Open Lectures

Paulius Petraitis will hold an artist talk at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 25 in EKA room A-501.

The artist has been invited to hold a masterclass “Images in Conflict: How to Respond to War?” in the department of photography on October 24–28.

Everyone is invited to take part in the artist talk!

Paulius Petraitis is an artist-theorist and independent curator based in Vilnius. Much of his work explores the role of technology in meaning-making and examines ways in which photographic images function in online and offline environments. Petraitis curated On Photographic Beings (2020) at the Latvian National Museum of Art and Vorsprung durch Technik (2021) at Atletika in Vilnius.

His personal project A man with dark hair and a sunset in the background (2017-20) explores visual recognition through a dialogue-based approach with an image interpretation software, and was published by 6 chairs books and  Lugemik.

His artist’s books are held in numerous institutional collections, including libraries at MoMA, The Met, MACBA, as well as Clark Art Institute and Joan Flasch Collection.

Garage48, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Research Council and TSENTER Competence Center invite you to create the future of wood. This time all the creative and out of the box ideas are welcome to rebuild Ukraine in a green and sustainable manner. 

Ukraine has been fighting a war on their home since February 24th. They need our ongoing support now as much as when the invasion began. We believe that the Future of Wood makeathon can be a place to contribute to this matter. Let’s create collaboration between Estonia and Ukraine to build, create and revalue the use of wood, for the purpose of rebuilding in Ukraine.

The end result we seek at the makeathon is either physical or digital prototypes. So whether you are someone who works with a CNC machine, a chisel or a laptop – we welcome you. We’re welcoming students, working practitioners, experts and enthusiasts. You can join with or without an idea, as an individual or a team.

The focus topic this year are:

• Modular, circular and climate neutral construction;
• Technologies for rapid design, engineering and production;
• Smart valorization of biomass in construction and long-lasting products;
• Roll-up, Fold-up, Flip-up, Pack-up – products that fit perfectly into, onto or next to modular buildings.

See more information about the machinery available, our experts and the focus topics on our website

SIGN UP NOW

Pre-event

Estonian Research Council and EAS are hosting a SekMo (sectorial mobility measure) cooperation day for entrepreneurs and researchers that will be focused on wood. It is a great way to have 1:1 discussions between entrepreneurs and researchers regarding their problems and field of study. Use this opportunity to build a base for future cooperation and brainstorm ideas that can be turned into a physical prototype at the Garage48 Future of Wood: Rebuild Ukraine makeathon.

More information

Register 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at noora@garage48.org

Põhja puiestee 7, Tallinn – Estonia Academy of Arts

Garage48 Future of Wood 2022 is financed by the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Estonian Research Council, and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Warum Berlin?

We continue digging into Berlin’s architectural landscape. What is being done in this city, which architecture offices operate in Berlin, what is being built and what is being thought about: the series of open architecture lectures of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will travel to the capital of Germany and one of the most colourful metropolises in Europe this fall, with architects from Berlin as guests.

According to the curator of the lecture program, Johan Tali, Berlin is loaded. On the one hand, due to its tragic past, the wounds of which have to be dealt with in the urban space until now. On the other hand, hundreds of communities with different cultures gather in Berlin, and the result is one of the largest cultural compotes in Europe.

On October 13, architect, entrepreneur and spatial innovation studio Urban Beta and co-founder of the architectural firm Bart // Bratke Marvin Bratke will be on stage with a lecture “Circular Futures. Architecture for a Post-Growth Society”.

Bart // Bratke is a research and architecture studio based in London and Berlin, founded to create visions of future mobility and architectural research touchpoints. They realize their multidisciplinary and functional concepts in planning versatile spaces of the future. Urban Beta offers technological solutions for carbon-negative modular system buildings included in the circular economy.

The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines – not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties.

Every academic year, the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch previous years’ lectures on YouTube and www.avatudloengud.ee

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

Curator: Johan Tali

Save the date!

More info soon!

