspired in contemporary art (Jaime will be joining us from Mexico via screen. In English) | B-305

Wednesday

16.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Linda van Deursen | Main hall A-101

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

17.30 Awarding of inners of applied research and development work | The Hole

18.00 Open Lecture by honorary doctor Antoine Picon | Main hall A-101

Thursday

17.30 Curator’s tour and model drawing at the EKA museum exhibition “EKA 110 Clothed and Nude. 110 Years of Figure Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts” | EKA Gallery

19.00 Cinema: The best of by the Animation Department | Main hall A-101

Friday – PARTY!

16.00 Anniversary assembly and conferment ceremony | Main hall A-101

18.00 Departments’ parties for alumni | EKA Main Building

19.00 Opening of the EKA White House | EKA White House

19.30 Musical performers until the end of the party | Both houses:

• 19.30 – EKA Students Queer Association | EKA white house
• 20:00 – DJ Vaatab jooksvalt | EKA main building
• 21.00 – Karameel | EKA white house
• 21.30 – EKA Chamber Choir | EKA main building
• 21.45 – karaoke with Helina Risti | EKA main building
• 22.30 – Motonormal | EKA white house
• 00.00 – Avemaria | EKA white house

20.30 Auction | Main hall A-101

22.00 EKA 110 gift opening

The programme of events will be updated on a rolling basis.

EKA Birthday Week events are free of charge and open to all.  

Events of EKA Departments as part of the EKA 110 Celebration

Monday, November 4th

• 18:00-21:00 – EKA Open Academy Open Lecture: “EKA 110 | How to Collect Art?” (in Estonian)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Paul Galloway (US) – Video Games at MoMA

Tuesday, November 5th

• 16:30 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design present: Open Archive of the Design Faculty 1966-1994 (open area on the 2nd floor, A300)
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Design + Product Design panel discussion: Design Thinking – Establishing Design in Times of Change (EKA lobby)
• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (room B305)
• 19:15 – EKA New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The Right to Forget: Artificial Intelligences in Contemporary Art
• 17:00 – EKA Graphic Art: Exhibition of Nominees for the Edmund Valtman Young Graphic Artist Scholarship (EKA glass gallery)

Thursday, November 7th

• 18:00 – EKA New Media 30: Raivo Kelomees – Metamorphoses of Media Art (room A101)

Friday, November 8th

• 16:00-00:00 – EKA Textile 110: Installation Textile in 110 Squares (room D504)
• 10:00-17:00 – EKA Interaction Design and Animation Departments’ installation Godseed (Kotzebue 10 basement)
• 17:00 – Opening of EKA New Media 30th Anniversary Outdoor Exhibition: Video Installations
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – EKA Glass Department Book Launch Glass Painting – Painting with Light (room B604)
• 22:00 – EKA Architecture / PAKK – Opening of EKA’s Gift (Kotzebue 2)

Alumni Gatherings on Friday, November 8th

• 17:30 – Ceramic Department Gathering: Viewing of Past Works and Identifying Authors (room B602)
• 17:30 – Fashion Design Alumni and Faculty Gathering, Tour of Workspaces and Works (room D507)
• 18:00 – Formal Research Seminar and Gathering of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (room A501)
• 18:00 – Design and Innovation (formerly known as Applied Art) Room Open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends! (room D404)
• 18:00 – Product Design Alumni and Student Gathering and “Cafe” (room C301)
• 18:00 – Interaction Design Alumni and Student Party (room D306)
• 18:00 – Textile Design Alumni and Student Reunion (room D505)
• 18:00 – Photography Department Gathering at Maitselabor. Opportunity to tour department spaces and studios. Wide Angle Gallery Exhibition (room B407)
• 18:00 – Faculty of Architecture Introduction and Social Space (room A400)
• 18:00 – Glass Department Book Launch, Formal Gathering, and Studio Tour (room B604)
• 18:00 – Accessory and Bookbinding Department open! Welcoming future and current alumni, instructors, and friends. Showcasing the accessory and bookbinding studio; recent student work exhibited in the glass display at the entrance. Leather drink bar by accessory artisans! (rooms B510 and B511)
• 18:00 – Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department open! Tour of department spaces and workshops (room B504)
• 18:00 – The Department of Heritage Protection and Conservation invites its alumni and friends to the sculpture conservation studio (room D308)

Permalink

Art historian and curator Kai Lobjakas will give an open lecture, “Was there design in Eastern Europe? Retrotopia Case,” on Tuesday, 24 September, at 16:00 in room A501. In her lecture, she will discuss the research and exhibition project “Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” (2023).

“Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces” was a project that led to a comprehensive exhibition during the summer of 2023 in Berlin at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, initiated by Claudia Banz. The aim was to search for the traces of the almost unknown visions, design practices and contexts both for the public and private spehre of the former Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia in order to add a layer to the prevailing Western perspective in design history and research.

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski’s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all.

Kai Lobjakas is an art historian and curator, from 2014 head of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (ETDM). Her focus of interest lay both in the post-war and contemporary applied art and design practices, especially the intersections of these fields. Besides building the design collection at the museum, she has compiled and edited catalogues with a focus on Estonian design phenomena, including the Between Art and Industry. Art Products’ Factory in Tallinn (2013), Local Beauty. Tarbeklaas (2016). She has initiated and curated exhibitions, such as Design as Experiment. Tõnis Käo (2014), Kitchen. Changing Space, Design and Applied Art in Estonia (2016). A permanent exhibition of Estonian design curated by her was opened at ETDM in 2022. She was the chair of ICOM ICDAD, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Decorative Arts and Design during 2019-2022 and is chairing the national committee ICOM Estonia.

Permalink