Category: Cultural Heritage and Conservation

The UNESCO Chair at the Estonian Academy of Arts is opening the exhibition “Estonian Heritage on the World Map” at Valga Railway Station.

We are proud of our heritage and confident that it also speaks to the wider world. Yet we know surprisingly little about what from Estonia is actually considered remarkable internationally, and what opportunities the presentation of our heritage together with others in shared networks can offer.
The exhibition by the Estonian Academy of Arts presents what from Estonia has been included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, the Intangible Cultural Heritage List, and the Memory of the World Register. It also highlights which places have been awarded the European Heritage Label. Several European Cultural Routes run through Estonia. Over the years, Estonian works have also been recognized with Europa Nostra awards. We usually talk about such places one by one. With this exhibition, EKA aims to create a bigger picture, to inspire owners and local governments, and to remind everyone that by working together we can achieve more. Cultural heritage offers endless opportunities for presenting ourselves and for finding like-minded partners.
EKA will open the exhibition on “Heritage Sunday,” 7 December at 12:15 at Valga Railway Station, in cooperation with the Valga Museum and ICOMOS Estonia. The exhibition will be introduced by Riin Alatalu, holder of the EKA UNESCO Chair and vice-president of the international expert organization for heritage conservation.

For more information, please contact:

Riin Alatalu
riin.alatalu@artun.ee
+372 511 9439

On Tuesday, 2 December, the Estonian Academy of Arts will host the opening of two exhibitions and an evening discussion focusing on the capacity of contemporary art to reinterpret difficult history and heritage.

At 17:00, at the outdoor gallery of EKA exhibition “New Frames for a Monument: The Past as Artistic Material”  will open (02.12.2025–25.01.2026), which introduces artists’ proposals for preserving and reframing three monumental artworks that are at risk of destruction. This will be followed by a tour led by Kirke Kangro and Ülo Pikkov of the short exhibition “The Monument and the Fairy Tale” (1.12.–5.12.2025) in the EKA foyer.

At 18:00, a science café will begin in the event area of the EKA foyer, featuring a roundtable discussion inspired by the artistic interventions presented in the exhibitions and by the experiences gathered during the creation of the works.

We live in a time when monuments cannot be ignored. Across the world, there are debates about their meaning and about whether and how to display contested memorials in public space. Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine has brought one of the centres of monumental conflict to Eastern Europe. In Estonia, most Soviet-era monuments—especially those commemorating World War II—have now been removed.

The discussion will examine the capacity of contemporary art to engage with dissonant heritage and the memory conflicts embedded within it in public space—while also exploring the broader societal potential of contemporary art. The conversation takes its starting point from the three artistic design competitions held within the project “How to Reframe Monuments”, which experimented with different ways of reframing various kinds of controversial heritage—a memorial, a painting, and a sculpture. To date, only one of the artistic interventions has materialised: the reframing of the Tehumardi memorial.

Across the three art competitions, a total of 17 artists participated in 2024–2025.
Those involved in conceptualising the Tehumardi memorial complex on Saaremaa—now partially dismantled—were Kirke Kangro, Neeme Külm, Anna Mari Liivrand, Johannes Säre, Kristina Norman, and Taavi Piibemann.
Anna Škodenko, Hanna Piksarv, Jevgeni Zolotko, Kati Saarits, and Sigrid Viir proposed solutions for reworking the monumental murals from 1955 located in the former passenger terminal of Tallinn Airport.
Trevor Kinna, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Hasso Krull, Camille Laurelli, Samuel Lehtikoinen, Ülo Pikkov, and Yiyang Sun created digital artworks inspired by the memorial “Vyatchko and Meelis Defending Tartu” (1950/1956) located in Tartu.

Moderator: Gregor Taul (Estonian Academy of Arts)

Discussion participants: Kirke Kangro, Neeme Külm, Ülo Pikkov, Sigrid Viir, and Anna Škodenko

The exhibitions and discussion are part of the joint research project “New Frames for a Monument” (2024–2026) of the Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University. The goal of the project is to create new approaches to reinterpreting monuments and other forms of dissonant heritage, bringing together knowledge and expertise from multiple fields (historical and art historical research, conservation and heritage studies, as well as contemporary art and creative research practices) and engaging various stakeholders and communities.

