Category: Doctoral School

Karolin Poska’s site-specific performance Krutski / Spatial Mischief peer-review will take place on May 19 at 10-30-12.00 in the Estonian Academy of Arts White Building, room V-308.
Reviewers are Prof. Annette Arlander (Uniarts Helsingi) and  Rasmus Jensen (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre)
Supervisor: Dr. Liina Unt (University of Tartu)

Spatial Mischief is part of Karolin Poska’s doctoral research, which explores fragmentation as a strategy within site-specific performance-making. In this creative work, Poska investigates how autoethnographic storytelling, performative actions, and audience participation can disrupt and reconfigure the habitual processes and spatial experience of a harbour terminal. The performance takes place in Tallinn’s D-terminal — a space that functions simultaneously as a transit corridor and an emotionally charged meeting point.

Throughout the research process, Poska has employed embodiment, role-play, and ethnographic observation in order to engage with the harbour as a system in constant transformation. The dramaturgy of Spatial Mischief emerges from the rhythms of the harbour itself — arrivals, departures, waiting, and anticipation — revealing the personal, social, and performative layers embedded within the site.

More info and tickets to the performance:  https://fienta.com/et/o/6157
Performances on 15th and 18th May are in English.

On 7 May, from 12:30 to 14:00, the pre-review of Art and Design doctoral student Mariliis Siigart’s first doctoral project will take place at the EKA Materials Lab, White house, room 003 (Kotzebue 10).

The supervisor of the doctoral project are Kärt Ojavee, PhD (EKA) and Grete Arro, PhD (Tallinn University)
The reviewers are Katrin Männik, PhD (TLÜ), and Helen Orav-Kotta, PhD (TÜ).

Bladderwrack Metamorphosis is the first peer-reviewed creative project in Mariliis Siigart’s artistic research doctoral thesis, Experimental Biocomposites and Their Application in Sustainable Design and in Raising Consumer Awareness through Education.

As a practical case study, the project examines algae-based biomaterials and their possible applications. The work focuses on material creation as an iterative process of formation. Where choices related to substances, procedures, conditions and intended use influence the properties, possible applications and meaning of the biomaterial being developed.

This case study provides a foundation for further research aimed at developing an analytical approach to material creation and, on that basis, designing didactic and methodological solutions through which the creation and interpretation of biomaterials can be applied both in technology education within basic education and more broadly in design and educational contexts.

On 18 May, 2026 Taavet Jansen, doctoral student of Art and Design curriculum, will defend his doctoral thesis „ Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre“ („Kehata kohalolu: voogteatri kontseptuaalne ja praktiline kaardistus“).
The public defense will take place at 10.00 at EKA (Põhja pst 7), room A101.
The defence will be held in Estonian. The defence will be broadcast on EKA TV.

Supervisor: Dr. Anu Allas (Estonian Academy of Arts)
External reviewers: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)
Dr. Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Opponent: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)

Thesis is available in EKA digital repository.

Theatre has long operated as an artistic practice grounded in the encounter of bodies within the same space. Contemporary culture, however, no longer limits itself to physical encounters, but extends its trajectories everywhere through digital means and virtual spaces. A large part of our communication, work, and self-expression takes place digitally, mediated through screens. In such a situation, a question has emerged: what new forms, spaces, and experiences can theatre create for itself in the digital sphere?

At the centre of this doctoral dissertation is livestreamed theatre, a form of performance in which presence, space, and audience participation function on different premises than in conventional theatre. Livestreamed theatre is situated at the point of contact between theatre, film, online environments, and interactive media, and is grounded in a real-time event in which performers and spectators share a common time, but not a common space.

How can one create an experience that does not appear merely as a transmission, but as an artistic encounter? What possibilities are offered by technology, dramaturgy, and the active participation of the spectator? And what does all this mean for theatre more broadly, at a time when art must increasingly relate to the possibilities offered by digital environments?

To open up these questions, the author employs a practice-led research methodology, drawing on three artistic experiments — Wolves, Memento, and Inimeses hoitud — mapping the modes of operation of livestreamed theatre, the possibilities of audience participation, and testing its limits. Through these three projects, the work moves from video transmission toward interactive hybrid spaces, observing how the role of the performer, the position of the spectator, the experience of space, and the participants’ understanding of presence shift.

“Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre” approaches livestreamed theatre not as a peripheral phenomenon, but as a possible new form of theatre. The dissertation offers both a conceptual and a practical mapping of a field in which theatre seeks new forms of life in digital spaces and experiments with how to remain alive in a world that is increasingly at once material and digital.

The peer-review of PhD student Maria Erikson’s exhibition “Imprint of Vulnearbility” will take place on Friday, April 17th, 11:30–13:00, at EKA Printmaking Studio (B409) and via Zoom (Meeting ID: 679 0217 2738, Passcode: 155386). The event is in English.

