Category: Faculty of Fine Arts

TASE DAY on Saturday, June 6th:

1–9 pm TASE exhibition open
1–3 pm guided tours of the Faculty of Design, in Estonian
3–3.30pm guided tours of the Faculty of Art and Culture, in Estonian
3–6 pm burning ritual at Kail Timusk’s installation “Requiem Larium” on the sea terrace of the main building
3.45–4.30pm Jaak Juske’s historical tour around EKA, in Estonian
5 pm TASE Anima ’26 screening at the cinema Sõprus
7 pm TASE Anima ’26 Q&A in the lobby of the main building of the Estonian Academy of
Arts, moderated by Lyza Karoly Jarvis and Kaur Järve, in English

Keithy Kuuspu’s durational performance in the yard of Kotzebue 4

– “Indirect Performativity” on Wednesday, June 17 at 7 pm

Burning rituals at Kail Timusk’s installation “Requiem Larium” on the sea terrace of the main building of EKA

– Sat 6.06 at 3–6 pm
– Sun 14.06 at 4–7 pm
– Fri 19.06 at 1–4 pm

Margaret Tilk’s study club “Girls, In Theory”

Tuesday, June 9 at 6 pm at EKA Gallery, with pre-registration, in Estonian

GUIDED TOURS

All tours start in the lobby of the EKA main building and participation is free of charge.

Historical tour

Saturday, June 6 at 3.45–4.30 pm historical tour around EKA, led by Jaak Juske, in Estonian, donations are welcome

Guided tours of the Faculty of Architecture

– Thursday, June 11 at 2–3 pm guided tour of the Department of Interior Architecture led by Gregor Taul, in Estonian
– Thursday, June 11 at 3.30–5 pm guided tour of the Departments of Architecture and Urbanism led by Roland Reemaa, in Estonian
– Monday, June 15 at 5–6 pm guided tour of the Faculty of Architecture led by Sille Pihlak, in Estonian
– Tuesday, June 16 at 1–2 pm guided tour of the Department of Interior Architecture led by students of the faculty, in Estonian

Guided tours of the Faculty of Design

– Saturday, June 6 at 1–3 pm, guided tour by Kätlin Leokin and students of the faculty, in Estonian
– Sunday, June 14 at 1–3 pm, guided tour by Kätlin Leokin and students of the faculty, in Estonian

Guided tours of the Faculty of Arts and Culture

– Saturday, June 6 at 3–3.30 pm, guided tour by Valve Saarma, in Estonian
– Sunday, June 14 at 3–3.30 pm, guided tour by Valve Saarma, in Estonian

Guided tour of the Faculty of Fine Arts

– Sunday, June 14 at 4–5 pm, guided tour by Elo Vahtrik, in Estonian

More info at: https://tase.artun.ee/

Faculty of Fine Arts invites: Public artist talk by acknowledged Australian contemporary artist Mikala Dwyer at 18.00 on June 4th in EKA, A-501

In works that explore how we relate to the object-world, Mikala Dwyer has pushed the limits of sculpture, painting and performance, establishing herself as one of Australia’s most important contemporary artists. She has been honoured with solo survey exhibitions at Sydney’s two major art museums, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, and the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane.

Her many exhibitions internationally include The Recent, Talbot Rice gallery, Edinburgh, Ichiahara Art + Mix Triennale, Japan, Blessed Be, MOCA Tucson, USA (2018); The End of the 20th Century, The Best is Yet to Come—A Dialogue with the Marx Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2013); Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2003); Verso Süd at Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome, curated by Franz West (2000); and shows at The Graz Museum, Austria; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; and Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK. Her work has been selected for the Lyon Biennale (2026) Istanbul Biennale (1995), the Biennale of Sydney (2010 and 2014) and the Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Australian Art (2010 and 2020)

Mikala Dwyer’s compounds invite open-ended interaction and take the viewer across boundaries of time, space and geography. While playful and exuberant on the surface, they almost always impel us to imagine something darker beneath—or above. Ordinary and familiar materials draw us in, transformed so as to bring attention to the unseen or occult or what society banishes from view. Emerging from a deep and disobedient engagement with modernist form and space, Dwyer’s works have an eye on the future and relationship at their heart—they have been described as ‘profoundly sociable’.