BUY TICKETS HERE

19.00 – Speeches, workshops, house tours
19.30 – Music by Andres Lõo
20.00 – Auction
21.45 – Cake
22.00 – The Boondocks
23.00 – DJ Raul Saaremets

Buy the tickets from Fienta: https://fienta.com/eka-108.
Discounted tickets (5€ for alumni and employees and 3€ for students) available until 28th October!

An art auction is planned, where the works of both alumni and students will be sold. With the collected money, we support young artists.

The majors organize workshops, Ülle Marks together with the students makes an unforgettable drawing spectacle, there are excursions in the exhibition and in the building of the EKA museum.

Bars and cafes are open.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/3214788912109329

On September 29, Jan Edler from the architecture studio realities:united will be on the EKA main hall stage in Tallinn with the lecture “Potential Driven Design”. Brothers Jan and Tim Edle – co-founders of the transdisciplinary art group “Kunst und Technik” (1997–2000) originally operating in Berlin – created the art and architecture studio realities:united in 2000. The studio has gained international recognition with art and hybrid art installations on an architectural and urban scale.   

The Open Lecture Series of the EKA Architecture Faculty will explore Berlin this fall. Johan Tali, the curator of the autumn programme considers Berlin one of the most exciting multicultural metropolises in Europe, a city that has many similarities – both in terms of history and modernity – with the cities of Estonia: “Berlin is loaded. On the one hand, due to its tragic past, the wounds of which have to be actively dealt with in the urban space. On the other hand, due to the hundreds of communities with different cultures gathering in Berlin, and the result is one of the largest culturally diverse hotspots in Europe.”

According to Tali, transnational Berlin can be seen as one of the prototypes of an urbanized society of the future, where a bohemian meets a techno-utopian or an eco-warrior. Berlin is constantly changing, and its architecture firms and practitioners play an important role in steering this change, constantly redefining what we consider important in the urban environment. From September to December, a total of five architects based in Berlin will be on stage in the EKA hall.

The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch lectures from previous years on YouTube.

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

Curator: Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee

More info:
Tiina Tammet
arhitektuur@artun.ee
+372 642 0071

In the fall of 2022, Narva Art Residency’s international artists are going to give online lectures to tell in detail about the practice of a professional artist, what the everyday life of art residencies looks like, and how to take part in the opportunities offered. It’s a possibility for the wider English-speaking audience to get to know 6 professional artists and learn their tricks and tips as well learn about their artistc practices. Online lectures take place every two weeks starting from the 15th of September. Each time at 18 o’clock in the evening.

The lecture series is broadcasted at the EKA TV webpage – a platform of the Estonian Academy of Arts. The lectures will be available also for viewing later.

EKA TV link:  https://tv.artun.ee/nartavatudloengud/7reYLVjZtv

Schedule:
15.09 at 18.00 Kenneth Bamberg

29.09 at 18.00 Jacque Falcheti 

13.10 at 18.00 TBA

27.10 at 18.00 TBA

10.11 at 18.00 TBA

24.11 at 18.00 TBA

The first lecture is by Kenneth Bamberg, who is spenting a 3-month residency in Narva. He is a Finnish photography artist from the Åland Islands who explores the different angles cultural and traditional ways of expressing masculinity.

The second lecture is by Jacque Falcheti, a singer and songwriter from Brazil. She already took part in the Station Narva festival and will write 6 songs during the time of the residency about Narva.

Open Dual Lecture on Monday: two speakers, one global issue – housing crisis 

On September 5, the Estonian Academy of Arts will organize an open conversation/ lecture with two speakers, where academic knowledge and business experience will join forces to discuss an important topic in both Estonia and Europe – the looming housing crisis. The conversation/lecture will take place in the Botik bar of Põhjala Factory in Tallinn. Doors open at 5.30 p.m., the event with live broadcast starts at 6 p.m.

On behalf of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Dr. Sille Pihlak, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Architecture, Sara Paganin, head of social housing, Finanziaria Internazionale Investments SGR SpA, Conegliano/Milano, will arrive in Tallinn from Italy. The conversation will be moderated by Madle Lippus, deputy mayor responsible for urban planning issues in Tallinn.

