Category: Doctoral School

The pre-review of Britta Benno’s exhibition Of Becoming a Land(Scape) will take place on 12 February at 14.00 in the Tartu Art House.
Of Becoming a Land(Scape) is the third exhibition of Britta Benno’s artistic doctoral thesis.

The pre-review will be preceded by a presentation by geologist Juho Kirs on minerals, the formation of earth layers and the geology of the post-human future at 13.00.

The thesis supervisor is Dr. Elnara Taidre.
Pre-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa and Dr. Linda Kaljundi.

The exhibition will be open from 22.01-20.02.2022.

Current solo exhibition “Of Becoming a Land(Scape)” serves as the third part of Britta Benno’s artistic research in the doctoral school at the Estonian Academy of Arts with the working title “Thinking in Layers, Imagining in Layers: Posthumanist Landscapes in the Extended Field of Drawing and Printmaking”.
Pre-reviewing of the exhibition will take place on 12.02.2022.

The protagonist in Benno’s last project in the series of personal exhibitions of the doctoral programme is landscape that formerly has appeared in a background role in Benno’s artwork. Image is becoming abstract and architecture is backing away from the stage. A layered landscape comes forth, the rocks in earth’s crust reveal themselves underneath the soil. At the same time, the crystallization of posthumanist philosophy in Britta Benno’s artistic (self)definition reveals itself through the agency of minerals. University of Tartu Natural History Museum with its collection of minerals is situated in the close proximity to Tartu Art House. Museum-like expositions, striped textures of fossils and conversations with geologists place the exhibition both to local time-space and the timeless spirit of art and science.

Tectonic layers are alive, moving and breathing, forming mountains and flooding continents. The layers arise from above while shaking and cracking holes and fissures to the earth’s crust. Similarly to the sunrise on the horizon, layers of gas and oil in the depths of earth emerge towards the surface and slowly transform the earth’s landscape. At the same time, somewhere another soil goes down in the depths of earth. In order to imagine the future, one has to look at the past to form a better understanding about the present.

Britta Benno comments on her artistic method: „While imagining the earth’s layers I am working with the means of art in layers. In a way, working in layers can be also called a method of piling up.  Materials, tracks and images cover each other just like the layers of Earth form a huge globe. How should one call the large-format artwork made of canvas, frame, coat, prints, watercolour, coal, acrylic paints, ink and plexiglass? Modelling paste, fabric and other (found) materials in combination with metamorphic rocks in litosphere, in the depths of earth, create new conceptual landscapes. Poetically flowing mountains can be also discovered while observing the heap of blanket on my bed, on a topographic map or in atlas of imaginary beings.”

Collaborational input to the exhibition works: Ragnar Neljandi (cameraman, animator, post-production), Kassandra Laur, Iti Oja, Kristiina Tali (installation), Juhan Vihterpal (composer).

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Laine Groeneweg (Smokestack Studio Hamilton), Pudy Tong (Open Studio Toronto),  Robert Zeigler (Cotton Factory Hamilton), Madis Kaasik (Prototyping Lab manager at the Estonian Academy of Arts), Mare Isakar, Juho Kirs (holder of geology collections at the University of Tartu, consultant), printmaking workshop of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Katrin Piile, Elnara Taidre.

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Nukufilm OÜ.

Ulvi Haagensen
Kodunäitus / Home Exhibition
Lembitu 6-6, Tallinn
8.–10.01.2022
Please register HERE

There are many ways to make an exhibition at home. You could paint the walls white, clear away all traces of everyday life and set up the artwork as you might in a white cube gallery. Or you could set up your work in and around existing everyday objects. Or you could not really do anything and simply invite people to your place and call it an exhibition. Art can after all, be whatever we decide it will be.

Ulvi Haagensen and her three imaginary friends, Thea Koristaja, Olive Puuvill and Artist-Researcher are using Ulvi’s home as the venue for their exhibition. This is an environment that combines home, studio and now also exhibition space. Their aim is to explore the lines between art and everyday life and as they do, they puzzle over distinctions of whether something is art or non-art, practical or impractical, useful or useless, mundane or special. They are curious to know how people will know what they are looking at. Will they know whether something is art or non-art; are they supposed to be looking at this thing or not? But maybe these questions don’t really matter, because maybe what we are really interested in is seeing how other people live.

Ulvi Haagensen was born in Sydney, Australia, but has been living, working and teaching in Tallinn for many years. She studied at City Art Institute in Sydney (BA) and College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales (MFA) and is currently doing her PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts researching the connections and overlap between art and everyday life, as seen through the eyes of an artist, for whom art, work and everyday life are closely interwoven. In her research she is assisted by three imaginary friends – an artist cleaner, an artist bricoleuse and an artist researcher. She has had solo exhibitions in Estonia, Australia, Sweden and Lithuania.

Kodunäitus / Home Exhibitionon is the third pre-reviewed exhibition of Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral thesis. The pre-reviewing will take place on 11 January, 11.00 at the EKA, room A202.
The pre-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Ester Bardone (University of Tartu), Dr. Anu Kannike (Estonian National Museum) and Prof. Mika Pekka Elo (Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki).
Supervisors of the thesis are Dr. Liina Unt (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Dr. Jan Guy (The University of Sydney).

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Rait Rosin, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Art and Disain, will defend his thesis “Social Art as the Source for Changing Social Norms: Artists’ and Art Viewers’ Expectations in Estonian Small Towns” („Sotsiaalne kunst kui ühiskondlike normide kasvulava: kunstnike ja kunstipubliku vastastikused ootused Eesti väikelinnades“) on 13th of December 2021 at 10.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A101.

Limited number of audience can participate on-site, please register HERE
Please provide certificate of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19.

The defense will be held in Estonian.

Supervisors: Dr. Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts), Dr. Margus Vihalem (Tallinn University)
External reviewers: Dr. Heie Treier (Tallinn University), Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu)
Opponent: Dr. Heie Treier

The increasing interest in Estonian art scenes outside of Tallinn necessitates careful and critical discussion. Rait Rosin’s PhD dissertation investigates regional gallery spaces and local people attitudes toward art activities in their communities. The reader will have a better grasp of Estonia’s diversified creative scene and society-driven cultural shifts. The comparison provides an overview of the precision of the regional differentiations of the six Estonian small towns: Paldiski, Haapsalu, Valga, Võru, Rapla, and Rakvere by comparing the various regional characters and as well six local art galleries. In comparison, the audience of town galleries and artist interviews demonstrate how each party sees local art. The research looks into Estonian small-town initiatives to communicate with small towns, parallels and examples of artists activities, who had exhibitions in local galleries during the years 2010–2017. The author of the thesis interprets the artistic expressions of the participants as acts of cultural communication of the centre and the periphery polarities. Nonetheless, because the expectations of small towns have to implement for their organised events, the contribution of artists is calculated based on their effect on the surrounding areas. On the one hand, the dissertation is a reflection of Rait Rosin’s own artistic practice while he depict themes for the artworks, while also analysing his own position as artist researcher. Dissertation In the other hand, is classified as discourse, with engaged art as one of the socially active solutions. According to the philosophers such as John Dewey, Jacques Rancière and others, local interest and activity-binding solutions may assist artists. As a result, the local cultural scene may have established a field of meaning construction that aids to integrate various groups into the community. The PhD thesis focuses on local people waiting for artists and visiting artists’ assessments of Estonian small-towns in creative chores and art creation, often due to a lack of expert criticism and the location of the art.

Greta Koppel, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Art History and Visual Culture, will defend her thesis „Farewell to Connoisseurship? The Work of Art in the Focus of Art Historical Research” („Hüvasti, konossöörlus? Kunstiteos kui kunstiajaloolise uurimise kese“) on 10th of December 2021 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

Limited number of audience can participate on-site, please register HERE
Please provide certificate of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19.

The defense will be held in Estonian.

Supervisor: Prof.  Krista Kodres (Estonian Academy of Arts)
External reviewers: Dr. Anu Mänd (Tallinn University), Dr. Jaanika Anderson (University of Tartu Museum)
Opponent: Dr. Anu Mänd

This dissertation (Farewell to Connoisseurship? The Work of Art in the Focus of Art Historical Research) deals with problems related to the study of the art of the Old Masters. The research paper reflects the author’s experience based on years of researching and curating Early Modern art at the museum. Works of art as musealised objects have played a central role in this work.