Dwyer’s work is always responsive to site and context, and her successful public art commissions include Monuments for Fishes, Barangaroo, Sydney 2026; Sydney Metro, 2024; Apparition, University square, Melbourne, 2020; In the Smoke of Ghosts, MUMA 2020; Egg Swing, 2012, Royal Women’s Hospital, Paddington, Sydney; Windwatcher, 2011, Central Park, Chippendale, Sydney; A Lamp for Mary, 2010, Mary Place, Surry Hills, Sydney; Swamp Sculpture, 2006, Omi Sculpture Park, New York, NY; and IOU, 2005, Docklands, Melbourne.

https://www.mikaladwyer.com/

23.05.26.-14.06.26

Opening: 22.05.26 18:00

with a Performance by Anumai Raska starting at 19:00!

Artists: Bob Bicknell-Knight, Giulio Cusinato, Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjašov, Lisette Lepik, Fausta Noreikaitė, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Anumai Raska, Nora Schmelter

Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen and Nora Schmelter

Entrance No. 4 transforms the ARS Project Space into a stage of sorts, where the audience engages with the artworks on show through a series of curtailed entranceways, examining ideas of control, illusionary realities and voyeuristic tendencies. Through actively herding and throttling the viewing experience, Entrance No. 4 demands a re-examination of how artworks are seen and engaged with, reflecting upon how images are shared and diffused within contemporary life.

When navigating the purposefully oblique space one will have the opportunity to encounter work from 11 artists currently undergoing a Masters in Contemporary Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Artworks on show range from painting and sculpture to video and installation, engaging with ideas associated with the home, climate collapse and our collectively fraught relationship with the body and physical spaces.

Tue–Fri: 12:00–18:00

Sat, Sun: 12:00–16:00

ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt 154, Tallinn 11317

Graphic Design: Chloé Gourvennec, Ethan Anthony Read

The exhibition is supported by ARS Kunstilinnak, Estonian Artists’ Association, Estonian Academy of Art, Nudist, Põhjala Brewery, Tuletorn

Curated by Rebeka Põldsam

15.05.-14.06.2026

Opening Thursday, May 14 at 6 pm at Draakon Gallery 

Mara Kirchberg’s solo exhibition explores the technologization of care, focusing on how the automotive sector has shaped care work. Moving between garage and medical settings, Kirchberg examines the metaphor of the body as a machine, tracing how petromodern systems designed for efficiency come to structure how we carry, support, and maintain one another.

At the center of the exhibition is a hanging installation assembled from industrial materials forming a fragile organism—lifting slings, artificial membranes, lubricants—requiring ongoing maintenance to remain functional. During “Service Hours,” the artist activates the pulley system, performing a public maintenance while wearing a PVC “Sweat Suit”. 

Performances: 30 May and 13 June at 5 PM

Performed by Mara Kirchberg

Curator: Rebeka Põldsam

Graphic design: Kert Viiart–Õllek

Technical support: Gisèle Gonon, Marko Odar

Outside Eye: Gisèle Gonon

Supported by The Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Goethe-Institut Estland

Special thanks to: Eesti Kunstnike Liit, Hans-Otto Ojaste, Mari Volens, Sandra Ernits

On Thursday, 14 May at 6 PM, Viktoria Martjanova’s first solo exhibition Biomaterial will open at the Hobusepea Gallery.

Working with installation, video and photography, the artist regards the body as a resource: a currency that can be optimised, controlled, used and categorised according to political, military and economic interests.

At the centre of the exhibition is a large-scale installation made of hair, transforming this intimate and personal material into a spatial experience. From this enchanting, yet repellent approach to material and form, Martjanova moves on to the media of photography and video, creating a more direct link between organic matter and human life. The exhibited bodies and materials have lost their autonomy and function rather as units in a broader socio-political system, where their value is determined by their usability and purpose.

Viktoria Martjanova is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes video, installation, sound, text and performativity. Her work focuses on the formation of identity in conditions where the personal experience is inextricably linked to social and political mechanisms, perceiving the body as a tension field where these power dynamics are manifested.

Martjanova uses bodily experience, memory and language as materials to examine how personal tension and social structures intertwine in the body and how these relationships become perceivable. Her works move along the axis of tension and interruption, looking at identity as an unstable construct that is constantly rewritten. Martjanova highlights the human and young author’s position in conditions shaped by external pressure, visibility and the requirement to create one’s self-image.