Please register for participation by 28 November 2025 HERE.

The event is free, and all those interested are welcome.

Drinks and snacks will be provided at the science café.

The Conservation Club welcomes Kateryna Tymchyshyn from the Lviv National Academy of Arts.

Kateryna’s presentation aims to introduce the activities of the Department of Restoration of Artworks, in particular their new focus on the restoration of mural paintings. Through several specific examples of restoration projects where their students gain practical training, she will present the research methods and restoration techniques they learn and apply in their work. She will show examples of works before, during, and after the restoration process.

Agenda:

• Overview of the structure and activities of the Department of Restoration of Artworks at LNAA.
• Restoration of mural paintings in the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (18th century) in the town of Vynnyky.
• Restoration of 20th-century mural paintings in the auditorium of the main building of LNAA.
• Conservation of mural paintings in the exhibition hall of the “Under the Black Eagle” Pharmacy Museum in Lviv.

Drinks and snacks will be served.
Come and join us!

The year 2025 marks the 500th anniversary of Michel Sittow’s death in his hometown of Reval (now Tallinn). Sittow’s life, career, and œuvre exemplify how, in the Late Medieval and Early Modern world, professional mobility was no less significant than it is today. The seminar aims to explore the international visual and political contexts surrounding Sittow in order to better understand his experiences within the artistic production and visual culture of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Europe.

The seminar brings together early-career and established scholars from various fields, including history, art history, visual culture studies, and artwork restoration and conservation. It offers an academic forum for discussing the background of Michel Sittow’s life and works and their international reception.

Programme
Registration form for the attendees (open until 28.11.2025): https://forms.gle/ZHFFD3W35ms5oeYJ6

Organisers: Oskar J. Rojewski (University of Silesia), Anneli Randla (EKA), Anu Mänd (TÜ)

Decolonization has become an important keyword and marker of change in contemporary museum landscape. But how could we understand and embed it in the Estonian context?

On Tuesday, October 21^st at 6PM Estonian Academy of Arts will host a public event that will focus on the meanings of decolonization in museums by bringing together local, regional and international perspectives and by juxtaposing recent developments in the Estonian and Polish museum fields.

The questions that will serve as the starting point for the event are: How has decolonization been conceptualized in relation to Eastern European museums? What are positive examples and chosen approaches in recent exhibition practices? How do the perspectives of museum staff, audience and researchers differ from each other?

The event will start with a short lecture by Erica Lehrer, it will continue with responses by Joanna Wawrzyniak and Mariann Raisma and a discussion with the audience on the meanings of the decolonial approach in Estonian and Eastern European museum contexts. Moderated by Margaret Tali.

Erica Lehrer is a sociocultural anthropologist, historian, and curator. She is a Professor in the History Department and held the Canada Research Chair in Museum and Heritage Studies (2007-2017) at Concordia University, Montreal,
where she is also Founding Director of the Curating and Public Scholarship Lab (CaPSL). She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (2013); and co-editor of Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the Holocaust (2023); My Museum, A Museum About Me (2023); Curatorial Dreams: Critics Imagine Exhibitions (2016); Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland (2015); and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places (2011), among others, as well as numerous articles. She is Principal Investigator on the international team project Thinking Through the Museum: A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public (2021-2028).

Joanna Wawrzyniak is a university professor of sociology and the founding director of the Center for Research on Social Memory at the University of Warsaw. She has a long-standing experience in oral history and museum research. Her current projects relate to the memories of socialism, neoliberal transformation, deindustrialization, and decolonization of heritage.   She is the past President of Memory Studies Association (2024-2025) and vice-Chair of the COST Action Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change.  Her most recent books include co-edited Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989 (Routledge 2023), Regions of Memory: Transnational Formations (Palgrave 2022) and co-authored Cuts: Oral History of Transformation (in Polish, Krytyka Polityczna 2020). She co-edited special issues for, among others, Memory Studies, Contemporary European History, and East European Politics and Societies.

