Category: Doctoral School

On Tuesday, 8 September, at 11:00–12:30 (EEST), the public peer review of Art and Design doctoral student Lígia Fernandes’s first case study, “Love Lies in the Margins,” will take place online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 627 5163 9948
Passcode: 710595).

Supervisors: Jaana Päeva, PhD (EKA); Prof. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu)
Reviewers: Prof. Kai Lehikoinen (Uniarts Helsinki); Dr. Bianca Elzenbaumer (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Two key questions surrounding socially engaged art projects are: What brings us together, and how do we continue? Through over ten years of practice, I have observed that the answers seem connected to the quality of the projects’ relationships and the systems that sustain them. In this context, love emerged as a foundational point of research, followed by economy as a sustaining practice.

The research explores relational systems through three dimensions: Collaboration, Repair, and Continuity. This first case study focuses on Collaboration through artistic projects developed in Lisbon’s urban peripheries between 2022 and 2025. Marked by social housing and informal neighbourhoods, these areas are inhabited largely by African, Afrodescendant, Roma and Portuguese communities. Facing migration and limited resources, while also carrying ancestral and rural collaborative practices, these communities have developed diverse forms of collaboration and interdependence. Community economies and informal practices provide fertile ground for relationship-based artistic practices.

The projects included multidisciplinary residencies, exhibitions, public programmes, public artworks and activities with children. Through artistic practice, autoethnographic reflection and public data analysis, the case study examines how collaborative networks emerged, how relationships and projects transformed one another, and how these local practices connected with wider artistic and research networks. Rather than following a predefined methodology, the report reconstructs the gradual emergence of its central concepts through practice and reflection.

By examining collaboration through the perspective of love, I argue that a deeper understanding of these relational systems can provide insights into more sustainable artistic practices and economies, as well as ways of communicating their impact to partners, participants and researchers.

On Wednesday, 28 August at 11:00–12:30, the public peer-review of Art and Design doctoral student – junior researcher Aman Asif’s second case study “Micro-Scores: Exploring the potential of Scoring as a method for practicing attunement to microbes and more than human agencies” will take place on Zoom (Meeting ID: 679 9371 2195, Passcode: 441130).

Reviewers: Dr. Nesli Oktay (EKA) and Julia Lohmann (Aalto University).
Supervisor: Prof. Kärt Ojavee (EKA) and Dr. Valentina Guccini (Uppsala Ülikool)

MicroScores marks Aman Asif’s second peer review event, where she experiments with scores and their potential as a method for practicing attunement in more-than-human encounters.
If a more-than-human design orientation highlights questions around who and what design attends to, then it also raises methodological questions for how we encounter and relate with/in more-than-human worlds. Attunement offers a useful way to think through this challenge. The process of attunement involves deep sensing with the body in order to become more aware of and responsive to other humans and nonhumans so that we can connect and nurture relationships. Practicing attunement then requires methods that engage the sensing body.
Aman explores this proposition through the development of MicroScores, a series of written scores and prompts developed around qualities of attunement such as creating bodily awareness, relational attention and multisensory engagement, alongside more playful provocations that might challenge habitual ways of engaging. For this case study, Aman tested the MicroScores approach with different groups, including designers, a public hiking group and scientists who have already established relationships with microbes through their research. She will discuss the affordances and challenges of the approach, as well as the fruitful tensions that came up when MicroScores were brought into a laboratory environment that has its own ethos and protocols for encountering microbes.
The case study considers both what the method of scoring might contribute to more-than-human design and what happens when creative methods travel across disciplinary boundaries. This question is increasingly relevant as collaborations between design, art, and science become more common in response to complex ecological challenges that call for interdisciplinary forms of knowledge exchange.

On 25 September, 2026 Sofja Hallik, doctoral student of Art and Design curriculum, will defend her doctoral thesis „Crafting Touch: Physical and Digital Approaches in Jewellery“ („Ehtekunst füüsilise ja digitaalse puudutuse vahel “).
The public defense will take place at 14.00 at EKA (Põhja pst 7), room A101.

