Open Lectures
14.10.2025
Open Lecture: Saúl Baeza “What if We Kissed under the Watchful Eye of the Surveillance State?”
On October 14 at 16:00 in room A101, Saúl Baeza will give a public lecture titled “What if we kissed under the watchful eye of the surveillance state?”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
The lecture will explore the creative intersections of algorithmic resistance and material cultures through two projects: DOES and VISIONS BY. Drawing on the work of DOES, Baeza will share his motivations for subverting biometric technologies, addressing matters such as agency, resistance, (dis)empowerment, identity, participation, discipline or desire, tailoring algorithms to suit my own demands, repurposing them for uses beyond their original intentions. Building on VISIONS BY Magazine, he will explore the social impact and perception of materials and their importance in activating and dynamizing cultures and socioeconomic systems through a critical and speculative research lens.
The public lectures are open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Saúl Baeza is DOES and MAYBE Creative Director and VISIONS BY Magazine Founder and Editor-in-chief. While lecturing at Elisava Barcelona University of Design and Engineering he also researches functional and digital identities with the “Making With…” Research Group (TU Eindhoven Research) and “Futures Now” Research Group (Elisava Research). Saúl is the Co-Director of the Master in Design For Emergent Futures (MDEF), organised by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with the Fab Academy. Saúl has been visiting professor and lecturer at international universities, educational institutions and cultural venues such as Harvard GSD, Central Saint Martins and London College of Communication (UAL), Institute for advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), RMIT University Melbourne, Rhode Island School of Design, Pascual Bravo University in Medellín, Sónar+D, Victoria&Albert Museum, BASE, CCCB and DHUB, among others.
Open Lecture: Saúl Baeza “What if We Kissed under the Watchful Eye of the Surveillance State?”
Tuesday 14 October, 2025
On October 14 at 16:00 in room A101, Saúl Baeza will give a public lecture titled “What if we kissed under the watchful eye of the surveillance state?”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
The lecture will explore the creative intersections of algorithmic resistance and material cultures through two projects: DOES and VISIONS BY. Drawing on the work of DOES, Baeza will share his motivations for subverting biometric technologies, addressing matters such as agency, resistance, (dis)empowerment, identity, participation, discipline or desire, tailoring algorithms to suit my own demands, repurposing them for uses beyond their original intentions. Building on VISIONS BY Magazine, he will explore the social impact and perception of materials and their importance in activating and dynamizing cultures and socioeconomic systems through a critical and speculative research lens.
The public lectures are open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Saúl Baeza is DOES and MAYBE Creative Director and VISIONS BY Magazine Founder and Editor-in-chief. While lecturing at Elisava Barcelona University of Design and Engineering he also researches functional and digital identities with the “Making With…” Research Group (TU Eindhoven Research) and “Futures Now” Research Group (Elisava Research). Saúl is the Co-Director of the Master in Design For Emergent Futures (MDEF), organised by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with the Fab Academy. Saúl has been visiting professor and lecturer at international universities, educational institutions and cultural venues such as Harvard GSD, Central Saint Martins and London College of Communication (UAL), Institute for advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), RMIT University Melbourne, Rhode Island School of Design, Pascual Bravo University in Medellín, Sónar+D, Victoria&Albert Museum, BASE, CCCB and DHUB, among others.
30.09.2025
Open Lecture: Patricia Moore “The More Things Change”
On September 30 at 16:00 in room A101, Patricia Moore will give a public lecture titled “The More Things Change”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
Patricia Moore is an internationally renowned designer and gerontologist, serving as a leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors and requirements. For a period of four years (1979–1982), in an exceptional and daring experiment, Moore traveled throughout the United States and Canada disguised as women more than eighty years of age. With her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging, she was able to respond to people, products, and environments as an elder.
The public lecture is open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Patricia Moore holds undergraduate degrees in Industrial and Communication Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology (Awarded “Alumna of the Year” 1984), completion of Advanced Studies in Biomechanics at NY University’s Medical School; graduate degrees in Psychology and Gerontology, Columbia University.