Her works have been shown at the Performa Biennial in New York, the Riga Art Week’s (RAW) opening event, the Alma Gallery in Riga and the Vilnius Art Week. She is the laureate of the 2025 Young Artist Award granted by the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Curator: Lilian Hiob-Küttis

Graphic design: Maxim Nikanorov

Installation of the exhibition: Polina Kaaiko, Tõnis Tallermaa, Madis Eek, Hans-Otto Ojaste

Metalwork: Märt Vaidla

Special gratitude to Eesti Kultuurkapital, Eesti Kunsti Aakadeemia, Valge Kuup Studio, Anita Kremm, Ksenia Verbeštšuk, Juri Krutii, Todd Richter, Dmitry Gubin, Aksel Haagesen, Viktoria Arapina, juuste doonorid, kunstniku perekond, Villem Varik, Liisi Kõuhkna, Kaisa Maasik-Koplimets, Anna Mari Liivrand, Jordi Hin, Andrei Kazakov, Meraki Testa Dell’Acqua, Compose.

PS! The celebration of the exhibition opening will continue at Paavli Culture Factory starting from 8:30pm.

Exhibitions in the Hobusepea Gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS.

The gallery is managed by the Estonian Artists’ Association.

“Moments Held” is a group exhibition by second-year students from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The title refers to nostalgic or meaningful fragments of time that each artist preserves through their work in their own unique way. The exhibition explores human memory and its fragility, the act of holding onto memories, and the attempt to capture moments that would otherwise vanish all too quickly.

The works address the transformation of the mind under societal pressure, the shifting of memories with every recollection, and the stories carried by objects. Some artists draw on family heritage, others on the experience of adapting to a new environment, yet almost all look inward during the creative process to interpret and visually depict the moments that hold personal significance. Together, they form a cohesive whole defined by craftsmanship, experimentation, and materiality.

Participating artists: Anastasija Šteinle, Anna Weidebaum, Ronja Jõgi, Sadhbh Connolly, Selene Taur.

The artists would like to thank their supervisors Viktor Gurov and Eve Kask, and the EKA Department of Graphic Art.

Exhibition dates: 11/05.–30/05. Opening: May 11 at 17:00. Location: GÜ Gallery, Pärnu mnt 154, Tallinn. Opening hours: Mon–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16

Opening on Thursday, 21 May at 6 pm in the Great Hall of the Kumu Art Museum
(Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, Tallinn).
 
Chromatic Drift creates a cohesive perceptual and spatial experience centred on colour, a defining element in the oeuvre of the Estonian painter Kristi Kongi. Works created specifically for this exhibition over the past couple of years, together with the surrounding installation-based environment, evoke both chromatic richness and a poetic mode of being in unmapped territory.
 
At the opening, the launch of the book accompanying the exhibition will also take place.
 
The opening will take place in Kumu’s courtyard, weather permitting.
 
Opening programme on Saturday, 23 May:

Exhibition tours with curator Ann Mirjam Vaikla and artist Kristi Kongi: 12 noon (in English) and 2 pm (in Estonian)
Artist talk with Kristi Kongi at 3:30 pm

The exhibition will remain open until 11 October 2026.

Curator: Ann Mirjam Vaikla
Exhibition design: Mari Hunt, Grete Daut (MARIHUNT architects)
Graphic design: Brit Pavelson
Exhibition installation manager: Tõnis Medri
Coordinator: Anastassia Langinen

On May 14, 2026, the Estonian Academy of Arts will host an open conference titled “Metamorphosis as a Creator of the Future” in room A501, featuring internationally acknowledged Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia as the keynote speaker.

The conference will be held in English.

The conference will focus on the philosophy of Emanuele Coccia, with metamorphosis as the key term. Life is an incessant series of metamorphoses that happen everywhere, and the first natural technology is the cocoon, where preparation for transformation takes place. The keynote speaker at the conference will be Emanuele Coccia. The floor will also be given to artists and thinkers who, through their work, have explored change and its impact on the world around us.

