Category: Jewellery and Blacksmithing

On Thursday, May 15th at 5:30 pm jewellery and blacksmithing students of the Estonian Academy of Arts will open the group exhibition “Wasted Light” on two floors at Roosikrantsi 8b.

The exhibition features contemporary jewellery and metal works that explore wear and tear as a slow but constant process through time and change.

The exhibition connects the past and present day, offering a vantage point where material and cultural wear and tear form a poetic yet critical reflection of identity, memory and embodied experiences. “Wasted Light” discusses how we are affected by processes that do not entirely erode, but bring out what is hidden beneath the layers.

Participants
Greg-Robin Al-Touby, Miia Helena Allsalu, Kelly Engelbrecht, Marek Huntsaar, Robert Idvani, Liisi Kõuhkna, Helle-Maris Laanet, Kaspar Lesk, Tarvo Porroson, Kaspar Pulk, Liisa-Chrislin Saleh, Patrick Soome, Pärt Taukar, Melani Telliskivi, Liisa Tikka

Supervisors Eve Margus and Nils Hint
Graphic design Mikk Jõgi

Thanks to the Estonian Academy of Arts, Aldar Eesti OÜ

Open for visiting 16.05-01.06.2025

Wed-Fri 14:00-19:00

Sat-Sun 12:00-19:00

The Forest Whispers is a unique jewellery exhibition that brings Estonian jewellery to Finland for the first time.

The exhibition of contemporary Estonian jewellery, Forest Whispers, tells the story of the relationship with nature, the forest and its meanings for Estonians. The jewellery opens up the relationship with the forest and nature from different perspectives: through mythology, the forest connection and the production of natural materials or ideas.

This unique jewelry exhibition brings Estonian jewelry to Finland for the first time. The exhibition features the work of around 50 jewelry artists, a forest project by students from the Art School of Helsinki, and the work of Roman Tavasti artists. The exhibition is curated by PhD Kärt Summatavet.

The forest is a meaningful, even sacred place. The experience of nature opens up by spending time there in different ways: walking, sitting, listening, drawing, photographing, swimming, picking berries and mushrooms. The exhibition allows you to delve deeper into the history of Estonian jewellery, mythology and the relationship with nature. The jewellery has been transformed into experiences, observations and dreams, traditions and ancient knowledge in the hands of artists. The relationship between Finnish and Estonian people with forests is very similar and exhibition visitors will certainly find common ground in their own ideas about nature and forests.

FEAST. Shared moments. 

Piret Hirv, Eve Margus, Erle Nemvalts, Taavi Teevet

Between the done and the undone, between the cooling forge and the warming skin, we gather—not as revellers, not as mourners, but as those who wait, as those who celebrate the passing of time.

The feast is not yet consumed, yet neither is it untouched. Hands have shaped these fragments of time, folded process into form, cast intention into weight and curve. Nothing is whole, and yet everything is full.

Each piece contains its own becoming — the long roads walked, the hesitations, the moment a choice cleaved one path from another.

To wear is to bear witness, to become part of what came before and what is yet to follow. The place matters, the moment matters — the object is a whisper in the silence before speech, a moment before something is revealed.

This is the nature of all things held and passed on, touched and released. We do not own, we do not keep. We pause here, at the edge of time’s turning, knowing the feast is both here and elsewhere, both now and then. The weight of all things rests lightly, just for this moment, before the silence breaks and we move on.

We come together. Everything might change. We come together. Everything might stay the same.

Opening days & hours:

Opening 12.03 (Wednesday) 19:00
13.03-14.03 (Thursday-Friday) 12:00 -18:00
15.03 (Saturday) 12:00 – 16:00

Exhibition supporters:

Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian National Culture Foundation

On December 6th from 6 pm A-Galerii will open its annual exhibition of Estonian contemporary jewellery, abstract objects and applied art that leaves plenty of room for interpretation. The materials used in the pieces range from various metals, textiles, and glass to organic materials. The exhibition concept embeds people and social practices addressing what kind of role and meanings given to objects play in curating our own personal reality.

A piece of jewellery and an art object is a valuable and layered conveyor of culture. It has symbolised belonging to a social, religious or political group functioning as a bind in between and a force guiding people to behave in a certain way. Therefore, assigning meaning to a physical object can be very efficacious on a personal and group level. There is a possibility to give meanings to an object that it originally did not have without the viewer.