The dissertation emphasises that a multifaceted study based on a close study of works of art that takes into account each work as a whole, i.e. its material and intellectual sides, enables us to obtain valuable information for the study of a particular object but also for analysing broader historical and cultural phenomena. In the case of old works of art, connoisseurship is a significant component of such research. The author introduces the concept of connoisseurship, which is almost unknown as a professional term in Estonia, provides a survey of the long history of connoisseurship as a competence of recognising art(ists), discusses the closely intertwined relationship between modern connoisseurship and technical art history, introduces the specifics of the research method, and explains why this skill is irreplaceable in identifying the authors of works of art and why this competence is worth preserving in art history practice even if one has no interest in the question of the author. It also explains how the critical analysis of the connoisseurship method makes it possible to better understand the specifics of art history as a humanistic discipline. The section on connoisseurship is followed by three case studies related to the author’s curatorial practice at the Art Museum of Estonia, which illustrate the importance of connoisseurship as an object-led, multifaceted close study of works of art in art historical research. The first case discusses the problems of reconstructing the oeuvre of Michel Sittow (ca 1469 – 1525), an itinerant painter from Tallinn; in the second, 16th century Netherlandish Boschian art is the focus, and the last case, research on Johannes Mikkel’s (1907–2006) collection, emphasises its value as historical documentation.

Members of the Defence Council: Prof. Virve Sarapik, Dr. Anu Allas, Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Juhan Maiste, Prof. Marek Tamm, Prof. Tõnu Viik, Dr. Kadi Polli

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Lecturer: Dan Karlholm, Professor of Art History, Department of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Sweden
Dates: 22.–25. November 2021, 16.00-19.00
Level: PhD students

Please register  HERE
Registration deadline November 10

Abstract
This graduate course centers around the notions of time and temporality, which were always implicit in a historical discipline like art history, institutionalized in the nineteenth century. In the last couple of decades, however, the issue of time as something that not only grounds art history and many other human sciences has been found to complicate and challenge the normative chronologic of (art) history. The first theme of the course is Time and History, where different notions of time are addressed, and how these compare with or complicate the practice of history/historiography, which only came about with the so-called time revolution inaugurated on the basis of fossil finds disrupting the biblical creation narrative around 1800. Secondly, Chronology, Heterochrony and Anachrony will focus on the determining role of chronology in art history, and how this common-sensical structure has been challenged by other concepts and perspectives, which potentially impact the status we accord artworks. A third theme deals specifically with the complex of Contemporaneity [and contemporaneousness] and Presentism, which has been a problem of representation, power and definition related to various attempts at overcoming both modernism and postmodernism in art. The alluring idea of presentism, according to which the present seems to be expanding, absorbing the past as well as the future, is discussed. The final theme, arguably the biggest temporal conundrum in the history (and pre-history) of mankind, is The Anthropocene: Earth History and World History. Although not directly, only indirectly, relevant to art and art history, this perspective dwarfs many of our habitual quibbles on periodization, dating and attribution, but may also help us deal with the past that presently returns as our future. Throughout the course, we will discuss these themes in relation to our empirical materials of art and art history (and you are encouraged to bring your own examples to the table) as well as reflect upon how our discipline is to cope with all these temporal inflections and demands for what could perhaps be termed a post-anthropocentric and pro-geocentric art historiography.