Mariann Raisma is the director of the University of Tartu Museum. She has written articles about the history of Estonian museums but also about the future; she has also been a lecturer of museology and curator of exhibitions. She has defended her doctoral thesis on the subject “The Power of the Museum. Shaping Collective Memory in Estonia during the Turning Points of the 20th Century”

Margaret Tali is assistant professor in Tallinn university, whose research focuses on the history of Estonian museums and practices of collecting. She is the author of “Absence and Difficult Knowledge in Contemporary Art Museums” (2017) and co-curator of the project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” (2019-2024).

Talk is held in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada and the Estonian Doctoral School of Humanities and Arts (Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union). Co-funded by Erasmus+.

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.

On 13th May 2025, two UNESCO chairs – the University of Tartu chair on Applied Studies of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the Estonian Academy of Arts’ chair on Cultural Heritage and Conservation – will organise a joint seminar.

The roundtable features prof. Kristin Kuutma, dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, dr. Riin Alatalu and dr. Anneli Randla, moderated by dr. Kristina Jõekalda. The meeting is oriented at the teaching staff and students of both chairs, with the aim to exchange experiences, and share information and plans in the framework of UNESCO.

The roundtable is in Estonian.

On December 3 and 5, open lectures will be held at the Niguliste Museum and the Church of the Holy Spirit as part of Bernt Notke’s seminar and workshop, and everyone is welcome to attend.

NIGULISTE MUSEUM:
Tuesday, December 3 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Beata Možejko ((University of Gdańsk) and Oskar Rojewski (University of Silesia in Katowice):
“A Happy accident for Poland…” – The Last Judgement of Hans Memling in Gdańsk

The Triptych of the Last Judgement is one of the earliest artworks by Hans Memling, and many researchers have discussed its story and style. The painting, currently in the National Museum of Gdańsk, was commissioned by Angelo di Jacopo Tani and was intended for the chapel of the Badia Fiesolana church near Florence. In 1473, due to the seizure of the ship carrying the painting by the privateer Paul Beneke, the artwork never arrived at its intended destiny. The triptych was placed in the Brotherhood of St. George Chapel in St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk.

This paper aims to explain the details of the seizure of the Triptych of the Last Judgement based on archival research, its place within Memling’s oeuvre, the reception of Memling’s work in the Pomeranian region and recent historiographical discussions about the artwork. The presentation provides not only the background of Notke’s time but also can serve as a comparative case study for the overseas visual culture reception. Additionally, this study explains the preventive conservation opportunities for Memling’s painting in Gdańsk and its Baltic contexts to be tackled in the future.

THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Thursday, December 5 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Anja Rasche ja Kerstin Petermann (Netzwerk Kunst und Kultur der Hansestädte):
Notke versus Rode – Reflections between Genius and Craftsman

Lectures are held in English.

Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has sparked debates and conflicts over Russian and Soviet monuments in the former Eastern Bloc and has also revitalized global discussions about dissonant heritage. This has created a new need and a new framework for comparisons – for comparing monuments, as well as their toppling and rebuilding in different parts of the world and historical contexts.

This event is primarily about learning from cases of reframing. The lectures, seminars and workshops will bring together expertise and knowledge from different fields and contexts to explore solutions that aim not to dismantle dissonant heritage but to place it in a new, critical framework. During the three days, we will discuss the broader conceptualizations and histories of reframing monuments and heritage, as well as focus on concrete cases. The cases will include various artistic interventions as well as other means of reframing, ranging from educational programs and museology to community engagement.

We believe that there is an urgent need to bring together knowledge of existing cases also to develop future practices for reinterpreting heritage through cross-disciplinary collaboration: artistic research and memory studies, heritage conservation and digitization, and spatial interventions. Thus, this event aims to generate new knowledge and skills for dealing with complex heritage at different levels.

The event will consist of lectures, seminars, tours and group work. Students are divided into interdisciplinary groups to develop a reframing project, each of which will focus on a case study representing dissonant heritage from Narva and the neighbouring industrial regions of northeastern Estonia.

The workshop will include the following events open to the public:

September 2 @ NART

13:00-14:45 Introductions:
Conceptualisations of Dissonant Heritage

Linara Dovydaitytė (Vytautas Magnus University):
How to Articulate Dissonance in a Dissonant Heritage?