The real estate price rally has created a situation in major Estonian cities where there is not enough affordable housing available for either renting or buying. People in households with lower incomes find themselves in a particularly difficult situation – and once they are forced to move further away from their workplaces, to places where housing is cheaper, there will in turn be greater pressure on the city’s transport network, and the ecological footprint of the citizens and thus the city will increase.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the standard project of the so-called Lender’s house was developed in Tallinn, which offered the opportunity to build affordable and need-based housing for people who had just moved to the city. Today, we do not have such a solution for affordable housing. But what would it take to develop it? How to create a standard project of an affordable community-needs-driven apartment building, and what would it require from the developers, the communities themselves, the local government and the state? How to make sure a firefighter and a teacher could also afford to live in Kadriorg, Kalamaja, or in the city center? What should be changed in the structure of our apartment buildings – architecturally – to make housing more affordable, how to divide and share the space? We will talk of all this on September 5th, analysing Italian experience, considering the possibilities provided by contemporary architecture and construction technology, and searching for solutions in dialogue that would be suitable in Tallinn.

The relevance of the topic is evidenced by the fact that two of the seven finalists for the 2022 Mies van der Rohe architecture award, the largest architectural award in the European Union, were community apartment building projects built from wood: the La Borda co-operative building in Barcelona and the 85 social apartments project in Cornellà. There are already communities and developers in Estonia as well, who have set as their main goal the creation of denser, more cohesive, and therefore more resilient communities.

The lecture is open to all interested parties, but community leaders, real estate developers, urban planners, architects and interior architects, and officials dealing with planning in local governments are especially welcome.

This public dual lecture takes place within the framework of the Transform4Europe project: T4EU, consisting of seven universities, operates under the European Universities Initiative with the aim of making European higher education more competitive, based on European values ​​and identity. The focus of the Transform4Europe project is primarily the issues of the digital transformation and digital smart regions, environmental issues and sustainability, social development, community development and inclusion. The housing crisis issue, which will be discussed in Tallinn on September 5, is connected to all these topics.

More information: http://www.transform4europe.eu 

EKA website in Estonian: https://www.artun.ee/akadeemia/rahvusvaheline/t4eu 

What is the essence of the housing crisis? What is the Transform4Europe project? Find out more here and join us at Botik!

Social Design Days

8-9 September, EKA

In Estonia, 40.000 children are affected by mental illness. €164 million worth of food is discarded every year. And there is an urgent need to understand the difficult experience of the over 45.000 Ukrainian refugees that have arrived to our country. How could an expertise in social design help us to deal with these issues?

Twenty-two professionals in the field are meeting at the Estonian Academy of Arts to discuss questions such as: 

• What is the political impact of design?
• Why is design a social practice?
• And can we understand social transformations with design techniques?

The frontiers of design are rapidly expanding within society; In the recent years, design practice has moved beyond the ideation of commercial products and is more and more considered as a set of techniques for engaging with complex problems.  Hence, there is a need to open up the roles of design within wider economic and political issues.

As explained by Bori Fehér, leader of the Social Design Research HUB at MOME: “This event will contribute to giving form to a rapidly expanding field of study, developing new ways of inclusive design and social intervention in Estonia”.

EKA is opening a new MA programme in Social Design. Students will gain an understanding of design as a political force, while expanding their capacity to intervene in contemporary issues and comprehend social transformations.

Experienced colleagues from all over Europe are joining us to discuss the key questions in the field. For instance, Guy Julier has written about activism and the economies of design; Jesko Fezer about architecture and community making; Eeva Berglund about how to research environmental activism; Adam Drazin about design anthropology; Jussi Koitela about hospitality and interdisciplinary projects; Maija Rozenfelde about design institutions; Liene Ozoliņa about social theory; Bianca Herlo about bottom-up politics and civic infrastructures; and Alvise Mattozzi about innovation and sustainability, just to name a few key topics of expertise. 

