Open Lectures

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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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.-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!

Estonian Academy of Arts Science Cafe is hosting a roundtable talk on the changing roles of religious and industrial buildings in contemporary Europe on the 4th of September from 1 to 3 pm at the Narva Art Residency (NART, Joala 18) as part of the Station Narva festival.

The event will be held both onsite and online from HERE.

Estonian Academy of Arts Science Cafe focuses on the shifting roles of religious and industrial buildings in contemporary Europe. As congregations shrink and industries relocate, churches and factories alike are increasingly left vacant, raising complex questions about reuse, heritage, and identity. The discussion will address how these spaces are being reimagined—as museums, cultural centres, or residential developments—and what this reveals about broader societal transformations in both secular and post-industrial contexts.

The discussion will feature musicologist and journalist Brigitta Davidjants, associate professor of social innovation at the University of Tartu Marko Uibu, Auxiliary Bishop of the Patriarchate of Lisbon (Portugal) and Associate Professor at the Portuguese Catholic University – Faculty of Theology Alexandre Palma. The talk will be moderated by art historian and semiotician Gregor Taul. 

The event requires pre-registration by August 29. A free bus service is provided from Tallinn to Narva and back, departing from EKA. More information is available upon pre-registration.

After the Science Café, you are welcome to attend the Station Narva opening concert featuring Estonian Voices at 5:30 PM in the Rugodivi Culture House, Grand Hall. Admission is free, and doors open at 5:00 PM.

More information: triin.kao@artun.ee
Facebook event.

The event will take place under the auspices of the Transform4Europe Alliance — a collaborative network of 11 European universities focused on climate change, digitalisation, and social challenges — and is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

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The English saying “keep the church in the village” means “do not cause an uproar.” There are similar sayings in German, French and many other European languages. With some differences, they denote that the church forms the centre of community, the basis of identity, but also, in a figurative sense, the embodiment of common sense. Despite the geographical scope and cultural differences in Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran countries this has been the case in all of Europe. However, recent times have brought changes. Industrialisation, secular modernisation and large-scale urban planning schemes have shifted the principles of how communities are formed. This was especially so in the fundamentally atheist Soviet Union. For example in Soviet Estonia only a few religious edifices were erected between 1944 and 1991. 

The number of church-goers has also declined. As a result some churches have lost their congregations. This has raised the question of how to treat the disused churches? The situation resembles that of the post-industrial shift. Starting from the 1970s European manufacturers have left the continent in search of cheaper labour and thus the abandoned factories have made way for the birth of ‘creative cities’ – we have seen empty factories first used as squats and informal project spaces, then as gentrified creative quarters and eventually becoming expensive lofts. As for the repurposed religious buildings there are more thought-provoking examples where former religious buildings have been turned into museums, bookshops, concert halls or even swimming pools. As adaptive reuse of spaces and materials is becoming a legislative requirement in Europe, we will see more such examples in the near future. 

At the backdrop of a contemporary music festival, Narva’s fabled industrial legacy and the crossroads of divergent (religious) identities this roundtable will look at both historic case studies and current disputes concerning religious and industrial heritage in Europe.

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Brigitta Davidjants is a journalist and researcher at Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Estonia. In her academic research, she looks at national identity constructions and the marginalities of subcultures.

Marko Uibu is an Estonian social scientist and Associate Professor of Social Innovation at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu. His 2016 doctoral dissertation in University of Tartu was called “Religiosity as Cultural Toolbox: a Study of Estonian New Spirituality”.

Alexandre Palma is a theologian, Auxiliary Bishop and university professor. He is an assistant professor at the Catholic University (courses: Mystery of God; Christology; and Theology of Religions) and a researcher at the CITER – Research Center for Theology and Religion Studies. He also serves as Auxiliary Bishop of the Patriarchate of Lisbon (Portugal) and is a member of the European Society for Catholic Theology and of the Seminar of young scientists of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.

Gregor Taul is a teacher, critic, and curator based in Tallinn, working as an associate professor in the Departments of Interior Architecture and General Theory Classes at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In his academic research, he focuses on art in public space, with a particular interest in Soviet-era monuments and murals as well as contemporary public art commissions.

Dominic Redfern
Neither Artificial, Nor Intelligent

Bernard Stiegler argued that humans and technology are co-constituted; humans are not separate from and do not precede technology, but instead, human evolution is entangled with the emergence and evolution of technics, a process he calls “technogenesis”. For Stiegler, humans are “always already” technological. This idea seems particularly relevant as we negotiate the present and future with AI.

Since DALL-E 2 launched it 2022, AI has gone viral.

What is AI?

What are the implications for artists and creatives?

What are artists doing with this technology?

How can AI art reflect our historical moment meaningfully?

Dominic Redfern will offer some thoughts on these questions in his lecture and offer a short reflection on his own explorations with this uncanny technology.

Dominic Redfern is a male presenting, settler Australian. He has been exhibiting video since 1997. Dominic has had three key bodies of work: a decade on performed identity; a decade of environmental studies; and his current return to abstraction and process once again addressing questions around identity and subjectivity. Across his career he has been supported by various municipalities, the ARC, the Australia Council for the Arts, and state arts funding bodies. Dominic has undertaken site-responsive projects in Brazil, the USA, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Germany, and France. He is an Associate Professor at RMIT’s School of Art.

PARA-EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH SEMINAR BY PROF. DR. NORA STERNFELD
in collaboration with Grégoire Rousseau, Mira Samonig and Julia Stolba

How can educational and curatorial practices of knowledge production challenge what can be said, done and seen? In an international transdisciplinary research seminar, we think about educational research and exhibition studies within and beyond the exhibition, about case studies within and beyond the canon and about research within and beyond western methodologies.

Running from Monday, 2^nd of June – Saturday, 7^th of June 2025 at EKA, the seminar is an ongoing open context for researchers in educational research and exhibition studies. It follows strategies of knowledge production as exploration, investigation, imagination and reflection. Although registration at the seminar is now closed, feel free to drop by and listen in if you are interested.

Join us for the public radio broadcast about ‘para-educational research’ aired by Station of Commons!

Thursday, 5^th of June 2025 from 5pm – in Tallinn at ETC (Niine 8a) or from anywhere via stationofcommons.com.

On May 30, at 3 p.m in EKA White House 

The work of Bart Hess is of the most tactile and intuitive nature. Crossing boundaries between design, fashion and art, his oeuvre is a series of studies into materiality, (virtual) reality and technology. He is fascinated by the human body, which he tends to cloak in ways that have little to do with styling or fashion but more so with performance art and science fiction. Hess makes material studies, (animation) video’s and photographs with the relationship between man and material, nature and technology at the centre. In his work he’s looking for the tension between attraction and repulsion when exploring the intimate relationship that materials have with our skin.

Textile 110 is a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of EKA’s textile design education, as part of which a series of open lectures focusing on textiles will be held, a series of publications will be published, and a selection of works from the EKA Museum’s textile collection can be seen throughout the year.

The lecture series opens up the spectrum of diverse opportunities in the field of textiles, both in design, industry, and creative practices, bringing out different roles and methods of creation in the field through various invited guests.

Supported by the Research Fund of EKA and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia