Category: Craft Studies

Alyona Movko-Mägi’s solo exhibition Soo is open from June 6 to September 27, 2025, at the Museum of Photography’s Seek gallery, situated in Tornimäe.

The exhibition inaugurates the new season in Estonia’s one-of-a-kind Night Gallery format. During the summer months, the gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday during late evening and nighttime hours: from June to August, 20:00–02:00; in September, 20:00–00:00.

Soo (Estonian for “Bog”) explores the relationship between body and landscape, treating the bog as a layered archive—a place where bodies, stories, and histories accumulate. It is a site of preservation and transformation, where life is held and reshaped. The exhibition invites reflection on the symbolic relationship between embodied presence and terrain, with the bog acting simultaneously as a keeper of memory and a space of change.

At the heart of the exhibition is the female body—as a bearer of life, memory, and belonging. The stratification of bodily experiences—ranging from creation to sacrifice and transformation—intertwines with the landscape, where human traces and narratives blend into visible and invisible layers.

Alyona Movko-Mägi (b. 1984) is an artist whose practice intersects material-based research, expanded photography, and memory embedded in nature. Living and working beside the bogs of Lahemaa in northern Estonia, she gathers and processes materials remembered by the land. Her work weaves together leather, glass, light, photography, motion, and digital forms—bringing forward how time moves through both body and earth, and how care, disappearance, and transformation remain held in matter.

In the artist’s words:
“The bog invites slowness. It gathers silence, light, moisture, and pressure. Movement becomes perception; presence begins to settle in layers. Each pause creates a space for listening—quietly and attentively, without explanation. Photography unfolds here as an embodied act. Light gathers the surface, layering presence. The image does not depict an object, it shapes the conditions for presence and perception, connecting body and space.”

Throughout the summer, the accompanying public program will feature talks on folk heritage, concerts, and workshops on analog photography.

Exhibition Team
Curator: Annika Haas
Sound design: Maksim Adel
Lighting design: Mikk-Mait Kivi
Graphic design: Katariin Mudist
Installation team: Mikk Kivila, Marten Esko, Valge Kuup

Supported by:
The Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), Department of Glass and Department of Photography.
This exhibition is part of the TASE ’25 graduate festival program.

Night Gallery Opening Hours
• June–August: Wed–Sat, 20:00–02:00
• September: Wed–Sat, 20:00–00:00

The Museum of Photography—located behind Town Hall in a former medieval prison—is part of the Tallinn City Museum and the home of Estonian photographic heritage. In its SEEK gallery, contemporary photography enters dialogue with architectural history.

An end-of-the-year exhibition by Craft Studies first year MA students showcasing a broad spectrum of material-led practices.

In the first semester of the studies, we discuss at length the difference between objects and things — what makes something an object and another a thing? Wikipedia encourages their editors to be “straightforward, just-the-facts, instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated” when explaining and describing the subject at hand. This exhibition is precisely not that. The works in this exhibition are both, neither and in-between. We encourage you, the visitor, to think about the works you see in essay-like, argumentative and opinionated ways, doubting and departing, considering thingness and objectness as up for discussion.

Object or Things II takes place in the studio of the Craft Studies programme at Kopli 70a, Krulli Kvartal, 2nd floor. The opening is on May 30 at 18:00. Visitors are welcome from 13–19:00 on May 31 and June 1,2,3, or by appointment.

For more information, please get in touch with Marite Kuus marite.kuus@artun.ee

Participants: Sylvia Whananaki Treep Burgess, Lap Chun Chow, Margus Elizarov, Maia Margareta Hellman, Nele Kurvits, Marite Kuus, Lyly Letzer, Peixuan Lin, Mariam Mestvirishvili and Joanne-Heleene Sõrmus.

Curators: Juss Heinsalu and Kärt Ojavee

Rait Lõhmus presents the methodology developed during his MA studies with the project Reblow Toolset: “Piiritus / Infinite” – a site-specific glassblowing performance that connects industrial production heritage with contemporary craft. The performative reblowing takes place in the historic Rakvere Distillery and invites to reflect on the invisibility and impact of mass production. The demonstration brings human presence back into a space built on mechanised precision.

Reblow Toolset is a selection of tools and devices for reblowing premade glass objects. Influences from earlier productions and modified equipment are extensions of the designer’s body in a mobile glassblowing studio. The technology redefines and revalues existing glass objects, referring  to collaboration with a previous author, production, era or region.