Moore’s broad range of experience includes Communication Design, Design Research, Environmental Design, Package Design, Product Design, Service Design, Transportation Design, UX Design, Market Analysis, and Product Positioning. Clients include: AT&T, Baxter Healthcare, BOEING, Canadair, Citibank, Colgate Palmolive, FORD Motor Company, General Electric, Hill-Rom, Herman Miller Healthcare, Hong Kong Mass Transit, Honolulu Light Rail, Japan Mass Transit, Johnson & Johnson, SC Johnson Wax Company, Kimberly Clark Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, Kraft General Foods, LG Electronics, LOrad, Lowe’s, NASA, NEC, Norelco NA, Merck, Sharp and Dohme, Marriott, Maytag, Monsanto, OXO, Pfizer, Playtex, Procter & Gamble, Schering-Plough, Searle Labs, Seoul Design City Project, Sky Train Phoenix AZ, Sunbeam, 3M, Toyota Motor Corp, Valley Metro Rail, Walgreen’s, and Whirlpool.
Since 1990, Moore has designed more than 300 Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Environments for healthcare facilities throughout North America, Europe, China and Japan. A frequent international lecturer and media guest, Moore is the author of numerous articles and the books DISGUISED: A True Story, Ageing, Ingenuity & Design [2015], and OUCH! Why Bad Design Hurts [in works].
Open Lecture: Patricia Moore “The More Things Change”
Tuesday 30 September, 2025
On September 30 at 16:00 in room A101, Patricia Moore will give a public lecture titled “The More Things Change”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
Patricia Moore is an internationally renowned designer and gerontologist, serving as a leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors and requirements. For a period of four years (1979–1982), in an exceptional and daring experiment, Moore traveled throughout the United States and Canada disguised as women more than eighty years of age. With her body altered to simulate the normal sensory changes associated with aging, she was able to respond to people, products, and environments as an elder.
The public lecture is open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Patricia Moore holds undergraduate degrees in Industrial and Communication Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology (Awarded “Alumna of the Year” 1984), completion of Advanced Studies in Biomechanics at NY University’s Medical School; graduate degrees in Psychology and Gerontology, Columbia University.
Moore’s broad range of experience includes Communication Design, Design Research, Environmental Design, Package Design, Product Design, Service Design, Transportation Design, UX Design, Market Analysis, and Product Positioning. Clients include: AT&T, Baxter Healthcare, BOEING, Canadair, Citibank, Colgate Palmolive, FORD Motor Company, General Electric, Hill-Rom, Herman Miller Healthcare, Hong Kong Mass Transit, Honolulu Light Rail, Japan Mass Transit, Johnson & Johnson, SC Johnson Wax Company, Kimberly Clark Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, Kraft General Foods, LG Electronics, LOrad, Lowe’s, NASA, NEC, Norelco NA, Merck, Sharp and Dohme, Marriott, Maytag, Monsanto, OXO, Pfizer, Playtex, Procter & Gamble, Schering-Plough, Searle Labs, Seoul Design City Project, Sky Train Phoenix AZ, Sunbeam, 3M, Toyota Motor Corp, Valley Metro Rail, Walgreen’s, and Whirlpool.
Since 1990, Moore has designed more than 300 Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Environments for healthcare facilities throughout North America, Europe, China and Japan. A frequent international lecturer and media guest, Moore is the author of numerous articles and the books DISGUISED: A True Story, Ageing, Ingenuity & Design [2015], and OUCH! Why Bad Design Hurts [in works].
21.10.2025
KVI Open Lecture: “Decolonial Museology Re-centered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe”
Decolonization has become an important keyword and marker of change in contemporary museum landscape. But how could we understand and embed it in the Estonian context?
On Tuesday, October 21st at 6PM Estonian Academy of Arts will host a public event that will focus on the meanings of decolonization in museums by bringing together local, regional and international perspectives and by juxtaposing recent developments in the Estonian and Polish museum fields.
The questions that will serve as the starting point for the event are: How has decolonization been conceptualized in relation to Eastern European museums? What are positive examples and chosen approaches in recent exhibition practices? How do the perspectives of museum staff, audience and researchers differ from each other?