The exhibition is a creative project of Erikson’s practice-based artistic research Matrix, Trace, and Feminist Possibilities: Reimagining Printmaking as a Space of Material Agency and Embodied Knowledge.

Reviewers: Dr. Daina Pupkevičiūtė (Lithuania) and Sveta Grigorjeva
Supervisors: Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu) and Jaana Kokko (PhD candidate Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland)

“Every heart is broken!” writes Rick Dolphijn, framing the wound not as something to be healed but lived. Maria Erikson’s first artistic component, Imprint of Vulnerability, explores the wounding inherent in printmaking processes while drawing connections between the female body and geological endurance in the context of the matrixial sphere.

Focusing on female experience and the human condition, Erikson’s practice explores contact and materiality between human and non-human bodies through methodology of print and process-driven inquiry. Working across printmaking, sculpture, and installation, she explores emergence of material knowledge through their agentic capacities and bodiliness. Materials such as stone, gum arabic, and cheesecloth are no longer merely tools but carriers of meaning, enacting imprinting, pressure, and separation.

Imprint of Vulnerability is a duo exhibition with Mari Männa, curated by Madli Ljutjuk (Tallinn Art Hall), and is on view at Tallinn City Gallery until April 12th, 2026.

On March 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Joanna Kalm’s 2nd artistic research project, Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming will take place via Zoom (LINK, Meeting ID: 650 0507 1283, Passcode:  902366)

The doctoral thesis supervisors are Liina Unt, PhD (University of Tartu) and Leena Rouhiainen, DA (University of the Arts Helsinki).
The project reviewers are Ilmari Kortelainen, PhD (University of the Arts Helsinki) and Giacomo Veronesi, PhD (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre).

Joanna Kalm’s artistic research draws on somatic co- and self-regulation theory and is grounded in the organism’s capacity for self-organization—manifesting both at the level of the body-self and the group—with the aim of co-creating inclusive, body-based practices and spaces. Kalm approaches somatic embodiment through posthumanist and new materialist philosophy, as well as through theories of cellular consciousness and organism-oriented ontology.
One focus of the research is to examine the possible modes of being-moving of the body-self, grounded in attentive self-listening and the dynamic processes of the body-self (somatic agency). The second focus addresses the intra-active relationship between somatic embodiment and practice under development (approached as an apparatus), asking: which parameters of practice are supportive of somatic co- and self-regulation? how does an artistic-somatic embodiment approach shape the ways the practice and space function-operate?

Kalm’s 2nd peer-reviewed project Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming is based on somatic self- and other-awareness in support of embodied being-engagement, which in turn grounds the collaborative process in which the practice framework emerges and is developed in relations. One of the key focuses of research and practice is response-ability – to one’s own process and to the group members as well as to spatial dynamics. Given that the body and the environment are co-emergent and in an intra-active relation, to what extent do we allow ourselves to truly participate in this co-becoming? And to what extent is the environment (as a socio-material process) capable of considering and responding to the differences of its participants? Thus, this practice is an attempt to move beyond the invisible and silencing boundary (is it real or habitual?) between oneself and space.

The somatic practice sessions Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming will take place throughout March 10-14 at ARS Art Factory, daily at 4pm and on Saturday both at 12pm and 4pm.

More information and registration: https://fienta.com/et/ruumitoonimine-kaaskujunemise-praktika 

Kristina Norman invites audiences to the English-language version of her performance The Dew Point at Kanuti Gildi Saal on 18 and 19 March at 19:30. The performance on 18 March will be followed by a public pre-review of the work as part of the artist’s doctoral project, provisionally titled Making strategic entanglements and inhabiting heterotopia within creative practice as research.

Reviewers: Victoria Donovan and Madli Pesti
Doctoral supervisor: Dr. Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts)

The central question of Norman’s research concerns the emancipatory potential of strategically interweaving life stories and spaces as a structure-generating method within her artistic practice. In her doctoral work, Norman aims to analyse and conceptualize how these entanglements of spaces and voices emerge and are activated through creative-practice-as-research, and how they contribute to the deconstruction and decolonization of existing narratives and environments.

The performance The Dew Point was developed around the concept of liminality, which has been extended to spatial and built environments, geographical contexts, everyday and historical experiences and practices, as well as collective historical memory. In this work, Norman employs the entanglement of testimonies and spaces connected to wars and militarism as a method for examining the enduring presence of Soviet militarism and its intergenerational impact.

Against the backdrop of ongoing and accelerating militarization, the piece explores the potential for creating shared sites of memory within a divided society by bringing together spatial environments and voices from different memory communities.