“Piiritus / Infinite” is the outcome of experimentation, conceptual and tool development during the MA studies. The final project presentation takes place at Rakvere Distillery, an iconic yet vanishing part of Estonia’s industrial heritage. The former production space bridges creator, material, space, eras and heritage.

Reblowing reveals the potential of premade glass objects: resume, retake, reblow, remember, reproduce and reshape.

Supervised by Andres Allik, Triin Jerlei, Juss Heinsalu, Kärt Ojavee

Supported by Estonian Academy of Arts – Craft Studies

Rait Lõhmus’ site-specific glassblowing demonstration “Reblow Toolset: Piiritus / Infinite” is part of the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Craftstudies MA programme and the EKA TASE Graduation Show.

An invitation to the opening of “From Mines to Mountains”, an exhibition by Hannah Segerkrantz on Thursday 15.05 at 18:00 

From Mines to Mountains unfolds as an act of care within an industrially mined landscape often denied tenderness. Anchored in historical, environmental and socio-political research, the project unveils the complex entanglements of Ida-Virumaa, Eastern Estonia—a region reshaped by over a century of oil shale mining. At its core are four hand-sculpted vessels made of clay and glazes from oil shale ash sourced directly from this terrain. Through field research, writings, material experiments, and a visual essay, the project asks what it means to care for a terraformed environment, offering a new perspective through the language of craft. 

With special thanks to: Lina Kaljundi, Juss Heinsalu, Kärt Ojavee, Eik Hermann, Ainar Varinurm, Maksim Olissov, Anne Eelmere, Jaan August Viirand, Ethel Ütsmüts, Tiiu Meiner, Kati Saarits, Marite Helena Kuus, Karl Joonas Alamaa, Taavi Teevet 

Supported by: Estonian Academy of Arts – Craft Studies 

Opening: May 15th, 2025, 18:00 

Exhibition is open by appointment between 15.05-29.06 

Pikk Jalg 3, III floor 

Hannah Segerkrantz is a designer whose practice combines the notion of agency with the re-definition of what we address as our ‘surroundings’. With an interest in the intersection between architecture and radical ecologies, her approach to research is environmental, sensorial and contextual. Whether exploring the cultural background and gestures of architectural materials, or studying the relations between objects, people and local traditions, she offers tools and means for bridging our connection with the environments we inhabit.

hannahsegerkrantz.com

Sofiya Babiy
A spectrum of disappearance / Hääbumise varjundid
Location: Rävala 8, room A203
Defence: 12.05 at 10 o’clock

Elias Sormanen
Dreams of Novaja Zemlja / Unenäod Novaja Zemljast
Location: Pikk jalg 3, attic
Defence: 12.05 at 15 o’clock

Juulia Aleksandra Mikson
For a moment / Hetke vaid
Location: Manufaktuuri 7/2 ja Manufaktuuri kvartal apple orhid
Defence: 13.05 at 11 o’clock

Iohan Figueroa
Drifting / Kandumine
Performance: 13.05 at 16 o’clock
Location: Paljassaare hoiuala (outdoors)
Defence: 14.05 at 10 o’clock in Krulli Studio (Kopli 70a, II floor)

Hannah Segerkrantz
From Mines to Mountains / Maast Mägedeks
Location: Pikk jalg 3, III floor
Defence: 14.05 at 14 o’clock

Kati Saarits
Series of Belongings / Seeriad esemetest
Location: Koidu 23-6 apartment
Defence: 15.05 at 11 o’clock

Alyona Movko-Mägi
Creature. Maker. Mire. / Olend. Looja. Soo.
Location: Gallery SEEK, Väike-Pääsukese 5
Defence: 15.05 at 15 o’clock

Rait Lõhmus
reblow toolset: piiritus / infinite
Performance/demo: 16.05 at 13 o’clock
Location: Rakvere piiritustehas, Vabriku 6 in Rakvere
Defence: 16.05 at 14 o’clock

You are warmly invited to the opening of Juulia Aleksandra Mikson’s solo exhibition “For a Moment” on Tuesday, May 6th at 18:30, at Manufaktuuri 7/2, Tallinn.