The event will start with a short lecture by Erica Lehrer, it will continue with responses by Joanna Wawrzyniak and Mariann Raisma and a discussion with the audience on the meanings of the decolonial approach in Estonian and Eastern European museum contexts. Moderated by Margaret Tali.
Erica Lehrer is a sociocultural anthropologist, historian, and curator. She is a Professor in the History Department and held the Canada Research Chair in Museum and Heritage Studies (2007-2017) at Concordia University, Montreal,
where she is also Founding Director of the Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (CaPSL). She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (2013); and co-editor of Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the Holocaust (2023); My Museum, A Museum About Me (2023); Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions (2016); Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland (2015); and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places (2011), among others, as well as numerous articles. She is Principal Investigator on the international team project Thinking Through the Museum: A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public (2021-2028).
Joanna Wawrzyniak is a university professor of sociology and the founding director of the Center for Research on Social Memory at the University of Warsaw. She has a long-standing experience in oral history and museum research. Her current projects relate to the memories of socialism, neoliberal transformation, deindustrialization, and decolonization of heritage. She is the past President of Memory Studies Association (2024-2025) and vice-Chair of the COST Action Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change. Her most recent books include co-edited Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989 (Routledge 2023), Regions of Memory: Transnational Formations (Palgrave 2022) and co-authored Cuts: Oral History of Transformation (in Polish, Krytyka Polityczna 2020). She co-edited special issues for, among others, Memory Studies, Contemporary European History, and East European Politics and Societies.
Mariann Raisma is the director of the University of Tartu Museum. She has written articles about the history of Estonian museums but also about the future; she has also been a lecturer of museology and curator of exhibitions. She has defended her doctoral thesis on the subject “The Power of the Museum. Shaping Collective Memory in Estonia during the Turning Points of the 20th Century”
Margaret Tali is assistant professor in Tallinn university, whose research focuses on the history of Estonian museums and practices of collecting. She is the author of “Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums” (2017) and co-curator of the project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” (2019-2024).
Talk is held in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada and the Estonian Doctoral School of Humanities and Arts (Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union). Co-funded by Erasmus+.
KVI Open Lecture: “Decolonial Museology Re-centered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe”
Tuesday 21 October, 2025
Decolonization has become an important keyword and marker of change in contemporary museum landscape. But how could we understand and embed it in the Estonian context?
On Tuesday, October 21st at 6PM Estonian Academy of Arts will host a public event that will focus on the meanings of decolonization in museums by bringing together local, regional and international perspectives and by juxtaposing recent developments in the Estonian and Polish museum fields.
The questions that will serve as the starting point for the event are: How has decolonization been conceptualized in relation to Eastern European museums? What are positive examples and chosen approaches in recent exhibition practices? How do the perspectives of museum staff, audience and researchers differ from each other?
The event will start with a short lecture by Erica Lehrer, it will continue with responses by Joanna Wawrzyniak and Mariann Raisma and a discussion with the audience on the meanings of the decolonial approach in Estonian and Eastern European museum contexts. Moderated by Margaret Tali.
Erica Lehrer is a sociocultural anthropologist, historian, and curator. She is a Professor in the History Department and held the Canada Research Chair in Museum and Heritage Studies (2007-2017) at Concordia University, Montreal,
where she is also Founding Director of the Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (CaPSL). She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (2013); and co-editor of Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the Holocaust (2023); My Museum, A Museum About Me (2023); Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions (2016); Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland (2015); and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places (2011), among others, as well as numerous articles. She is Principal Investigator on the international team project Thinking Through the Museum: A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public (2021-2028).
Joanna Wawrzyniak is a university professor of sociology and the founding director of the Center for Research on Social Memory at the University of Warsaw. She has a long-standing experience in oral history and museum research. Her current projects relate to the memories of socialism, neoliberal transformation, deindustrialization, and decolonization of heritage. She is the past President of Memory Studies Association (2024-2025) and vice-Chair of the COST Action Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change. Her most recent books include co-edited Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989 (Routledge 2023), Regions of Memory: Transnational Formations (Palgrave 2022) and co-authored Cuts: Oral History of Transformation (in Polish, Krytyka Polityczna 2020). She co-edited special issues for, among others, Memory Studies, Contemporary European History, and East European Politics and Societies.