Supervisors: Prof. Kadri Mälk (Estonian Academy of Arts), Dr.  Jaak Tomberg (University of Tartu), Prof. Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCAD University)
External reviewers: Dr. Katharina Vones (Royal College of Art), Dr. Roberta Bernabei (Loughborough University)
Opponent: Dr. Roberta Bernabei (Loughborough University)

Thesis is available in EKA digital repository.

Abstract:

What happens to craftsmanship when the hand is no longer the only maker?

Digital technologies have transformed how jewellery is imagined, designed, and produced. 3D modelling, 3D printing, simulation-driven design, and, more recently, AI have expanded the possibilities of creative practice. At the same time, they raise questions about touch, tacit knowledge, materiality, authorship, and creative agency. These questions are particularly relevant to jewellery, a field historically grounded in handwork, embodied skill, and direct engagement with materials.

In her doctoral research, artist and jewellery maker Sofja Hallik examines how digital technologies interact with contemporary jewellery practice and reshape the role of the maker. Developed over approximately ten years, the research spans a period of significant technological change and the growing integration of digital technologies into creative practice.

The practice-based research is centred on three case studies: handwork, hybrid-work, and machine production. Through the creation and analysis of three jewellery collections and their accompanying exhibitions, Hallik examines different relationships between the hand, tools, and materials. The three approaches are not treated as fixed categories, but as positions along a continuum shaped by varying degrees of manual work and technological intervention.

The findings demonstrate that digital and manual processes should not be understood as opposite forces, but as mutually informing components of contemporary jewellery practice. Digital technologies do not simply replace traditional craftsmanship. They change the conditions of making and enable new forms of experimentation, complexity, and precision. Hybrid making emerges as a methodology based on continuous interaction between human tactility and machine logic.

The research also shows that digital technologies transform rather than simply remove touch and tacit knowledge from jewellery practice. Direct tactile engagement may decrease as technological involvement increases, but embodied knowledge continues to inform digital decisions through parameters, commands, selections, and adjustments. The research therefore expands the understanding of touch through the concepts of digital touch and speculative tactility.

The dissertation’s central finding concerns the changing role of the tool. Hallik identifies three roles: tool as a tool, tool as a partner, and tool as a creator. These roles represent different degrees of agency and authorship. As technological involvement increases, tools can move from executing the maker’s intentions towards actively influencing or generating form. The maker remains involved by establishing parameters, evaluating possibilities, selecting outcomes, and translating digital forms into physical objects. Authorship can therefore become shared rather than singular.

The research demonstrates that traditional craftsmanship and digital production are not opposing approaches, but exist in a complex and evolving relationship. Digital technologies can extend jewellery practice without making embodied skill, material engagement, or the artist irrelevant. As AI and generative systems become increasingly present in creative practice, these findings also raise broader questions about how authorship and creative agency may continue to change.

On Wednesday, 26 August at 15:00–16:30, the public peer-review of Art and Design doctoral student and junior researcher Vitali Valtanen’s first case study “A Pedagogical Experiment in Interspecies Design” will take place at EKA in room A502 and on Zoom (Meeting ID: 644 8482 7067, Passcode: 484233).

Reviewers: Dr. Svenja Keune (University of Borås, Sweden) and Sergio Dávila (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México / EKA).
Supervisors: Dr. Kristi Kuusk (EKA) and Dr. Kadri Aavik (Tallinn University).

The case study is part of the practice-led doctoral thesis “Reimagining urban spaces for multispecies coexistence: design methodologies that recognise non-human animals as active agents”. It describes how a mandatory bachelor-level course, previously built around human-centred design, was rebuilt as a course in interspecies design. The study documents the methods developed for the course and how they worked in teaching.

