Category: Faculty of Art and Culture

The seminar takes a close look at one of the most diverse artists in the Baltic art scene, Friedrich Ludwig von Maydell (1795–1846), and asks which kind of new knowledge do his letters to architect Wilhelm Stier (1799–1856) reveal about Baltic art and cultural life in the first half of the nineteenth century, incl. about the contacts with German artists both in Germany and in Italy. Their correspondence, stretching over several decades, was recently found in the archive of the Berlin Technical University’s Architecture Museum. It enables fresh insights into several topics of Baltic history, also beyond art history.

The seminar’s four roundtables feature discussants from Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn University, University of Tartu, Art Museum of Estonia, Gesellschaft für deutschbaltische Kultur in Estland et al. The seminar is organised and moderated by Kristina Jõekalda and Tiina-Mall Kreem. The program is in Estonian.

PROGRAM

12.00 Maydell’s correspondence and travels against the background of art history
Tiina Abel, Kristina Jõekalda, Liisa-Helena Lumberg-Paramonova, Maris Saagpakk

13.15 Maydell, church art and the status of an artist
Reet Pius, Kadi Polli, Anne Untera

14.00-14.30 pause

14.30 Maydell in Tartu (Dorpat): drawings, prints and everyday life
Reet Bender, Triin Kröönström, Moonika Teemus, Kristiina Tiideberg

15.30 The letters’ significance for history and cultural history
Linda Kaljundi, Kairit Kaur, Tiina-Mall Kreem

In this seminar, we will discuss the results of the EKA research project ‘Art Historical Contact Zones: Popular and Fictional Mediations of Art History in Estonia’ (2023–2024).

Our aim was to explore different ways of representing art (and its history), i.e. to investigate how art has been presented by media external to the art world, and whether and how this has changed the meanings of art, compared to the interpretations of academic researchers. Each of us dealt with a different “medium”: fiction, film, journalism, heritage construction, schematic and photographic narrative, television programs, art criticism.

At the seminar we will also present the final product of our project – a special issue of journal Vikerkaar (2025/4–5), our section edited by Johannes Saar. In addition to him, the authors of the articles are Epp Lankots, Kädi Talvoja, Liisa-Helena Lumberg-Paramonova, Tiina Abel, Kristina Jõekalda and Krista Kodres.

In this public talk, Victoria Donovan will introduce how decolonial thinking has informed her research and projects, as well as her new book Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (2025). Life in Spite of Everything is a cultural portrait of Ukraine’s east before it was devastated by Russia’s full-scale invasion. It is a history on foot through the beautiful Donbas region, a celebration of its past and present, and its people’s tenacity, creativity and independence. Victoria will discuss the book in conversation with the historian and curator Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts). 

Victoria Donovan is a Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies and the Director of the Centre for Global (Post)socialisms at the University of St Andrews. She works at the intersection of heritage studies, urban history, visual anthropology, and the public humanities. She is the co-producer of academic research, literature, exhibitions, archives, community workshops, and artistic practice exploring the industrial history and heritage of eastern Ukraine and the UK. She is the author of Chronicles in Stone: Preservation, Patriotism, and Identity in Northwest Russia (2019); Limits of Collaboration: Art, Ethics, and Donbas (2022); and Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (2025).

Lecture will be held in cooperation of Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

Bart Pushaw is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. His research, teaching, and curatorial work focus on Arctic and Baltic art histories.

Baltic actors played a critical role in the expansion of the Russian Empire across the Pacific. Starting in the eighteenth century, people from throughout the Russian Empire facilitated the invasion and occupation of Alaska Native homelands until the U.S. acquired “Russian America” in 1867. The imperial initimacies that entangled these edges of the Russian Empire — the Baltic Sea and the Bering Sea — also brought Alaska Native artworks and material culture to Estonia. Today, these objects remain in collections throughout the country. This talk explores the histories that made it possible for Alaska Native art to come to Estonia, and what futures might be possible as museums reconsider their role in rematriation.

Lecture is connected to the joint project of KUMU Art Museum and Estonian Academy of Arts Expedition: Estonian and Indigineity.

Lecture is held in cooperation with KUMU Art Museum and is funded by:

3.03–07.03

Join us for Mental Health Week – take a break and prioritize your well-being!

Monday – Digi Detox (3.03)
Swap your phone for a piece of fruit for a set time of your choice and enjoy a screen-free moment. Plus, grab a wellness shot during lunch!

Tuesday – Quiz Night (4.03)

Test your knowledge in a fun quiz night!
https://fb.me/e/63DbEu5zp

Wednesday – Yoga Class (5.03, kl 18, A501)
Find your balance and unwind in a yoga class. Suitable for all levels!

Pre-registration required

Wednesday & Thursday – Sauna Evenings (5.–6.03)

Relax and unwind in the sauna after a long day.

Pre-registration required

Thursday – Scream Room (D600)
Release your stress in a safe and soundproof space!

And much more! Find more details on Instagram.

See you at Mental Health Week!

Dear EKA members!

I invite you all to the celebrations of the 107th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia on Friday, February 21st at 13.00 on the lobby steps.