Programme:

15.00 Opening words and introduction

I session: Contemporary Art and Language as a Form of Transformations

Bjarki Bragason (artist, educator, Iceland University of the Arts):
The Garden That Was: Memory, Ecology and Transformation

Ene-Liis Semper (artist, stage director, educator, Estonian Academy of Arts)
Large-Scale Performances as the Agents of Change in Society

Hasso Krull (poet, essayist, philosopher, Tallinn University)
A Metamorphic Event: Hommages à Artur Alliksaar and Emanuele Coccia

16.00 Coffee break

16.15 II session: Philosophy of Metamorphosis

Marek Tamm (cultural historian, theorist, Tallinn University)

Philosophy as Metamorphosis: Emanuele Coccia

Emanuele Coccia (philosopher, Italy/France, EHESS)

Metamorphosis as the Creator of Future

17.30 -18.30 final panel: Metamorphosis as the Creator of Future

Coccia, Bragason, Semper, Krull, Tamm – moderated by Kirke Kangro

Emanuele Coccia is Associate Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has been a visiting professor and researcher at numerous international institutions, including universities in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Düsseldorf, Columbia University, Harvard, Penn University and New York University. His work bridges philosophy, ecology, contemporary art, architecture, and visual theory, proposing a renewed understanding of life, form, and habitation on a planetary scale.

He is the author of several books translated into many languages, including The Life of Plants (Polity, 2018; Gallimard, 2016), Metamorphoses (Polity, 2021; Rivages, 2020), and Philosophy of the Home (Penguin, 2024; Rivages, 2024) and A Treatise on Modern Love (Flammarion and Einaudi 2026) . Together with photographer Viviane Sassen, he published Modern Alchemy (JBE Books, 2022), a book on photographic theory and image-thinking; with Paolo Roversi, Lettres sur la lumière (Gallimard, 2024), a philosophical epistolary on light as a principle of visibility and creation; and with Alessandro Michele, creative director of Valentino, The Life of Forms. Philosophy of Re-enchantment (HarperCollins, 2024). His forthcoming book, New Natures. Planetary Museums (Park Books, 2026), co-authored with author and curator Béatrice Grenier and architect Jeanne Gang, examines the emergence of planetary museums as living ecologies at the intersection of nature, architecture, and culture.

In 2019 and 2021, he contributed to Nous les Arbres, presented at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, where he is also a member of the Academic Committee. Together with Olivier Saillard, he curated The Many Lives of a Garment (ITS Arcademy, Trieste 2024) and Borderless (ITS Arcademy, Trieste, 2025), two exhibitions reflecting on the philosophical and social metamorphoses of fashion.

With Yuko Hasegawa, he co-curated Dancing with All at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, centered on ecology, coexistence, and the poetics of movement. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Power Station of Art of Shanghai. In 2024, Coccia was awarded the Mondriaan Prize for his theoretical and curatorial work bridging philosophy, art, and architecture.

Bjarki Bragason (b. 1983) studied at the Iceland University of the Arts, Universität der Künste Berlin and CalArts in Los Angeles. He is Associate Professor and Dean of the Fine Art Department at the Iceland University of the Arts and has taught at institutions internationally since 2014. His work has been represented in numerous solo- and group exhibitions internationally, and is in the collection of museums and private collections.

Hasso Krull (b. 1964) is an Estonian poet, translator and philosopher who has published nineteen books of poetry and eleven collections of essays that include literary criticism as well as writings concerning art, cinema and society. During 1990–2017 he was teaching cultural theory at the Estonian Institute of Humanities (special courses on continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, creation myths and oral tradition). From 2019 he has been teaching creative writing in the Estonian Academy of Arts. His latest books are The Eternal Recurrence (2025) and Twilight Remembrance (2025). He currently works as a researcher at Tallinn University.

Ene-Liis Semper (b. 1969) is an Estonian video, performance, and theatre director, and professor in the Department of Scenography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2004, she co-founded Teater NO99 with Tiit Ojasoo, where she worked as artistic director and stage director until the theatre closed in 2018. Semper has created numerous set and costume designs for both drama and opera productions, and is known for her visually powerful and grandiose style. Her solo exhibitions have been held at prestigious museums, including the Kumu Art Museum (2011) and the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM) (2024). Her most recent major production projects include the concert-performance “Where Are You?” (2026), “The Master and Margarita” (2024, Riga Dailes Theater), “Macbeth” (2023, Estonian Drama Theatre/ERSO/Estonian Concert), “Now We Can Talk About It” (2023, Theater Expedition), and many more.

Marek Tamm is professor of cultural history in Tallinn University and head of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Art History. His primary research fields are cultural history of medieval Europe, theory and methodology of history, and cultural memory studies. He has recently published Breakthroughs in Cultural Psychology (ed. with Jaan Valsiner; Tallinn University Press, 2024), The Fabric of Historical Time (co-authored with Zoltán Boldizsár Simon; Cambridge University Press, 2023), and The Companion to Juri Lotman: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (ed. with Peeter Torop; Bloomsbury, 2022).