Through objects, one can propose a hypothesis about the creation of the future. This activity enables us to break away from habitual meanings in relation to items and to consciously play around with them. This is proof that the future has not been fixed even though it might seem this way sometimes. The exhibition encourages the viewer to think about realistic and fictional scenarios about the future through dreaming and interpretation. With this practice new ideas and important meanings are being created.

The exhibition is open from December 6, 2024, to January 11, 2025.

We are pleased to invite you to participate in BLACKOUT, an event organised by the Jewellery and Blacksmithing Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the beginning of professional metal art education in Estonia.

Although the name of the university and the department has changed several times over the last hundred years, the fact remains that we have been teaching metalwork at a high level for a hundred years in a row. This is a good enough reason to call together friends from here and abroad to discuss where we have come from and where we are going.

Alongside the exhibition at the Narva Art Residency, a symposium, excursions, and sauna will encourage and initiate the discussions. All these activities are brought under the common title of BLACKOUT.

We do not imply mind-blindness or a serious hangover by this, but rather posing the question of how to arrive somewhere without knowing exactly where you’re going, as the essence of artistic quality lies in capturing the invisible. In discovering something surprising for yourself and others. The fear of being lost vanishes because even without knowing what you seek, you’ll recognize it when you find it.

At the symposium on October 25–26, we will approach the above-mentioned question from three different perspectives: PRACTITIONER, THEORIST, and EDUCATOR. The speakers will explore questions such as:

How do you create a relationship with students that would help them open up and inspire the courage to explore the world? How do I ask the right questions to discover something new and recognize the right things for myself? How do I deal with suspense? How do I maintain the courage to continue searching and working in a situation, where setting too clear goals could be an obstacle?

Speakers: Jorge Manilla (KHIO/NO), Olaf Hodne (KHIO/NO), Erinn M. Erinn (KHIO/NO). Cox (US), Daniel Strandow (HDK Valand/SWE), Siri Tolander (HDK Valand/SWE), Tarja Tuupanen (FI), Jenni Sokura (LAB/FI), Flora Vagi (MOME/HU), Taavi Hallimäe (EKA), Urmas Lüüs (EKA), Sander Haugas (EKA), Taavi Teevet (EKA), Hansel Tai (EE), Liisbeth Kirss (EE), Erle Nemvalts (EE).

Participation in the symposium is free.

The event will be held in English.

Pre-registration is required at the following link: https://forms.gle/6djfdmw41XYnLtXd6

Timetable:

Friday, 25 October

10-12 Narva sightseeing for guests

14-18 presentations

19 Exhibition opening, party

Saturday, 26 October 

11 – 14 presentations

16 Narva sightseeing

Sauna and socialising in the evening

Information about the event will be updated as it becomes available.

Location:
Narva Art Residency (NART)
Joala 18, 20103, Narva

Contact: metall@artun.ee

“When flying off-center, a new centerpoint shall be found to regain the balance” 

The opening of Mart Talvar’s first solo exhibition Out of Center is taking place at 22 nd of March at HOP gallery from 6 PM and is talking about finding balance within the process of transformation.

The theme of the exhibition began to unfold during his studies in the jewellery and blacksmithing department at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2022 and is still an ongoing process. During the metal spinning process, a copper object unexpectedly
jumped off-center, resulting in a unique object. The artist became interested in what lies behind an experience that we could perceive as failure. From that moment, a thorough practice of metal spinning began with the outcome to be shared with a wider audience.

At the gallery, the techniques of metal spinning and porcelain slip casting meet each othernas opposites in nature. The copper work refers to the occurrence of flying off-center as a possibility to redefine the concepts of being centered and off-center, failure, and balance. The porcelain objects demonstrate the transformation of traces, that have transferred on
from the copper material and have significantly reduced in size after the firing process.

The design method of material empathy offers symbolic meaning to the “dialogue” between the materials. This blurs boundaries between the public space and social context, and leaves the viewer plenty of room for personal interpretations.

Location HOP gallery

The opening 22.03.2024 kell 18:00
Opening times N-T 22.03-16.04 11:00-18:00

Curator Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design Cristopher Siniväli

Technical aid HOP gallery; Valge Kuup Studio

Support Estonian Academy of Arts, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Shroomwell OÜ,
Põhjala Brewing AS, Tuulmet Holding OÜ

You are invited to the opening of the exhibition LET’S GET PHYGITAL and a guest talk, where the organisers Anneleen Swillen, Mala Siamptani and Darja Popolitova will discuss contemporary jewellery practices through the prism of digital technologies.