Mariann Raisma is the director of the University of Tartu Museum. She has written articles about the history of Estonian museums but also about the future; she has also been a lecturer of museology and curator of exhibitions. She has defended her doctoral thesis on the subject “The Power of the Museum. Shaping Collective Memory in Estonia during the Turning Points of the 20th Century”
Margaret Tali is assistant professor in Tallinn university, whose research focuses on the history of Estonian museums and practices of collecting. She is the author of “Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums” (2017) and co-curator of the project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” (2019-2024).
Talk is held in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada and the Estonian Doctoral School of Humanities and Arts (Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union). Co-funded by Erasmus+.
16.10.2025
KVI + ARH open lecture: Leslie Kern “Towards a Feminist City”
How have cities failed women, and what can we do to make them work better for everyone? This talk explores the history and impact of male-centered urban design practices in areas such as mobility, care work, and safety. Using principles inspired by feminist theory and feminist urban planning practices, we will consider a range of ways that cities around the world are implementing more just, equitable, and sustainable approaches to city building.
Leslie Kern, PhD, is the author of three books about cities, including Gentrification Is Inevitable And Other Lies and Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. Her latest book, with Dr. Roberta Hawkins, is Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University. She was an associate professor of geography and environment and women’s and gender studies at Mount Allison University from 2009-2024. Leslie’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Bloomberg CityLab, and Refinery29. She is also an academic career coach, helping academics find meaning and joy in their work.
2025/2026 open lecture series in held in collaboration of the Faculty of Architecture and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture.
The lecture series is supported by:
KVI + ARH open lecture: Leslie Kern “Towards a Feminist City”
Thursday 16 October, 2025
How have cities failed women, and what can we do to make them work better for everyone? This talk explores the history and impact of male-centered urban design practices in areas such as mobility, care work, and safety. Using principles inspired by feminist theory and feminist urban planning practices, we will consider a range of ways that cities around the world are implementing more just, equitable, and sustainable approaches to city building.
Leslie Kern, PhD, is the author of three books about cities, including Gentrification Is Inevitable And Other Lies and Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. Her latest book, with Dr. Roberta Hawkins, is Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University. She was an associate professor of geography and environment and women’s and gender studies at Mount Allison University from 2009-2024. Leslie’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Bloomberg CityLab, and Refinery29. She is also an academic career coach, helping academics find meaning and joy in their work.
2025/2026 open lecture series in held in collaboration of the Faculty of Architecture and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture.
The lecture series is supported by:
17.09.2025
Open Design Lecture: Leyla Acaroglu “Design as Tool for Systems Intervention”
On September 17 at 16:00 in room A501, Leyla Acaroglu will give a public lecture titled “Design as Tool for Systems Intervention”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
Designer, sociologist, and educational entrepreneur Leyla Acaroglu brings a wealth of creative flair to sustainability and the circular economy. As a provocateur in these fields, she invites audiences to rethink the challenges we face. This public lecture highlights how Acaroglu has built a career by leveraging her design practice as a powerful tool for change.
The public lectures are open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu is an internationally respected expert in sustainability and the circular economy, an educational entrepreneur and an award-winning creative change-maker. As a designer and sociologist, she weaves systems thinking, sustainability sciences, and creative approaches to develop global interventions in education, communication, business, and design. For her work in advancing science and innovation in sustainability, she was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations, a Change-Maker by LinkedIn, and is a mainstage TED speaker who leads presentations with leaders around the world on activating positive change for a sustainable, circular and regenerative future. As an educational entrepreneur, she founded The UnSchool, an experimental knowledge lab for adults, Circular Futures, a circular economy sustainability training platform and developed the Disruptive Design Method. Leyla also created the Circular Classroom for Finland and the Anatomy of Action in collaboration with the UNEP.