More information about the performance and tickets: https://saal.ee/en/performance/the-dew-point-2006/

I am my own space. I will be space for you, and you for me. We will gather in this room to offer ourselves and the other a space that listens and responds. We meet the challenge of embodying a practice that shapeshifts with the participants’ body-selves. To respond and be response-able. We are aware that bodies materialize – become – within relations, that the body and space share a story of formation. Space and body tune and tone one another, hold one another. What kind of space are we crafting here with our presences and engagements, for oneself and for others? Space is always an affective doing. We invite into play on the porous boundary of self and space, where the self-process becomes part of the we-process and the other way around (if and when did they become separated?). If you dare to open the surfaces of your cells, diverse body tones field into space, touch others and re-form the boundaries of our practice and inform what becomes emergent. I add a heightened squeal. Here, space can also ooze into you. Re-pattern you. If you decide to let it. What kind of space do you need for becoming…?

***

From March 10–14, ARS Art Factory Studios 98 and 53 will transform into inclusive spaces for embodied being and engagement. Daily somatic artistic research sessions focused on contemporary embodiment – Spacetuning. A Practice of Co-Becoming – are held and open for joining.
Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming is the 2nd artistic research project of Joanna Kalm’s doctoral studies at Estonian Academy of Arts.

Rooted in body-based self- and other-perception, the practice brings attention to the materialization process of body-selves in relation to the environment and offers possibilities for alternate ways of co-becoming. The practice is embodied by dance artists Helina Karvak, Joanna Kalm, Nele Kotli, Laura Kvelstein, and Rasmus Stenager Jensen. Together, they take on the challenge of embodying a space that listens and responds, capable of transforming alongside the body-selves present.

The practice welcomes diverse forms of participation guided by an individual’s perception of the moment, while inviting awareness of one’s role as a witness, experiencer, and co-creator.

Schedule of practice room:

10.03 3pm open space*, 4-6pm practice, 6pm open space

11.03 3pm open space, 4-6pm practice, 6pm open space

12.03 11am open space, 12-2pm practice, 2pm break, 3pm open space, 4-6pm practice, 6pm open space
13.03 3pm open space, 4-6pm practice, 6pm open space

14.03 11am open space, 12-2pm practice, 2pm break, 3pm open space, 4-6pm practice, 6pm open space

*The room is open one hour before and after practice in support of calm and gradual arrival into embodied presence and the space, affording free time for being-engaging and for becoming acquainted with the surroundings.

Register your participation: https://fienta.com/et/o/5991

 Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming is based on somatic self- and other-awareness, supports embodied being-engagement and somatic sense-making, which in turn grounds the collaborative process of how the practice framework forms and is formed in relations. One of the key focuses of research and practice is response-ability – to one’s own process and to the group members as well as to spatial dynamics. Given that the body and the environment are co-emergent and in intra-active relationships, to what extent do we allow ourselves to truly participate in this co-becoming? Do we know how and dare to affect the becoming of the environment with our own processes? And to what extent is the environment (as a socio-material process) capable of considering and responding to the differences of its participants? Thus, this practice is an attempt to move beyond the invisible and silent boundary (is it real or habitual?) between oneself and space, where personal processes are kept within (to what extent is personal really personal?), and where the environment tends to perceive and respond only to a small extent. It is an attempt to move from embodied presence and awareness to engagement with – to inclusive action, response and co-becoming, where the body-self is more broadly involved.

Spacetuning. A practice of co-becoming is the 2nd artistic research project of Joanna Kalm’s doctoral studies at Estonian Academy of Arts. Kalm’s artistic research draws on somatic co- and self-regulation theory and is grounded in the organism’s capacity for self-organization—manifesting both at the level of the body-self and the group—with the aim of co-creating inclusive, body-based practices and spaces. One focus of the research is to examine the possible modes of materialization of the body-self, grounded in attentive somatic self-listening and the organically dynamic processes of the body-self (somatic agency). The second focus addresses the intra-active relationship between somatic embodiment and practice conceived (apparatus), asking: what kind of practice supports body-based co- and self-regulation, and how does creative somatic embodiment shape the functioning of practice and shared spaces? Kalm approaches somatic embodiment through posthumanist and new materialist philosophy, as well as through theories of cellular consciousness and organism-oriented ontology.

EKA Doctoral School Conference will take place on 2nd April 2026

Please register by 29th March.
Conference will be held in English.