Literature:
1. Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann, “Periodization and its Discontents”, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 2, June 2010, 1-6. Reinhart Koselleck, “Time and History”, in The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, Stanford, 2002, 100-114. Daniela Bleichmar and Vanessa R. Schwartz, “Visual History: The Past in Pictures”, Representations 145, Winter 2019, 1-31.
2. Karlholm, “Is History to be Closed, Saved or Restarted? Considering Efficient Art History”; Keith Moxey, “What Time is it in the History of Art?”, Mary Roberts, “Artists, Amateurs, and the Pleated Time of Modernity”, from Time in the History of Art: Temporalty, Chronology, Anachrony, eds. Karlholm and Moxey, Routledge, 2018, 13-42, 79-100.
3. Georges Didi-Huberman, “Before the Image, Before Time: The Sovereignty of Anachronism”, in Compelling Visuality: The Work of Art in and out of History, eds. Claire Farago and Robert Zwijnenberg, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2003, 31-44. Karlholm, “After Contemporary Art: Actualization and Anachrony”, The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, no. 51 2016, 35-54. Chris Lorenz, “Out of Time? Some Critical Reflections on Francois Hartog’s Presentism”, Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism, eds. Marek Tamm and Laurent Olivier, Bloomsbury, 2019, 23-42.
4. Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Anthropocene Time”, History and Theory 57, no. 1 (March 2018), 5-32. Edward S. Casey, “Mapping the Earth in Works of Art”, in Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, eds. Bruce V. Foltz and Robert Frodeman, Indiana U.P., 2004, 260-269.

The course is supported by the ASTRA project of the Estonian Academy of Arts – EKA LOOVKÄRG (European Union, European Regional Development Fund).

Mark Gottdiener’s public lecture “Postmodern semiotics” will take place on September 15th as part of the Training School seminar “Local Stories and Visual Narratives”.

The lecture will take place 15.09.2021 at 18.00–20.00 via Zoom and is open to the public in the lobby (A101).

Mark Gottdiener (b 1943) is a professor of sociology at University at Buffalo, specialising in urban sociology. He is called one of the most important Urban Sociologist in U.S.

Training School Local Stories and Visual Narratives for international PhD students will take place on September 15th – 16th in Estonian Academy of Arts. It is organised by EU COST action CA18126 Writing Urban Places.

The action proposes an innovative investigation and implementation of a process for developing human understanding of communities, their society, and their situatedness by narrative methods. It particularly focuses on the potential of narrative methods for urban development in European medium-sized cities. This COST action has 35 European countries as participants.

The Training School in EAA will focus on local urban stories, taking the city of Tallinn as an example. Participants will engage in site visits, analysis workshops, discussions and lectures. Participants will discuss historical, semantical and archetypal settings of the narratives.

Organising team:

Klaske Havik (TU Delft), Panu Lehtovuori (Tampere University), Jüri Soolep, Andres Ojari, Irene Hütsi, Tiina Tammet (EAA Tallinn)

The event is supported by the European Regional Development Fund

Jaana Päeva, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Art and Design, will defend her thesis ‘Everyday Companions. Meaning-Making Process Through Handbag Design’ („Igapäevased kaaslased. Tähendusloome protsess käekotidisaini näitel“) on the 9th of September 2021 at 15.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

The defense will be held in English.
Please, register HERE

Supervisor: Dr Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCAD University)

External reviewers: Dr Rosita Nenno, Dr Malcolm Barnard (Loughborough University)

Opponent: Dr Malcolm Barnard

The subject of this thesis is handbag design. The recent decade has witnessed significant growth in the handbag market since handbags have become an essential everyday accessory, a portable manifestation rather than a functional product. The emphasis is on the cultural construction of the meanings of bags because handbags reflect changing everyday needs and the thinking of the time being relevant both on personal and cultural-historical levels. Handbags are the focus of this thesis and are taken as independent sculptural and functional objects that are close to but separate from the human body; the thesis concentrates on handbag design and designing and excludes the meaning-making involved in product marketing.

The doctoral thesis applies research through design and the semiotic approach to connect the past and the present of handbag design in order to explain the communicative potential and the cultural production of meanings of handbags through linkages between the physical characteristics of bags and their perception past and present. The study asks: How is it possible for a handbag to communicate meaning and how can the designer generate meanings in the handbag he/she designs?

The thesis presents three creative cases. The first case focuses on the novel characteristics of bag design; in particular, those considered innovations and their meanings. In contrast to the novel, the second creative case aims to define a classic bag and concentrates on the most enduring features of handbags. The third creative case focuses on the Estonian-origin handbag designs and the case aims to find specific features of handbag design, which can be identified as Estonian design, or that defines handbags as ‘local’.

