Category: Gallery

Liisa Nurklik
WANDERING
Second floor of EKA Gallery 9.01.–15.02.2026
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm, free entry
Opening: Thursday, January 8 at 6 pm

Liisa Nurklik’s solo exhibition “Wandering” reflects on abstract painting and the accompanying desire to wander over a prolonged period of time. Explorations of color and surface allow one tone to smoothly shift into another; directions moving one way meet those moving oppositely. Playing with the boring of simplicity evokes a possibility for the painting to be longer looked at, lost and gradually rediscovered.

Liisa Nurklik is currently a third-year student of painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her first solo exhibition “If I Were-a-Person” took place in the Showcase Gallery of the EKA library in the fall of 2025 and presented the viewer with a series of drawings made with charcoal, pastel and pencil, depicting various creatures and objects, skin and hair, and focused primarily on evoking a sense of the uncanny.

Exhibition texts by: Kirke Kits
Graphic design by: Sunny Lei
Technical support by: Ats Kruusing
The exhibitions at EKA Gallery are supported by the Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.

The winter assessment marathon is here! For three weeks, you can once again experience works produced by students in the Faculty of Fine Arts as their term projects are presented: every day there will be a fresh showcase of university students’ works on display.

Works in animation, contemporary art, installation and sculpture, painting, photography, graphic art and scenography curricula will be on display. On almost each evening of the marathon, a new exhibition will be installed and in the following evening the exhibit will give way to the next one. Hopefully, viewers will be able to keep up with the pace of the young artists.

The assessments will take place in the main building of EKA Gallery (Kotzebue 1, Tallinn) and the new EKA monumental studio (1st floor of Kotzebue 1, Tallinn).

On the assessment day(s), the exhibitions are open from 2 pm to 6 pm, on Sundays the exhibitions are open from 12 pm to 4 pm.

SCHEDULE

Mon 1.12. Drawing, Fine Arts BA I, supervisor Matti Pärk (EKA Gallery)
Tue 2.12. Drawing, Fine Arts BA II, supervisor Eero Alev (EKA Gallery)
Wed 3.12. Drawing, Fine Arts BA III, supervisor Tea Lemberpuu (EKA Gallery)
Thu 4.12. Sculpture, Fine Arts BA I, supervisors Laura Põld, Taavi Talve (EKA Gallery)
Thu 4.12. – Fri 5.12. Scenography BA III, supervisor  Mark Raidpere (Kotzebue 10)
Fri 5.12. – Sat 6.12. Contemporary Art MA I & II, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Merike Estna, Viktor Gurov, Tuukka Kaila, Eve Kask, Kristi Kongi, Karel Koplimets, Paul Kuimet, Camille Laurelli, Holger Loodus, Laura Põld, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Jaan Toomik, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo (EKA Gallery)
Sun 7.12. – Mon 8.12. Contemporary Art MA I & II, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Merike Estna, Viktor Gurov, Tuukka Kaila, Eve Kask, Kristi Kongi, Karel Koplimets, Paul Kuimet, Camille Laurelli, Holger Loodus, Laura Põld, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Jaan Toomik, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo (EKA Gallery & Kotzebue 10)
Tue 9.12. Contemporary Art MA I & II, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Merike Estna, Viktor Gurov, Tuukka Kaila, Eve Kask, Kristi Kongi, Karel Koplimets, Paul Kuimet, Camille Laurelli, Holger Loodus, Laura Põld, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Jaan Toomik, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo (EKA Gallery & Kotzebue 10)
Wed 10.12. Painting, Fine Arts BA I, supervisors Karl-Kristjan Nagel, Tõnis Saadoja (EKA Gallery)
Thu 11.12. Graphic Art, Fine Arts BA II & III, supervisors Britta Benno, Charlotte Biszewski, Liisi Grünberg, Viktor Gurov, Eve Kask, Liina Siib (EKA Gallery)
Thu 11.12. Graphic Art, Fine Arts BA II & III, supervisors Charlotte Biszewski, Viktor Gurov,Eve Kaaret, Madis Kaasik, Eve Kask, Pawel Schulz (Kotzebue 10)
Fri 12.12. Graphic Art, Fine Arts BA II & III, supervisors Kadi Kurema, Marten Prei, Paul Rannik (EKA Gallery)
Sat 13.12. Drawing, animation BA I & photography BA II, supervisor Lilli-Krõõt Repnau (EKA Gallery)
Sun 14.12. – Mon 15.12. Photography BA I, supervisor Annika Haas (EKA Gallery)
Tue 16.12. Painting, Fine Arts BA III, supervisors Angela Maasalu, Jaan Toomik, Mart Vainre (EKA Gallery)
Tue 16.12. Photography, BA II, supervisor Kalle Veesaar (Kotzebue 10)
Wed 17.12. Painting, Fine Arts BA II, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Holger Loodus, Tõnis Saadoja (EKA Gallery)
Thu 18.12. Animation BA I, supervisor Lilli-Krõõt Repnau (EKA Gallery)