From 6th to 16th of May Juulia Aleksandra Mikson is organizing her solo exhibition “For a Moment” as part of her master’s project at the Craft Studies department at the Estonian Academy of Arts. The overarching theme of the exhibition is the metamorphosis of life and the fading of matter. The materials used in the artworks engage with the gradual decay of life. The limited lifespan of the pieces — their potential to break, unravel, or fragment — conveys the uniqueness of both disintegration and creation.

By using the word ‘hääbuma’ that translates as decay or fading , often associated with melancholy or sorrow, the artist embraces the inevitability of life’s flow — where every end marks a new beginning. Nothing is permanent nor irreversibly lost, but rather in constant motion, always offering the potential for rebirth.

The exhibition site itself reflects a location-specific metamorphosis through time — the reinhabitation of the once-abandoned Baltic Cotton Spinning and Weaving Factory, now being transformed into the Manufaktuuri Quarter. The exhibition unfolds across three spatial environments: an apple orchard, liminal space between old factory buildings , and a contemporary residential development. This new architecture contrasts visually with the remaining factory buildings — at least, for now, before the old is fully absorbed by the new.The exhibition space brings together the works that embody various forms of textility and stages of transformation.

Juulia Aleksandra Mikson is a textile artist who explores the boundaries between materials. Her creative process is guided by the intrinsic properties of the materials, allowing them to lead the dynamics of creation. In her liminal practice, she has combined textiles with clay, and metal with textiles — revealing new layers within the relationships between materials. Working with both metal and clay, she values the freedom found in not knowing — a space where limitations do not hinder experimentation or the flow of creativity. For her, the essence of creation lies in the pure joy of making, where technique and material naturally become extensions of the hands and the mind.

Juulia’s work engages with themes surrounding the relationship between humans, the Earth, and nature. Through this lens, she reflects on the contemporary fear of dacy and fading — where, in denying disappearance, we live in illusion.

“For a Moment”, Juulia Aleksandra Mikson’s solo exhibition, forms part of her master’s thesis in the Art Studies curriculum at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is presented within the EKA TASE Graduation Festival.

Supervisors: Marta Konovalov, Kärt Ojavee, Juss Heinsalu
Mentor: Ivar Veermäe
Installation Team: Martin Mikson, Anna-Liisa Pärt
Sound Artist: Karolin Sigus
Graphic Design: Katariin Mudist

The artist wishes to thank:
The EKA Ceramics Department, the EKA Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department, the EKA Textile Department, the EKA Art Studies programme, Karl Aunin, Kille-Ingeri Liivoja, Mari-Ann Reede, Paul Aadam Mikson, Aleš Rezler, Mia Tamme, and all other collaborators in thought.

Supported by: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Põhjala Brewery, Estonian Academy of Arts – Art Studies

Opening: May 6, 2025 | 18:30–21:00

Exhibition Open:

7th May: 16:00–19:00
9th May: 16:00–19:00
12th May: 16:00–19:00
14th–16th May: 16:00–19:00

Location: Manufaktuuri 7/2, Tallinn

On Tuesday, March 18th, we’re reading a series of writings by the EKA Craft Studies MA programme students.
All texts were composed through research, writing and editing supervised by Lieven Lahaye and Else Lagerspetz. The event takes place at the Craft Studies Krulli studio (Kopli 70a, II floor), from 18:00-20:00

There are 8 texts as part of the components required for graduation, reflecting on a diverse range of topics and approaches relevant to the students’ individual practices and the expanded field of design and craft, with links to the making and footwork-handwork-headwork relations.

Belongings

Written by Kati Saarits
This text is exploring local material culture history through the lens of industrial ceramics heritage, touching on questions of how sentimentality settles into material and how surroundings shape our perception of home.

Creature. Maker. Mire. 
Written by Alyona Movko-Mägi
Through the entanglement of organic and digital materiality Creature. Maker. Mire explores the bog as an archive — where bodies, landscapes, and crafts are preserved, transformed, and reinterpreted across time.

Reblow toolset
Written by Rait Lõhmus 
Reblow toolset examines ways to upgrade premade glass objects and explores the causes of devaluation and potential for revaluations.

Through the hammer, through the body

Written by Elias Sormanen
A deep look into the importance of skill in making, as seen through the craft of a metal hammerer.

Hääbuda, et taas tärgata.
Written by Juulia Aleksandra Mikson
A poetical observation of decay as an integral part of the cyclical process of life, while approaching it with acceptance and a sense of hope.