Open Design Lecture: Leyla Acaroglu “Design as Tool for Systems Intervention”
Wednesday 17 September, 2025
On September 17 at 16:00 in room A501, Leyla Acaroglu will give a public lecture titled “Design as Tool for Systems Intervention”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.
Designer, sociologist, and educational entrepreneur Leyla Acaroglu brings a wealth of creative flair to sustainability and the circular economy. As a provocateur in these fields, she invites audiences to rethink the challenges we face. This public lecture highlights how Acaroglu has built a career by leveraging her design practice as a powerful tool for change.
The public lectures are open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu is an internationally respected expert in sustainability and the circular economy, an educational entrepreneur and an award-winning creative change-maker. As a designer and sociologist, she weaves systems thinking, sustainability sciences, and creative approaches to develop global interventions in education, communication, business, and design. For her work in advancing science and innovation in sustainability, she was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations, a Change-Maker by LinkedIn, and is a mainstage TED speaker who leads presentations with leaders around the world on activating positive change for a sustainable, circular and regenerative future. As an educational entrepreneur, she founded The UnSchool, an experimental knowledge lab for adults, Circular Futures, a circular economy sustainability training platform and developed the Disruptive Design Method. Leyla also created the Circular Classroom for Finland and the Anatomy of Action in collaboration with the UNEP.
09.09.2025
Artist Talk: Angela Maasalu
The Estonian artist, who has been living and working in London since 2013, will introduce her work and creative processes.
Angela Maasalu (1990) is a painter who deals with personal and intimate themes in her work. She is interested in the contradictory human experience, which simultaneously acknowledges happiness and unhappiness, the drama and comedy of life. Maasalu came to deal with personal and everyday themes during her master’s studies, and after graduating she has touched on the everyday problems of her generation. In her work she deals with sociality, relationships, personal space and a sense of home.
Angela Maasalu has studied painting and art history at the University of Tartu (BA 2012), painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA 2015) and furthered her studies at UAL Central Saint Martins in England (2013–2014). In 2017 and 2019 she was nominated for the AkzoNobel Art Prize (formerly the Sadolin Art Prize). She has had solo exhibitions in Tallinn, London, Heraklion, Greece and Shanghai.
Artist Talk: Angela Maasalu
Tuesday 09 September, 2025
The Estonian artist, who has been living and working in London since 2013, will introduce her work and creative processes.
Angela Maasalu (1990) is a painter who deals with personal and intimate themes in her work. She is interested in the contradictory human experience, which simultaneously acknowledges happiness and unhappiness, the drama and comedy of life. Maasalu came to deal with personal and everyday themes during her master’s studies, and after graduating she has touched on the everyday problems of her generation. In her work she deals with sociality, relationships, personal space and a sense of home.
Angela Maasalu has studied painting and art history at the University of Tartu (BA 2012), painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA 2015) and furthered her studies at UAL Central Saint Martins in England (2013–2014). In 2017 and 2019 she was nominated for the AkzoNobel Art Prize (formerly the Sadolin Art Prize). She has had solo exhibitions in Tallinn, London, Heraklion, Greece and Shanghai.
04.09.2025
Open Design Lecture: Embracing Loneliness Through Design
Loneliness is a significant challenge across all modern societies. Consequently, the way individuals and families establish and maintain relationships has become a considerable concern in design. In this open seminar, Japanese and Estonian design researchers will explore how design can help tackle this growing problem on both personal and societal levels.
Estonia × Japan: exploring design’s role in combating loneliness.
Keynote by Yasuyuki Hirai
“Inclusive Design for Loneliness”
Inclusive design is an individual-driven approach, while societal design is a society-driven approach. There is a relationship between individual loneliness and social exclusion, and the two can combine to form a vicious cycle.
This international collaborative project between EKA and Kyushu University offers an innovative approach to addressing loneliness and societal design. As an inclusive designer, Yasuyuki Hirai presents examples of how I have addressed this issue to date, drawing on principles of inclusive design.