The keynote speaker will be Signe Kivi, EKA’s Rector Emerita, textile artist and member of the Riigikogu. Among many other activities, Signe Kivi has a solo exhibition “Signature” running until the first Sunday in March at the Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design.

The event will end as tradition dictates with a shot of vodka, kissel and sprat sandwich.

Long live Estonia!

Mart Kalm
Rector

London-based art critic Orit Gat will be giving an open lecture on 12 February at 18.00 at the Estonian Academy of Arts (room A202) on the subject of being personal in (art) writing. She will be exploring different ways of bringing personal experiences to writing and making space for experiences that are often not reflected in culture. Gat also considers the importance of developing a writing practice as a social space and writing with others in mind.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion led by art critic and educator Maarin Ektermann.
Orit Gat is a British writer and art critic living in London. She has written about
contemporary art, books, digital culture, and football for numerous magazines including The White Review, frieze, e-flux journal and e-flux criticism, ArtReview, Jacobin, Texte zur Kunst, Paper Visual Art, Art Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, the LA Review of Books, The World Policy Journal, Camera Austria, and Cultured, among others.

Orit Gat’s lecture in Tallinn is organized jointly by the Estonian Centre of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
The lecture will be held in English.

The Estonian Academy of Arts (Associate Prof. Kristina Jõekalda) together with Yale University (Prof. Bradley Woodworth) is organizing a history seminar on the Baltic Germans on February 7-8 2025:

“Bulwark against the East or Imperial Outpost? Baltic Germans in the Russian Empire“.

Among the speakers is also EKA’s junior researcher Ragne Soosalu.

The seminar takes place at Yale University in USA, but can be followed via Zoom. For an overview see the recap.

Dr. Charis Gullickson is a senior curator at the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Norway).

In her PhD project, Charis Gullickson examined public art museums in Norway as social actors. In her abstract she states: “The aim of this dissertation is to question status quo art museum practices and the predisposition to regard state-funded art museums in Norway as ‘neutral’ institutions.” Museum neutrality prevents institutions from “seeing” their potential transformative social power. Out of her research project grew the activist group Museer er ikke nøytrale / Museat eai leat neutrálat. For Charis, it is about learning to see (understanding systems of power and hierarchical structures). If museum practitioners cannot see the structural and systemic problems that exist, they cannot begin to fix them. Hence art museum professionals tend to maintain status quo and function within prevailing uncontroversial frameworks.

This lecture discusses Norwegian art museums as settler institutions in a historical perspective. I will consider how coloniality shapes the present within the context of art museums and curatorial practices. Analyzing the historical trajectory of the art museum from this standpoint might help demonstrate why art museums and curators operate the way they do today.

Links to case studies:

https://www.idunn.no/doi/full/10.18261/kk.105.1.4

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369801X.2022.2161063

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cura.12580

Lecture is held in cooperation with KUMU Art Museum and is connected to the exhibition “They Began to Talk” at the Gallery of Contemporary Art at Kumu Art Museum which invites us to reflect on environmental changes resulting from human activity through the lens of colonial history and its lasting impact. The exhibition brings together the practices of artists working in this region with those from Indigenous communities in the Nordic countries, exploring the possibility of recovering and cultivating a sense of connection.

Lecture is funded by:

@nordnorskkunstmuseum

@ikkenoytrale

Lecture’s recording at EKA TV.

Anneli Porri is a PhD student and junior researcher at the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture from 2023.

She graduated from the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture  of the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA in Art History and VIsual Culture Studies, 2002) and the Institute of Humanities of Tallinn University (MA in Cultural Theory, 2012) and works as a lecturer in art education and as a leader of the joint art teacher training programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Porri has written art criticism for the cultural media, curated exhibitions of Estonian and international contemporary art, edited art publications, and compiled teaching materials for both general and higher education.

Porri’s academic research interests are related to art education, teaching methods for the analysis of artworks and the didactics of art mediation. Her doctoral research focuses on teaching methods and strategies that support the development of visual competence, particularly in the interpretation of artworks.

About the seminar:

Conscious and deliberate looking is the basis of visual literacy and the interpretation of visual images is based on both our vision and our knowledge. Thus, image reading requires conscious learning. But how does the learning process establish contact with art and develop the skills that allow the viewer to interpret a work of art?

At the research seminar I will present a study in progress on the teaching of art history in Estonia since the establishment of the first chair of art history at the University of Tartu. I will offer a perspective on Estonian art history and art history studies that focuses primarily on the didactics of the subject, a view on the study and teaching of art history, an additional layer to the study of the science of Estonian art history, which has also been addressed in recent articles by Krista Kodres and Eero Kangor.

The aim of the study is to problematise the choice of traditional teaching methods and strategies in art history in both higher and general education and to clarify attitudes towards them according to art history and educational thought and practice.

I will focus on the following research questions:

1. What are the institutional and educational policy conditions of art history teaching in Estonian higher and general education 1920-1990(?)?
2. How is the teaching of the history of art and the relationship with art aimed at, what competences is it aimed at developing?
3. What are the traditional methods and strategies of teaching art history that have developed and are used in the teaching process?