Interspecies design is a strand within more-than-human design that keeps non-human animals specifically in view. It designs for and with humans and other species, recognising their needs, their agency, and the habitat we share. The starting point of the course is an ethical one: design is never a value-free activity, and design education is where much of it is decided — who comes to count as a user and who is treated as simply part of the site. Across Europe this field is taught mainly at master’s and doctoral level, as a mandatory bachelor-level course it is rare. One of the questions the experiment asks is whether this thinking belongs in a designer’s first training.

The event is public and will be held in English.

On 21 August at 13:00 the public peer-review of the exhibition project, part of the doctoral research of Cultural Heritage and Conservation doctoral candidate Triin Reidla will take place at the Museum of Estonian Architecture (Ahtri 2), first floor.

Supervisors: Ingrid Ruudi, PhD (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Maris Mändel, PhD (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Reviewers: prof Andres Kurg (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Jutta Tynkkunen, PhD (Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design, Helsinki)
The event will be held in English.
To get the most out of the discussion, visitors are encouraged to see the exhibition before attending the peer-review event.

The exhibition “Architect Miia Masso. In Five Acts”, the second project of the practice-based doctoral research, draws on Masso’s personal archive and presents highlights from her more than fifty-year architectural career. Divided into five thematic acts, the exhibition explores Masso’s work from both the Soviet period and the years following the restoration of Estonia’s independence. It features apartment buildings, summer houses, private residences, public buildings, urban plans and commercial buildings characteristic of both periods. From the personal archive, a number of distinctive original works and documents are presented alongside copies that the architect regarded as an essential part of her portfolio.
The exhibition is open until 23 August.

On 14 August, from 13:00 to 14:30 (EEST), the public peer review of Art and Design doctoral student Sonya Isupova’s first solo exhibition, “Water, Usually in the Shape of a River,” will take place in EKA Gallery on the second floor and via zoom (Meeting ID: 664 5412 1094, Passcode: 028984).

Water, Usually in the Shape of a River folds in itself infrastructures, shapes perceptions, and registers transformations. A river exists simultaneously as a border, a defence mechanism, and a source of both life and death. Its water can become a resource, a weapon, or a memorial. The exhibition investigates Soviet infrastructural projects and their modes of representation, focusing on hydroelectric dams built along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, particularly the Kakhovka and Dnipro hydroelectric stations. Through film and archival research, juxtaposed with media art installation, Isupova examines how these projects reshaped both landscape and collective memory.
The exhibition forms part of her doctoral research on the effects of colonial infrastructure on the landscape.
At the centre of the exhibition is the essay film Water, Usually in the Shape of a River, which functions as a visual map of a memory of a landscape that is no longer there.

Reviewers: Dr. Raivo Kelomees (EKA) and Prof. Madina Tlostanova (Linkoping University, Sweden)

Supervisors: Dr. Epp Annus, Dr. Varvara Guljajeva

On 22 June at 11:00–12:30 (EEST), the public peer-review of Art and Design doctoral student Zaur Babayev’s first case study “More Than Talking Heads: How Clinical Psychologists’ Bodily, Sensory, and Spatial Practices Can Inform Teletherapy Design” will take place online via Zoom.

The case study is part of Zaur’s practice-based doctoral thesis, which investigates how the embodied, sensory, and spatial practices of psychotherapy can inform the design of more empathetic digital therapeutic environments. Drawing on interviews, body mapping, and spatial mapping with clinical psychologists, the study examines how practitioners’ bodily and spatial knowledge becomes lost or transformed in videoconference-based therapy, and what this means for teletherapy design.

Reviewers: Ana Correia de Barros (Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, Portugal) Claudia Núñez Pacheco (Malmö University, Sweden)

Supervisors: Dr. Kristi Kuusk and Dr. Nesli Hazal Oktay (EKA)

Zoom link (Meeting ID: 621 3833 6922, Passcode: 203268)

The event is public and will be held in English. Everyone is welcome.

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.