Likewise, we are organising a series of experimental workshops and fieldtrips with local and international colleagues, exploring a wide range of issues, such as multi-species communication, mental health and indigenous rights.

As a result, Tallinn will become the European capital of Social Design in September.

Thursday, 8 September A-101

10:30 Round table: What can social design promise?

Participants: Bori Fehér (MOME Budapest), Guy Julier (Aalto), Alvise Mattozzi (Politecnico Torino), Ruth-H. Melioranski (EKA)

13:30 Open formats A-307

• Feral Tracking / Multispecies Conversari by Hermione Spriggs (UCL)
• Design for advocacy in the Global South by Nathaly Pinto (Aalto)

16:00 Field visit to Paljassaare by Andra Aaloe

Friday, 9 September A-306

10:15 Round table: When, where, with whom, what for? The social is not singular

Participants: Eeva Berglund (Aalto), Jesko Fezer (HFBK Hamburg), Bianca Herlo (UDK Berlin), Liene Ozoliņa (Latvian Academy of Culture)

13:15 Round Table: How do we evaluate interdisciplinary projects?

Participants: Adam Drazin (UCL), Jussi Koitela (Frame Finland); Maija Rozenfelde (Art Academy of Latvia), Indrek Sirkel (EKA)

15:00 Open Format: Social Design projects in EKA

• Ott Kagovere & Sandra Nuut: snail mail, redesigning the times and spaces that we give ourselves to say and understand things
• Eva Liisa Kubinyi & Maarja Mõtus, mitigating mental health problems among youth 
• Kristi Kuusk, social design for children with special needs
• Urmas Lüüs, loneliness of elderly people

16:15 Field visit to Lasnamäe by Maria Derlõš

Please, register here.

For more details, please contact:
Francisco Martínez
francisco.martinez@artun.ee / +372 58038079

This project of the Baltic-German University Liaison Office is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic Germany.

On September 6, 2022, the Estonian Academy of Arts will organize a conference analyzing the vast scope of possibilities for innovation in the era of digital reality, looking more specifically into the fields of architecture, spatial design, creativity, innovation, and design education in relation to the possibilities offered by the means of digital reality.

PROGRAM

There is no fee for the conference, but you are kindly asked to sign up in advance.

The previous conference of the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture dissecting digital reality took place in 2019. In the years since, the world around us has changed – many say, irreversibly.

The pandemic hit the global economy and culture with unprecedented force, forcing all to restructure our lives, businesses and leisure habits. The global wave of lockdowns catalyzed e-commerce, distance learning and work-from-home, as well as all digital platforms. Innovations in digital reality have gained momentum and have now become a source of completely new possibilities.

The concept of innovation radiates throughout the economy and culture today. It has been argued that for innovation to be radical, it must be design-based. We can trace logical steps from creativity and invention to design and innovation in our lives. It can be assumed that the design thinking that was highly promoted in recent decades was a bit premature. Only now, with the emergence of digital reality, has it become fully meaningful – through digital platforms, most human labor is being pre-designed.

At the conference, we will speculate on the future of space, architecture, creation, innovation and design education in the age of digital reality. Dr. Roberto Verganti will dissect innovation as the keynote speaker at the conference with his lecture titled “Design-Driven Innovation and Radical Invention of Arts”. Speakers include Emil Adamec (Brno University of Technology, Charles University), Gao Xu (Taiyuan University of Technology), Cheng Lu(Cardiff University), Max Eschenbach and Prof. Dr. Oliver Tessmann(Darmstadt University of Technology), Prof. Roemer van Toorn (UMA School of Architecture), Dr. Siim Tuksam (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Martin Melioranski (Estonian Academy of Arts). The sessions are moderated by Professor Toomas Tammis and Professor Dr. Andres Kurg. The panel discussion will be moderated by Dr. Jüri Soolep.

The conference takes place within the TAB Tallinn Architecture Biennale, always aimed at looking boldly into the future.

More about the conference.

The conference is supported by the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Estonian Association of Architects, the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and the European Regional Development Fund.