The exhibition opening and a guest talk is on the 30th of November, 17:00–18:30.

The exhibition is open from 30.11 to 18.12.2023.

If you can’t join IRL, sign up for a Zoom guest talk via this link

Meeting ID: 912 0263 6427
Passcode: 202810
Topic: Let’s Get Phygital vestlusõhtu
Time: Nov 30, 2023 05:00 PM Helsinki 

Exhibition Information:

LET’S GET PHYGITAL is a students’ exhibition celebrating the 3rd edition of a collaborative project between the jewellery departments of the London College of Fashion (LCF), the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) and the PXL-MAD School Of Arts.

The exhibition acknowledges how digital experiences advance artistic thinking and practice by creating an IRL space for digital adornment. By using Augmented Reality filters as tools, the students investigated how contemporary adornment can exist in non-physical forms, be wearable and interact with their audience.

Information About Speakers:

• Anneleen Swillen is a postdoctoral researcher and tutor at PXL-MAD School of Arts Hasselt and Hasselt University, located in Belgium. She explores jewellery in a phygital culture through research in the arts, education, curation, and writing. In 2020, she co-founded Artificial Intelligems in collaboration with composer Greg Scheirlinckx. As a fluid and interdisciplinary collective, currently working on the intersection of jewellery, graphic design, music, XR-performance, dance, and data science, they aim to explore more-than-human co-creation.
• Mala Siamptani is a design practitioner with substantial experience in the research, development and delivery of creative projects in Fashion, Design and Art sector. After obtaining two Masters degrees and currently conducting a PhD research, Mala runs her studio in east London specializing in the design and manufacture of products and sculptural objects. Mala has designed and manufactured jewellery and object collections which have been exhibited in Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Italy, Australia, Germany and the UK. Following extensive material research, Mala’s work attempts to connect traditional craft with digital technology. She has recently presented her research projects at the Global fashion Conference (Leon), the Creativity Researchers Conference (UK) and the 1st World Symposium for Fashion, Jewellery and Accessories (Shanghai). Through her design work and research, Mala demonstrates both the use and need for material research and its acknowledgment of experiential knowledge to advance craft thinking and practice.
• Darja Popolitova is a contemporary jewellery artist, curator, lecturer and PhD student at the Estonian Academy of Arts; born in 1989 in Sillamäe and based in Tallinn. An ironical view of nowadays drives her process, which fuels her to blend digital craft and video performances with fiction. She finds jewellery’s haptic and symbolic nature a generous medium that allows her to conceptualise ideas. For her artistic practice, she was honoured with numerous awards and scholarships such as Annual Award of Estonian Cultural Endowment (2020), the EAA Research Publication Award (2020), Adamson-Eric Scholarship (2018) and the Artist Laureate Salary (2022). She took part in the shows at the Smack Mellon Gallery in New York (2022), the Arnhem Museum in the Netherlands (2020) and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York (2019).

The exhibition “Fregment_21:12” by second-year jewelry and blacksmithing students of the Estonian Academy of Arts, will be held in the Long Leg Gate Tower of Old Town, Pikk Jalg 2, between May 19 and June 4.

The exhibition reflects eight young artists’ curiosity about preserving something – what they think is worth keeping and passing on, and in what way. The desire to keep what is important to oneself has always existed. What is preserved gives us a sense of security, that even though the world around us is changing at breakneck speed, there is something that remains the same. But when trying to store something, its nature also changes. Isn’t keeping something unchanged a failed endeavor from the very beginning?

Over the years, both our values and what is held sacred change, but the original information about something important always remains. Wisdom for life is passed on through knowledge and skills, and we hope to continue to be better than before with that. All previous experiences are somehow embedded into our DNA and manifest under certain conditions when it is necessary to save us from destruction. Despite our own contradictions and self-destructiveness, we also have a survival mechanism coded into us. To trigger it, we just need to know the right code or  the right time – let it be 21:12 for example.

Artists: Aleš Rezler, Elis Liivo, Lara Herrmann, Maarja Hallika, Madlen Hirtentreu, Madli Pajos, Helen Tiits and Paul Aadam Mikson will perform at the exhibition.

Supervisors: Eve Margus and Nils Hint

Thanks: Bruno Lillemets, Jens Andreas Clausen, Kristo Pachel, Taavi Teevet, Sander Haugas, Villu Mustkivi