Alejandra Alarcón & Sandra Mirka
GROUNDED GATHERINGS: ROOTED BEGINNINGS
Ground floor of EKA Gallery 27.09.–19.10.2025
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, September 26 at 6 pm

As the seasons turn, “Grounded Gatherings: Rooted Beginnings” invites us to slow down, share food, and reflect on our relationship with the landscape. It offers a space to come together around the table, to simmer jams, and to share seasonal bites. This exhibition is imagined as a place for learning and unlearning, for exchanging different kinds of memories and knowledge. The work focuses on specific locations in Finland and Estonia, places where encounters with humans and more-than-humans have been flourishing. Through visual documentation from Spring and Summer, recipes, workshop events, and communal meals, the project invites us to build and maintain a long-lasting relationship with our surroundings through taste.

“Grounded Gatherings” is a multidisciplinary project by Alejandra Alarcón and Sandra Mirka, unfolding between Finland and Estonia. Sandra Mirka holds an MA in interior architecture and is a certified chef based in Tallinn. Her practice is led by sourcing and building with up-cycled materials, connecting spatial design with food cultures. Alejandra Alarcón is an interdisciplinary artist and designer based in Helsinki. She holds an MA in Contemporary Design. Her interest in (food) sustainability—the seasonality of things, non-human collaborations—is deeply tied to embodied practices such as walking, foraging, cooking, and digesting. Both creatives share a passion for food and cooking, working with it in different ways throughout their individual practices. Both creatives are deeply interested in how humans and more than humans co-exist in ways that create opportunities for more caring and sustainable practices.

Graphic design: Daria Titova
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by Sadolin Estonia and Tallinn City.
Special thanks to Joni Judén, Kaitlyn D. Hamilton, TUOTUO, Lenne Nigul, Anumai Raska, Estonian Centre for Architecture, Mariann Drell, Markus Koistinen and Radul Radulović.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.

May brings an opportunity to experience, in an exhibition format, works produced by students in the Faculty of Fine Arts as their term projects: every day there will be a fresh crop of university students’ works on display in the gallery.

Works in animation, contemporary art, installation and sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking, scenography curricula will be on display. On each evening of the marathon, a new exhibition will be installed and in the evening the exhibit will give way to the next one. Hopefully, viewers will be able to keep up with the pace of the young artists.

On the day of the evaluation, the exhibition is open from 3 to 6 pm, exhibitions held over several days are open from 12 to 6 pm on the following day.

SCHEDULE:

Mon 29.04. Drawing, supervisors Maiu Rõõmus, Matti Pärk
Tue 30.04. Drawing, supervisors Eero Alev, Britta Benno
Wed 1.05. the gallery is closed
Thu 2.05. Drawing, supervisor Ulvi Haagensen
Fri 3.05. Drawing and painting, supervisors Britta Benno, Brenda Purtstak
Sat 4.05. – Sun 5.05. Abstract drawing, supervisor Lembe Ruben-Kangur

Mon 6.05. Photography, supervisor Madis Kurss
Tue 7.05. – Wed 8.05. Photography, supervisor Marge Monko
Thu 9.05. – Fri 10.05. Painting, supervisors Eero Alev, Mihkel Ilus, Holger Loodus, Jaan Toomik
Sat 11.05. – Sun 12.05. Painting, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Kristi Kongi, Holger Loodus