Keynote by Ruth-Helene Melioranski
“Embracing Loneliness through Relational Design”
Ruth-Helene Melioranski explores how relational design shifts emphasis from isolated individuals to networks of care and connection. She illustrates this approach through a patient journey designed for the Estonian Health Insurance Fund’s endoprosthesis care pathway.
Case study by Janeli Peska
“Behaviourally Guided Intervention to Reduce Loneliness”
Janeli Pelska discusses how behavioural design can provide new tools to tackle the increasing problem of loneliness. Based on her master’s thesis, she introduces an intervention designed to promote social connections through behaviourally guided strategies.
Panel discussion
The seminar concludes with an open panel discussion to reflect on the role of design in combating loneliness. The conversation centres on how design can inspire new ways of fostering connection and belonging in our societies.
Moderated by Tanel Kärp.
Panelists:
Yasuyuki Hirai
Tokushu Inamura
Yanfang Zhang
Ruth-Helene Melioranski
Open Design Lecture: Embracing Loneliness Through Design
Thursday 04 September, 2025
Loneliness is a significant challenge across all modern societies. Consequently, the way individuals and families establish and maintain relationships has become a considerable concern in design. In this open seminar, Japanese and Estonian design researchers will explore how design can help tackle this growing problem on both personal and societal levels.
Estonia × Japan: exploring design’s role in combating loneliness.
Keynote by Yasuyuki Hirai
“Inclusive Design for Loneliness”
Inclusive design is an individual-driven approach, while societal design is a society-driven approach. There is a relationship between individual loneliness and social exclusion, and the two can combine to form a vicious cycle.
This international collaborative project between EKA and Kyushu University offers an innovative approach to addressing loneliness and societal design. As an inclusive designer, Yasuyuki Hirai presents examples of how I have addressed this issue to date, drawing on principles of inclusive design.
Keynote by Ruth-Helene Melioranski
“Embracing Loneliness through Relational Design”
Ruth-Helene Melioranski explores how relational design shifts emphasis from isolated individuals to networks of care and connection. She illustrates this approach through a patient journey designed for the Estonian Health Insurance Fund’s endoprosthesis care pathway.
Case study by Janeli Peska
“Behaviourally Guided Intervention to Reduce Loneliness”
Janeli Pelska discusses how behavioural design can provide new tools to tackle the increasing problem of loneliness. Based on her master’s thesis, she introduces an intervention designed to promote social connections through behaviourally guided strategies.
Panel discussion
The seminar concludes with an open panel discussion to reflect on the role of design in combating loneliness. The conversation centres on how design can inspire new ways of fostering connection and belonging in our societies.
Moderated by Tanel Kärp.
Panelists:
Yasuyuki Hirai
Tokushu Inamura
Yanfang Zhang
Ruth-Helene Melioranski
25.09.2025
KVI + ARH Open Lecture: Elke Krasny “Architecture and the Right to Care”
While care has been a staple in feminist theory, activism and policy, its translation into critical architectural practice and theory is quite recent. Only in the past few years have architects, curators, and scholars of architecture started to engage seriously with the implications of care as a design principle, an ethical stance, and a mode of practice. Drawing on a range of examples from the recent past, including architectural projects, legal changes, policy interventions, and urban practices, this lecture situates its analysis within contemporary contexts to highlight complexities and conflicts in the relationship between architecture, care, and justice. The aim is to demonstrate that architecture has the potential to support the right to care and advance care justice, while also critically interrogating its complicity in care violence and the undermining of care sovereignty
Elke Krasny is a Professor for Art and Education and Head of the Program Art and Education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a feminist cultural theorist, urban researcher, curator, and author. Her scholarship addresses ecological and social justice at the globaal present with a focus on caring practices in architecture, urbanism, curatorial work and contemporary art. Together with Urska Jurman, she initiated Ecologies of Care. The 2019 exhibition and edited volume Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, curated and edited together with Angelika Fitz, was published by MIT Press and introduces a care perspective in architecture addressing the anthropogenic conditions of the global present. Together with Angelika Fitz and Marvi Mazhar, she edited the book Yasmeen Lari. Architecture for the Future (MIT Press, 2023) Her book Living with an Infected Planet. Covid-19, Feminism and the Global Frontline of Care introduces feminist worry and feminist hope in order then to develop a feminist cultural theory on pandemic frontline ontologies and feminist recovery plans.