Kristo Nurmis (TLU),
Illiberal Heritage: Preserving Soviet-Era Historical Layers in Estonia

Moderator: Linda Kaljundi (EKA)

15:00-16:00
Victoria Donovan (University of St Andrews):
Towards a Method of Critical Care: Community and artist engagement with ‘difficult heritage’ in Ukraine’s industrial East

Moderator: Hilkka Hiiop (EKA)

September 3 @ NART

10:00-11:30
Case studies – the artist in focus

Runo Lagomarsino:
Geography of Haunted Places

Kristina Norman:
Looking Back at “After-War” (2009) during the War

Moderator: Epp Annus (Ohio State University / TLU)

12:00-14:00
Case studies – bridging different contexts

Olha Honchar (Territory of Terror Museum, Lviv):
Formation and interpretation of the collection of Soviet totalitarian sculpture in the “Territory of Terror” Museum in Lviv

Tullia Catalan (University of Trieste):
Managing Controversial Memories: The Recontextualisation of Fascist Legacies at the Italian Borders. Case Studies of Bolzano and Trieste

Moderator: Anneli Randla (EKA)

15:00-16:00
Case studies – Estonia

Epp Annus (Ohio State University / TLU):
Rotting Bones and Caked Blood: War Graves and Reburials in Estonian Literature

Kirke Kangro (EKA):
Art and Recontextualisation of Heritage: The Case of Tehumardi in a Wider Context

16:30-17:45
Egle Grebliauskaite (Vilnius University):
Artistic Autonomy Against Political Control: Clash of Wills in Memory Transformations (presentation and film screening)

19:00 Screening of Alyosha (2008) and discussion with the film director Meelis Muhu

September 4 @Sillamäe Cultural Center

14:00-14:45
Riin Alatalu, Anu Soojärv (EKA):
Sillamäe – fascinating dissonance

September 6 @ EKA, room A 501 and EKA TV

14:00 Presentations of the group work
Moderator: Gregor Taul (EKA)

Experts: Riin Alatalu, Kirke Kangro, Gregor Taul, Anu Soojärv and Triinu Väikmeri (Estonian Academy of Arts), Kristo Nurmis (Tallinn University), Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews), Oksana Denisenko and Linara Dovydaitytė (Vytautas Magnus University), Egle Grebliauskaite (Vilnius University), Olha Honchar (Territory of Terror Museum, Ukraine)

The workshop takes place within the framework of the Transform4Europe (T4EU) project. T4EU, consisting of ten universities, operates under the European Universities Initiative with the aim of making European higher education more competitive, based on European values ​​and identity.

More info:
Triinu Väikmeri (triinu.vaikmeri@artun.ee)

We welcome you at the presentation of the book “History of Estonian Urban Planning 1918–2020” on Thursday, April 25 at 4 p.m. in the lobby of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The voluminous and richly illustrated book provides an overview of the last hundred years of Estonian urban planning. At that time, cities became the main residences of the population living here, and rapid urbanization made it necessary to start systematically planning cities. During the politically volatile century, land ownership and land use, the organization and financing of urban construction were shaped several times, the principles of urban construction as well as the role of the architect-planner changed.

The authors of the book deal with these changes primarily in an architectural-historical, but also in a broader cultural framework, presenting the plans that were realized as well as those left on paper, the ideas that shaped them, and the social and economic factors. Housing construction, i.e. the need to provide decent housing for an ever-increasing population, and post-war reconstruction, which was supposed to make cities better than ever, stand out as the most important topics. The book helps to understand the reasons for urban planning changes that have shaped Estonian cities in the past century into what we know them as today.

The book was compiled by Epp Lankots and Triin Ojari. Authors: Mart Kalm, Karin Hallas-Murula, Lilian Hansar, Henry Kuningas, Epp Lankots, Madis Tuuder, Triin Ojari, Riin Alatalu, Kaja Pae, Toomas Tammis, Keiti Kljavin, Maroš Krivý, Kaija-Luisa Kurik. The book was designed by Andres Tali.

Publisher: Estonian Academy of Arts
Supporters: Estonian Cultural Capital, Ministry of Education and Research, Estonian Language Institute, Estonian Association of Art Scientists and Curators, Estonian Architecture Museum, Estonian Science Agency (research grant no. PSG530).

At the presentation, the book can be purchased at a discounted price of 35 EUR.