Mon 13.05. Contemporary Art, supervisors Anu Vahtra, Kristi Kongi, Camille Laurelli, Marge Monko, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, Eve Kask, Laura Põld, David K. Ross, Jaan Toomik, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo
Tue 14.05. Printmaking, supervisors Maria Erikson, Merilin Metsamaa, Mirjam Varik, Lembe Ruben-Kangur, Sandra Puusepp
Wed 15.05. Animation, supervisors Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Lucija Mrzljak, Anu-Laura Tuttelberg
Thu 16.05. Scenography, supervisors Liina Keevallik, Mark Raidpere
Fri 17.05. Scenography, supervisors Renzo Alexander Van Steenbergen
Sat 18.05. Drawing, supervisor Lilli-Krõõt Repnau
Sun 19.05. the gallery is closed

Mon 20.05. Printmaking, supervisors Eve Kask, Viktor Gurov, Erik Alalooga, Eve Kaaret, Monica Langwe

“EKA in Kenya. Implementing the Upmade System”
EKA Gallery 5.–26.04.2024
Open Tue–Sun 12–6 pm, free entry
Opening: 4.04.2024 at 6 pm

Supervisors: Reet Aus, Maria Pukk
Participants: Marta Konovalov, Susanna-Belinda Kõgel, Eva-Liis Lidenburg, Kaisa Moora, Anu Muiste, Doreen Mägi, Maria Rojko Nisu, Eva Reiska, Katrin Lepa-Ruben, Lisandra Türkson, Maris Vahter

The exhibition “EKA in Kenya. Implementing the Upmade System” focuses on the effort to reduce and recycle waste from the textile industry. The students of circular design of the Estonian Academy of Arts spent the month of February in 2024 in Kenya, in the city of Eldoret. On site, they learned about the production at the Rivatex factory, followed the product development process, performed analyzes and applied upcycling principles. Twelve different product concepts created by students will be displayed in EKA Gallery, including accessories, clothes, lampshades and a modular tent.

The international project “Transferring Upmade Know-How to Kenya” is part of a longer cooperation between Moi University and DiMa, the Sustainable Design and Materials Lab at the Estonian Academy of Arts. DiMa has contributed to reducing the environmental impact of the fashion and textile industry through various international projects. The aim of the project is to increase the circulation of Kenya’s textile industry by introducing the UPMADE method at the Rivatex factory. The approach enables the recycling of textile waste generated during manufacturing, thus supporting more environmentally friendly production.

The project has been made in cooperation with the Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Center (SEI Tallinn) and Moi University, with the support of the Erasmus+ study mobility program and the Environmental Investment Centre (KIK).

Opening drinks from Punch Club.

More info:
Transferring Upmade Know-How to Kenya

Cloe Jancis & Ann Pajuväli
“beginners”
EKA Billboard Gallery 22.03.–02.06.2024
Open 24/7, free
Opening: 22.03.2024 at 6 pm

A beginner’s mindset means letting go of assumptions, expertise, or preconceived notions that might cloud our perception or limit our understanding. In this state, we cultivate curiosity, humility and willingness to learn, even with prior knowledge and experience on the subject. It means embracing a sense of astonishment and discovery by trying things for the first time, which can lead to new perspectives and foster creativity and personal growth.

The artists emphasise that the exhibition is about growing out of the ways of representation they have become accustomed to: “We are in a phase of transition – it is not clear-cut, but it is lively and honest. Going through it means letting go (of former habits) and trusting that work teaches the doer. At the exhibition, we share parallel quests that may have a result, but not necessarily. This is a stopover, one possible version; unfinished thoughts, half-baked ideas, new beginnings and loose ends. The most honest expression of the current situation.

Opening drinks from Punch Drinks.

GENTLE GESTURES OF SELF
7.–31.03.2024
Opening: 7.03. at 6 pm

Participating artists: Andre Joosep Arming, Annamaari Hyttinen, Cloe Jancis, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Taavi Rekkaro, Johanna Saikkonen, Marleen Suvi, Elo Vahtrik
Curator: Kaisa Maasik

The group exhibition “Gentle Gestures of Self” brings together a selection of contemporary self-portraits. The paintings and photographs primarily depict the faces and hands of the artists, pointing at the emotions brought out by their facial expressions and gestures.

Culturally, hands are attributed with a great expressive power: in addition to conveying mood, depicting hands in specific positions can communicate deep feelings and meanings. Anthropologist Ethel J. Alpenfels has said: “Hands point or lead or command; hands cry out in agony or lie quietly sleeping; hands have moods, character, and, in a wider sense, their own particular beauty.”

The exhibition stems from a curatorial perspective focusing on relationships, inner experiences and moods. It approaches hands’ special ability and vulnerability to convey all emotions, even those that people have learned to control in facial expressions.

Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

EKA Gallery
Kotzebue 1, Tallinn
Open Tue–Sun 12–18, free entry

More info:
eka.galerii@artun.ee

Erasmus Blended Intensive Course “Following Loss”
29.02.–04.03.2024

The five-day course will draw upon key themes of physical and metaphysical loss, remembering, and rebuilding. We will introduce many interdisciplinary modes and methods of exploring these themes so that students may find their own resonances and pathways to stimulate work and creative practice back in their studios and in their lives.

“Following Loss” will place students in direct connection to some of the contemporary histories and realities of two countries, one previously colonized—Estonia—and the other colonized and currently engaged in a full-scale invasion—Ukraine. They are among other countries that live everyday with intimate memories of agonizing absence and the grinding sense of daily loss on a massive scale.

The course was conducted by Rebecca Duclos and David Ross
Aditional speakers part of the course: Alisa Alexandrova, Olha Maciupa, Natasha Ozub, Bozhena Pelenska, Gregor Taul

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for Everybody, Free of Charge, and May No One Be Left Behind!*”
EKA Gallery
19.–24.02.2024

Open Mon–Fri 12–9 pm & Sat 5–11 pm (part of the reception), free entry

The Institute of Meetings & Non-Meetings opens the Embassy of Utopia at the EKA Gallery on February 19th. On the final evening of the performative installation, February 24th, one hour after President Alar Karis steps up to the lectern at the Estonia Theatre to deliver Estonia’s most anticipated speech of the year, the Embassy of Utopia will present the year’s most unexpected speech.

The speech will not be written by artificial intelligence or a freelance poet. It will be written by those who gather at the Embassy, those seeking poetic refuge.

“We have dealt with speeches in the Institute’s and Paide Theatre’s previous projects and confirmed that the core of a good speech is a clear message. But the world is not clear, and it seems that every speech, aiming to bring clarity, spreads confusion. Therefore, we decided it was time to turn our backs on clarity and create a speech that acknowledges confusion,” says one of the participating artists, Jan Teevet.

“One might ask, what distinguishes the Embassy of Utopia’s speech from any much-maligned internet forum. The answer can be found in the phenomenon of meeting. From Monday to Friday, when the Embassy’s doors at the Estonian Academy of Arts are open to all passersby, dozens of groups will meet there, not aiming for a mediocre compromise, but to build bold connections between views, crises, and solutions that frame their personal realities today,” adds the Institute’s dramaturge, Oliver Issak.

“A clear message, a clear tax system, a clear line between good and evil — we often think that clarity takes care of everything and everyone on its own, not noticing that clarity can often be uncaring. Clear messages are easier to receive and categorize, but how to organise a reception for doubts?” asks sociologist and artist-researcher Margaret Tilk.

The Embassy of Utopia is open from February 19th–23rd from 12–9 pm and culminates in the Embassy of Utopia’s reception on February 24th at 5 pm.

Entry to the Embassy is free for all, and everyone is free to decide whether it is an exhibition, a theatre production, a workshop, a meeting, a political-poetic consecration, a deep hangout, a minimalist opera, or something else entirely. One may also choose not to decide.

The Embassy of Utopia’s daily life and nightly fiction are created and organised by Oliver Issak, Kairi Mändla, Jan Teevet, Taavi Teevet, and Margaret Tilk.

“The Embassy of Utopia: Happiness for everybody, free of charge, and may no one be left behind!” is the fourth event in the series of actions created by the Institute of Meetings and Non-Meetings. The doors of the Embassy of Utopia first opened in May 2023 at the invitation of the international literature festival Prima Vista and the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024, with the subtitle “Longing for a different reality”, and from September, the Embassy of Utopia’s radio action goes live on Klassikaraadio on the last Sunday of every month. On December 31st, 2023, a 5-hour New Year’s Eve special was broadcasted on Klassikaraadio’s wavelength, “Embassy of Utopia: A Thousand Toasts to the Future”.

The Embassy of Utopia is a sanctuary for positive uncertainty, bold thought, and untamable imagination. 

* The title is based on the novel “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

The project is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Drinks at the reception provided by Põhjala Brewery.

More info:
Jan Teevet jan@instituut.art
Oliver Issak oliver@instituut.art
Margaret Tilk marga.tilk@gmail.com
www.instituut.art/utoopiasaatkond