PROGRAMME

08.40 Registration

09.00 Welcome by Prof. Linda Kaljundi (EKA Vice Rector for Research, Head of Doctoral School)

09.10 Opening Lecture
Moderator Prof. Linda Kaljundi

Dr. Anna Carolina Jensen “In-Between Chaos and Control”(EKA, postdoctoral researcher)

Panel 1: Art History & Visual Culture
Moderator Prof. Andres Kurg

10.10 Rahul Sharma “Peripheral In-Between Identities on the Eastern Borderlands: Films of Eléonore de Montesquiou” (supervisors Dr. Mari Laanemets, Prof. Linda Kaljundi).

10.45 Mie Mortensen “A Philosophy of Sponges: The Influence of Ernst Haeckel on Ivan Leonidov” (supervisor Prof. Andres Kurg).

11.20 Coffee break

11.40 Anneli Porri “How to Explain Pictures… to Ourselves?
Mediating the Artwork and Supporting Meaning-Making in Art History Education” (supervisor Prof. Linda Kaljundi).

12.15 Marten Esko “The Contemporary as Method: Use, Abuse, and Critical Afterlife” (supervisor Prof. Virve Sarapik).

12.50 Rahel Aerin Eslas “The Aesthetics of Nature in Denis Diderot’s Philosophy and Art Criticism” (supervisors Prof. Krista Kodres, Prof. Frédéric Ogée).

13.25 Lunch

Panel 2: Art & Design
Moderator Dr. Jaana Päeva

14.00 Kadri Liis Rääk “The Artist’s Body as a Sensory Threshold” (supervisor Dr. Liina Unt).

14.35 Taavi Varm “Co-creative video game creation as a practice of care” (supervisors Dr. Varvara Guljajeva, Dr. Helen Uusberg).

15.10 Eva Liisa Kubinyi “Wondering Pathways Toward Community-Based Service Designing from Rõuge” (supervisor Associate Prof. Josina Vink).

15.45 Aman Asif “Beyond the Visible Spectrum: Algal Entanglements” (supervisor Prof. Kärt Ojavee).

16.20 Coffee break

Panel 3: Architecture & Urban Planning
Moderator Dr. Eik Hermann

16.40 Alvin Järving “The Value-Space of Extending Building Lifespans: Locating Architectural Practice in a Conflicted Field” (supervisor Dr. Siim Tuksam).

17.15 Jaak-Adam Looveer “Urban Planning in the Comfort Zone: The Case of Tallinn” (supervisors Dr. Siim Tuksam, Dr. Priit-Kalev Parts).

17.50 Roundtable: Dr. Eik Hermann, Prof. Andres Kurg, Prof. Linda Kaljundi, Dr. Jaana Päeva

Contact:

Aljona Gineiko aljona.gineiko@artun.ee

Ragne Soosalu ragne.soosalu@artun.ee

On Thursday, February 12 at 16:00–17:30, a public review and opening of the third exhibition of the doctoral project of Jane Remm “Moths are chewing the uneven fabric of life,” will take place at the Terra Gallery of Tallinn University.
The doctoral thesis is supervised by Dr. Urve Sinijärv (Tallinn Botanical Garden), the exhibition reviewers are Prof. Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Dr. Nelly Mäekivi (University of Tartu).

The first signs of spring are out there – the sky is higher, tits are singing of spring, icicles and noses are dripping like birches sap. How did our ancestors, who spent the long dark autumn and winter in the dirty and cold farm houses, perceived the arrival of new light? Jane Remm’s exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” focuses on the everyday and experiential connection of traditional human culture with other species and local nature. Through mutual interdepence, people have been connected to plants and animals, forests and waters. This connection is expressed in metaphors and symbols used in language and images to this day, such as plant and animal-named patterns and the transcriptons of bird songs, as well as conventions when communicating with nature. Jane Remm is interested in the bodily and everyday interweaving with other life forms, (women’s) connection with local nature and its symbolic expression in traditional culture, patterns, food, healing – in the fabric of life. Through art, she creates a dialogue between the traditional ecological knowledge of our ancestors and contemporary ecology and environmental humanities and explores how we can learn from other lfe forms. The more diverse life, the more connections, vitality and love.

The exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” is the third peer-reviewed event of Jane Remm’s doctoral project “Art’s (artist’s) possibilities for relating to nature from representation to co-creation and ecological art interventions”. The exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” is open from January 19 to March 8 at the Terra Gallery of Tallinn University (Terra House, 2nd floor).

Jane Remm is an artist and art educator, lecturer at the BFM at Tallinn University and doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Art. Jane Remm’s work focuses on the representation of experience of nature, co-creation and communication with different life forms. In her artistic practice, she seeks ways to act more locally, more sustainably and meaningfully in collaboration with humans and nonhumans. As a visual artist with a background in painting, a teacher, and a artistic researcher, she finds that art’s way of creating knowledge about the world is special, valuing manual work and collaboration as an opportunity to perceive oneself as part of nature.