2025/2026 open lecture series in held in collaboration of the Faculty of Architecture and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture.
The Lecture series is supported by:
KVI + ARH Open Lecture: Elke Krasny “Architecture and the Right to Care”
Thursday 25 September, 2025
While care has been a staple in feminist theory, activism and policy, its translation into critical architectural practice and theory is quite recent. Only in the past few years have architects, curators, and scholars of architecture started to engage seriously with the implications of care as a design principle, an ethical stance, and a mode of practice. Drawing on a range of examples from the recent past, including architectural projects, legal changes, policy interventions, and urban practices, this lecture situates its analysis within contemporary contexts to highlight complexities and conflicts in the relationship between architecture, care, and justice. The aim is to demonstrate that architecture has the potential to support the right to care and advance care justice, while also critically interrogating its complicity in care violence and the undermining of care sovereignty
Elke Krasny is a Professor for Art and Education and Head of the Program Art and Education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a feminist cultural theorist, urban researcher, curator, and author. Her scholarship addresses ecological and social justice at the globaal present with a focus on caring practices in architecture, urbanism, curatorial work and contemporary art. Together with Urska Jurman, she initiated Ecologies of Care. The 2019 exhibition and edited volume Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet, curated and edited together with Angelika Fitz, was published by MIT Press and introduces a care perspective in architecture addressing the anthropogenic conditions of the global present. Together with Angelika Fitz and Marvi Mazhar, she edited the book Yasmeen Lari. Architecture for the Future (MIT Press, 2023) Her book Living with an Infected Planet. Covid-19, Feminism and the Global Frontline of Care introduces feminist worry and feminist hope in order then to develop a feminist cultural theory on pandemic frontline ontologies and feminist recovery plans.
2025/2026 open lecture series in held in collaboration of the Faculty of Architecture and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture.
The Lecture series is supported by:
22.08.2025
Marta Konovalov Workshop “Mundane Spots”
You are invited to Marta Konovalov’s home and garden. There you will have the possibility to investigate the development of the aesthetics of affect and promote emotional durability. To be engaged with my practice – to repair and to regenerate textiles. Or just to observe. I will also invite you for a walk in the landscape and my garden. To share some food together.
–
Please bring some textile artefacts or a piece of clothing with you – something that has worn out or perhaps has stains or holes. I will appreciate it if you will bring your observations and ideas.
You will meet all sorts of critters there. Your kin and children are also welcome.
Hope to see you soon, at the periphery.
Marta
Location: Veisjärve Village; Viljandi County
Duration: 22.08.2025 12.00–17.30
Language: English and Estonian
Contact: marta.konovalov@artun.ee
+37256630717
Registration: https://forms.gle/hgA818TaHnjMv15o7
Marta Konovalov is a designer-researcher, craftivist and educator focusing on repair and regenerative textile design. She is a lecturer and doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Arts.
Photo: Kärt Petser
Marta Konovalov Workshop “Mundane Spots”
Friday 22 August, 2025
You are invited to Marta Konovalov’s home and garden. There you will have the possibility to investigate the development of the aesthetics of affect and promote emotional durability. To be engaged with my practice – to repair and to regenerate textiles. Or just to observe. I will also invite you for a walk in the landscape and my garden. To share some food together.
–
Please bring some textile artefacts or a piece of clothing with you – something that has worn out or perhaps has stains or holes. I will appreciate it if you will bring your observations and ideas.
You will meet all sorts of critters there. Your kin and children are also welcome.
Hope to see you soon, at the periphery.
Marta
Location: Veisjärve Village; Viljandi County
Duration: 22.08.2025 12.00–17.30
Language: English and Estonian
Contact: marta.konovalov@artun.ee
+37256630717
Registration: https://forms.gle/hgA818TaHnjMv15o7
Marta Konovalov is a designer-researcher, craftivist and educator focusing on repair and regenerative textile design. She is a lecturer and doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Arts.