Event on Facebook

7.05.26 – 28.05.26

Jakobi Gallery, Jakobi 52, Tartu

On Thursday, May 7th at 6:00 PM, Mirjam Varik’s photography exhibition “Familiar Stranger” will open at Jakobi Gallery.

The project deals with the meeting of generations through photographs and archival materials. It is a story about grandfathers who have passed away and grandmothers who have stayed here, and how pictures, old letters and memories help to restore broken ties and understand our roots. We come from somewhere, we are like someone or have the face of someone.

Family history is never unambiguous — each new discovery changes the understanding of the past. The wars of the last century and the Iron Curtain severed ties in many families: some stayed here, others were sent away or fled abroad, leaving behind only vague memories. Silence became a part of everyday life, not everything was talked about. Children were not supposed to know everything, and even less so grandchildren.

Photographs taken in California, where a meeting with a previously unknown relative highlights past decisions, departures and new beginnings. Choices made several generations ago now open up new layers of meaning related to culture and identity. The song features excerpts from found letters and diaries, illustrated with historical footage.

Mirjam Varik (b. 1990) studied photography at the Tartu Art College (2014) and as an exchange student at the University of Art and Design Linz. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a BA in graphic design (2021) and later completed an MA in contemporary art (2024). In her artistic practice, Varik articulates seemingly insignificant moments that have a lasting impact on personal formation. Through photography, video, and installation, she explores childhood experiences and identity in a narrative manner, focusing on memories, places, and phenomena.

Thanks: Filipp Varik, Marge Monko, Sandra Ernits, Tanja Muravskaja, Martin Pedanik, Eri Rääsk, Sarah Nõmm, Siim Preiman, EKA graphic art department.

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment of Estonian.

mirjamvarik.xyz

Song: Filipp Varik (Opéra National de Lyon)

Graphic design: Mirjam Varik

Jakob Gallery opening hours: Tue-Fri 1pm-6pm

Exhibition “Flora Erotica” by Sarah Nõmm and Maris Karjatse in ARS Showroom gallery (Pärnu mnt. 154, Tallinn) at 18.00 on May 6th. 

Exhibition is open Mon-Fri 12-18 and Sat 12-16 until May 30th, 2026.

we attract
we sting
we soften
we wither
we swell
we stick
we simmer
we rot
we sparkle
we shed
we savor
we evaporate
we curl

Present exhibition-teaser brings together materials, collaborative experiments, and motifs from Maris Karjatse and Sarah Nõmm’s shared wet dream, in which someone pollinates, blooms, and becomes intoxicated by nectar.

The exposition serves as a small opening into a pink fever, where things do not remain in a unified form. The flyswatters caress and reprimand while weaving themselves into a carpet; the curtain becomes a flowing, safe shelter. The formless pink ribcage supports, squeezes and holds its breath.
The hosiery of visual decadence stretches longer than the substance allows; the image is decomposing along the final cut line of a dimming gaze, and as it falls into the abyss, material with the new agency emerges from the exploded fragments. 

The exhibition brings together objects and images shifting between the forms of a fetish object, a botanical specimen, and staged artifacts. Like a metamorphosing lover, throwing into the embrace of the beloved one, so that all surrounding matter and static identities explode and the boundaries between species blur, everything transforms its existing form, and molecular cross-pollination takes place.

Maris Karjatse is an artist and translator whose artistic practice primarily engages with photography and linguistic expression. Her work explores the philosophy of everyday objects, agency, corporeality, and processes of healing. Recently, Karjatse has turned toward analogue photographic techniques and plant philosophy, approaching the plant as a body. Karjatse has studied English philology, photography, and contemporary art.

Sarah Nõmm is an artist whose practice explores the body and its forceful, fragile, and tension-filled presence in space. Her works revolve around sculpture, installation, and material-based research, combining personal experiences and bodily themes through folklore, taboos, and rituals. Nõmm’s works are characterized by intimacy and the poetic unfolding of corporeality, where thresholds of pain and pleasure, softness and aggression, control and submission meet.

GD: Maria Izabella Lehtsaar

FB: FLORA EROTICA 
https://fb.me/e/1YTFA4mxSY

ARS
https://www.arsfactory.ee/post/ars-showroom-82-maris-karjatse-ja-sarah-n%C3%B5mm-flora-erotica