Each creative case consists of three phases. First, the historical research examines handbag design in Estonia from 1918 to 1940. The historical period between the world wars was the first period of the independence of Estonia but, more importantly, the period bursting with innovative designing and first social rules towards carrying handbags, both locally and internationally, was chosen as the most inspiring and highly relevant in handbag history from the viewpoint of a designer and a practitioner. Second, the creative outcome of the cases includes three collections of bags whose design processes are informed by the most outstanding features from the historical analysis. The second phase explains the principles of the design process, describes and presents images of prototypes in detail and reflects on the bag making. The third phase collects and analyses contemporary feedback from respondents on the created handbags. Feedback observations and interviews allowed to compare past and present perceptions to detect characteristics of bags in which meanings have remained similar or changed over the years. Feedback analysis helps understand how handbags are perceived and interpreted, thus revealing the potential of meaning-making through handbag design.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr Liina Unt, Dr Anu Allas, Dr Kristi Kuusk, Prof Kirke Kangro, Prof Indrek Ibrus, Dr Danielle Wilde, Dr Kärt Ojavee, Dr Kristina Jõekalda

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

On Friday, August 13th at 11.00, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Darja Poplitova’s exhibition “Tactilite: Stone that Tickles the Gaze“ will take place at Hobusepea gallery. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Darja Popolitova.

Supervisors: Prof. Kadri Mälk and Dr. Raivo Kelomees
Pre-reviewers: Keiu Krikmann and Dr. Maarit Mäkelä (Aalto University)

Exhibition opening: 5 August, 6 PM
The exhibition is open from 5 August to 30 August 2021, 10-18 every day (except Tuesday)

If you come to the exhibition, you will receive:
1) a practical guide on how to create a silver jewellery yourself
2) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to invoke intimacy into your life
3) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to speak a foreign language without mistakes
4) —— ″ —— ″—— ″ —— ″ how to exercise self-control in dealing with a manipulator
5) —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ —— ″ how to make another person important
6) talisman as a gift (only on Wednesdays)

#C21witchcraft #contemporaryjewellery #technopaganism #hapticvisuality

Artist Darja Popolitova aims to mix ritual features of jewellery with the theme of digitality. At her show “Tactilite: Stone that Tickles the Gaze“ video works, jewellery, and installations create a fictional world where the witch Seraphita helps to cope with the frustrations of everyday life.

“Seraphita is a fictional character who helps me to expand the usual functions of jewellery. For example, to shoot the jewellery so that the viewer would be much more interested in watching a video clip rather than a stand-alone artifact attached to the stand,” the author notes.

Kelly Riggs, a contemporary critic and curator, writes about Darja’s work: “Though the physical jewellery objects are the crux of what Popolitova creates, they are also just a part of the total picture, or the collective persona she presents when she shares that jewellery online.”

Darja Popolitova was born in 1989 in Sillamäe and lives and works in Tallinn. She is also doing a PhD at Estonian Academy of Arts. Darja’s practice includes contemporary jewellery, digital craft and video art. Recently, Darja Popolitova has participated in exhibitions at the Museum Arnhem in Holland (2020), Art and Design Museum in New York (2019), the Kunstnerforbundet gallery in Oslo (2018). Darja Popolitova is represented by the following galleries: Marzee in Nijmegen, Beyond in Antwerp, and Door in Mariaheide. Her work is included in the collection of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Museum Arnhem, and private collections. The work of Darja Popolitova was awarded the Annual Awards of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2020, scholarships of the Ministry of Culture and Adamson-Eric in 2018. She also received the scholarship of Young Jewellery in 2015.

The exhibition is done in collaboration with Jakob Tulve (VFX) and Andres Nõlvak (sound design).

Artists’s gratude goes to: Aleksandr Popolitova and Nadežda Popolitova, Ando Naulainen, Anastasia Dratšova, Doctoral School of Estonian Academy of Arts, Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department of EAA, Estonian Artists’ Association, Elnara Taidre, Karl Kivinurm, Kadri Mälk, Karmo Järv, Keiu Krikmann, Kristo Pachel, Norman Orro, Pire Sova, Raivo Kelomees.

Sponsors: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Moe OÜ, Õllenaut OÜ, Hobusepea Gallery, Orbital Vox Studios.