Photo: Kärt Petser
23.08.2025 — 24.08.2025
VARES “Material Purgatory” Residency Finishing
23.-24. August in Valga
Yet another residency is coming to an end and we invite everyone to participate in the closing event of “Material Purgatory” residency and together with us celebrate the last weekends of summer in VARES.
In the beginning of July, four architects and artists – Beate Zavadska, Aivar Tõnso, Mia Maripuu and Stephanie Cellier – gathered in VARES to rummage through the sheds, attics and garages of our house and Valga, searching for poetry, potential and creative application of materials that are spending their retirement in forgotten storage spaces. Materials piles, where there is not enough stuff for starting a new project, but enough to not be thrown out. The quartet, who spent six weeks in Valga, have dissected this topic from different perspectives, have been exploring the installations of local material collectors-self-builders, playing with the peculiar sounds of found materials and mapping the nature of material storage spaces.
Now we invite you to come and participate in the residency’s public event for the weekend, where the program will include presentations of the residents’ thoughts and installations, lectures by guest speakers, VARES tour of Valga on bikes and the cozy VARESE pop-up bar in the Supibasiilika.
PROGRAM:
SATURDAY 23.08:
15:00 Introduction of the residents works
17:00 Lecture / presentation by stuudio Kollektiir (Mari Uibo and Rait Lõhmus)
21:00 Concert and VARES bar (Riia 5, Kreisihoone courtyard)
SUNDAY 24.08
11:00 VARES bunch in the residency courtyard, Uus 35. Bring something for the table!
13:00 VARES bike tour of Valga (max 10 people due to limit of bikes, more can join with their own bicycles)
A more detailed program will be gradually published on our website and social media channels. Registration form for guests wishing to stay overnight HERE.
Residency partners and supporters: European Culture Capital Tartu 2024, Estonian Culture Ministry, Estonian Culture Endowment, Valga county.
See you on August 23-24 in Valga! All friends and family are welcome!
VARES “Material Purgatory” Residency Finishing
Saturday 23 August, 2025 — Sunday 24 August, 2025
23.-24. August in Valga
Yet another residency is coming to an end and we invite everyone to participate in the closing event of “Material Purgatory” residency and together with us celebrate the last weekends of summer in VARES.
In the beginning of July, four architects and artists – Beate Zavadska, Aivar Tõnso, Mia Maripuu and Stephanie Cellier – gathered in VARES to rummage through the sheds, attics and garages of our house and Valga, searching for poetry, potential and creative application of materials that are spending their retirement in forgotten storage spaces. Materials piles, where there is not enough stuff for starting a new project, but enough to not be thrown out. The quartet, who spent six weeks in Valga, have dissected this topic from different perspectives, have been exploring the installations of local material collectors-self-builders, playing with the peculiar sounds of found materials and mapping the nature of material storage spaces.
Now we invite you to come and participate in the residency’s public event for the weekend, where the program will include presentations of the residents’ thoughts and installations, lectures by guest speakers, VARES tour of Valga on bikes and the cozy VARESE pop-up bar in the Supibasiilika.
PROGRAM:
SATURDAY 23.08:
15:00 Introduction of the residents works
17:00 Lecture / presentation by stuudio Kollektiir (Mari Uibo and Rait Lõhmus)
21:00 Concert and VARES bar (Riia 5, Kreisihoone courtyard)
SUNDAY 24.08
11:00 VARES bunch in the residency courtyard, Uus 35. Bring something for the table!
13:00 VARES bike tour of Valga (max 10 people due to limit of bikes, more can join with their own bicycles)
A more detailed program will be gradually published on our website and social media channels. Registration form for guests wishing to stay overnight HERE.
Residency partners and supporters: European Culture Capital Tartu 2024, Estonian Culture Ministry, Estonian Culture Endowment, Valga county.
See you on August 23-24 in Valga! All friends and family are welcome!