On Extractivism and Care for Landscapes:
From Mines to Mountains in the East of Estonia
Written by Hannah Segerkrantz
This text explores the post-industrial mountains of mining waste in the east of Estonia through questions about how we relate to our surroundings and their materiality.

Movement Matter. Embodied knowledge in material practices
Written by Iohan Figueroa
Series of dialogues between materials and the way we embody our practice, the importance of contact during the making process.

A Book of Mashed Potatoes
Written by Sofiya Babiy
A contemplation on shades of vanishing through photography, trees, cinema, land, time, death and family.

EKA Craft Studies MA programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the curriculum, and to meet and ask questions from the people behind the programme.

The online info session will be hosted online over Zoom and the link will be e-mailed out to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below.

Register HERE

More information about the Craft Studies MA programme: https://www.artun.ee/en/curricula/craft-studies/overview/

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2025 and application deadline is 3rd of March 2025.

https://artun.ee/admissions

On Friday, January 3rd 2025 at 17:00 the group exhibition “Abundance” opens on the second floor of T1 shopping center (next to the central atrium).

The exhibition includes works by Emily Greenwood, Ulvi Haagensen, Cecile Hübner, Heleliis Hõim, Erki Kasemets, Sandra Kosorotova, Gary Markle and Sigrid Viir.

“Abundance” delves into the themes of invisible systems in the age of consumerism. By organizing an exhibition in a shopping center, a question of dealing with the existing surrounding arises. How do we work both with and against the overwhelming presence of consumerism and capitalism? The exhibition acts as a space to take time, observe and briefly escape from the sea of information. It aims to slow down visitors and make them reflect on their surroundings.

The exhibition is curated by Piret Arukaevu, Sylvia Burgess, Maia Hellman, Kaur Järve, Marite Kuus and Mariam Mestvirishvili as part of the Curatorial Studies Seminar, led by Brigit Arop, at Estonian Academy of Arts.

Exhibition is open from 03.01–17.01.2025.

Open hours:
Tue–Fri 16:00–20:00,
Sat–Sun 12:00–20:00

Finissage event on Friday, January 17th at 17:00, programming will begin at 17:30.

Information about public programming during the exhibition will be announced on the Facebook event – https://www.facebook.com/events/2404807066531874

Graphic design by Andrew Hill.

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Academy of Arts, department of Art History and Visual Culture and Craft Studies.

Special thanks to T1 Mall of Tallinn and SUHE bar.

On November 30, the presentation of the visually formatted process model and exhibition of the project “MUUSA: Synthesis and Development of Material Research” supported by the Ministry of Culture will take place.

The exhibition in the format of an open studio includes both completed and unfinished material assemblages and supporting structures. The MUUSA project was carried out by lecturers from the Estonian Academy of Arts and the heads of the Craft Studies Master’s programme, Kärt Ojavee and Juss Heinsalu.

One of the goals of the project was to develop a model of creative research based on materials using the co-creation method. During the work period, different versions were tested and synthesized and, for example, the following were studied: how to approach the study of the composition and properties of materials in creative practice; how to apply material as a method in managing the process; how to involve material as a muse to guide creative goals and interpretive solutions? The study of materials through artistic practice involves both meaning-making, sensory approaches, and the discovery and integration of the applicable properties of materials in possible final results. Eik Hermann helped to conceptualize and formulate the process based on the material and the knowledge generated through collaboration.

* moment of appearance – the moment when one production cycle has been completed and the work has reached the draft or rough draft level, when it can either be tried out in reality or temporarily or permanently shared with a smaller or larger audience; if it is a moment of showing the draft phase, then a new production cycle follows the showing.

During the project, collaboration has also been carried out with Marie Vihmari, Fibenol OÜ, Reval Stone and AAA Patent Office.

The project presentation will take place at Kopli 27.

The project space can be visited until 12.12.2024 by agreement with the authors.

MUUSA project space exhibition design: Annika Kaldoja
Graphic design: Indrek Sirkel

Project manager: Anna Lohmatova

Thanks to: Eik Hermann, Piret Valk, Gert Preegel, Janno Rauk, Soldi Rent OÜ, Eesti Killustik OÜ, Villavennad OÜ, Selgase Dolomitit OÜ, Mattias Veller, Estonian Academy of Arts Research and Development Department, Ceramics, Textiles, Jewelry and Blacksmithing, Sculpture Workshops, Bruce Anderson, Joosep Kivimäe, Gary Markle, Andrus Ojavee, Heron Vrubel.