Category: Library

Plastic bags are nowaday’s symbols of disposability, an object we associate with overconsumption and wastefulness. The plastic bag’s association with Western consumerism is precisely what made it an object of value during the Soviet period in Estonia. Behind the iron curtain, anything linked to the West was desirable because it signified modernity and freedom. The plastic bag thus became a currency, an accessory, a collectible and now, it’s a documentation of a bygone era.

The bags in this exhibition are originally from private collections and most of them are now in the collection of the Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design. They are examples of Estonian product design and applied graphic art, yet their designs also illustrate the daily culture of Soviet life in Estonia. The value that was attached to these bags was a reflection of its time which is remembered for its scarcity and repression. Our shift in perspective towards plastic bags reflects the shift in the world around us, both in everyday realities as well as political ideology. Plastic is known for its plasticity, its ability to shapeshift and morph. The reputation of plastic bags is plastic – it has changed from revolutionary wonder-material and object of desire to useless, disposable trash, associated with deteriorating over-production. In a way, every archive is plastic, because the way we see the objects is ever changing.

The texts of the exhibition are based on the supporting materials of the exhibition “Kile kotti! / Plastic into Bag!” which was shown at the Estonian National Museum and Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design in 2004 and 2005, especially the interviews conducted by Kristi Kaljumägi and the exhibition text written by Pille-Triin Männik.

Thank you to Helen Adamson, Kristi Kaljumägi, Marvi Meriniit, Anu Järs, Chloé Gourvennec, Eva Mahhov, Marit Hololei and Katri Kuus. Research for this project has been supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Graphic design by Chloé Gourvennec.

From April 27 to May 15, EKA Library will be open from Monday to Friday from 10 to 21.

From 18 to 21 o’clock, the library is open only to students and staff of EKA.

EKA library, 6.03.–15.05.2026

Dear friend,

It has been a long time since we last heard from you. Last time we spoke, you were working on some prints in the graphic arts workshop with a roller in your hand and ink on your fingers. How is it going? We would love to see some trials or progress pictures. At the moment we are also in the process of doing some tests. I have added a sample in the envelope. Check it out and tell us what you think!

Let’s keep in touch.

The exhibition shows works from the EKA Print Exchange project initiated by the department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Printmaking students from different universities were invited to take part and submit an original print edition. Each print was shipped to Tallinn, sorted and sent back to participants, so everyone received a random selection of ten prints.

The vision of this project was to create new connections between printmaking departments and students through collaboration and sharing physical works. So, we wrote to our penpals and were curious what students of other universities were up to. Depictions of current ideas, projects or any experiments were warmly welcomed as a response.

Four universities participated in the exchange: Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA),
Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO), University of the West of England (UWE), The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław.

Exhibitions of the Print Exchange have taken place at the universities participating in the exchange, and the first presentation in Estonia took place in June-July 2025 at the TYPA Balcony Gallery in Tartu.

We would like to thank EKA graafika, TYPA, Anna Kodź, Aleksandra Janik and Angie Butler.

Organisers of the EKA Print Exchange: Alona Chuprina, Margarita Feofanova, Chantal Gerschuetz, Merit Himmelreich, Triin Mänd, Helena Pass, Marten Prei, Sandra Puusepp and our supervisor Charlotte Biszewski.

Exhibition design at the EKA library: Sandra Puusepp and Marten Prei. 

3rd-year Graphic Art students are showcasing the artists’ book as an independent medium of visual art and an original artwork. The authors draw from personal experiences and memories, exploring themes of physicality, history, and ethical boundaries:

• Aliisa Ahtiainen presents a grandfather’s life story in risography and a “breathing” book inspired by her grandmother’s experience in a tuberculosis sanatorium.
• Jacqueline-Desiree Rosenthal exhibits a piece made of tattooed pigskin rawhide, raising questions about morality and the parallels between animals and humans.
• Olga Dubrovskaja utilizes her background as an intensive care doctor to explore the experience of death through her own and her colleagues’ perspectives. In her second book titled “Delight”, she focuses on the moments of life.
• Adriana Jinmao Biosca Sánchez examines the volatility of memory through materiality and layers of printing.
• Robin August Vöörmann deals with gender identity, drawing parallels with changes in nature.

Supervisors: Eve Kask, Eve Kaaret (binding) and Viktor Gurov. 

Exhibition dates: 6.03.–15.05.2025

12 Jan – 28 Feb 2026

In the exhibition “Gouaches and Other Graphic Notes,” animator-trained artist Francesco Rosso translates the technological world into a dreamlike, deeply self-reflective inner universe. The world he depicts is guided by disciplined meditation, manual control, and a far-reaching perspective that traces paths laid down by both his predecessors and future generations.

The Estonian Academy of Arts Library, with its atmosphere dense with thought, provides a safe and fitting environment for materials that are intimate by nature. The exhibition’s miniature format is introduced by an electromechanics study cheat sheet from the artist’s personal archive, dating back to his secondary school years. As a coping mechanism while obtaining the field of study, Rosso cultivated meticulous graphic models and writings to break through the curriculum.

Building on this experience, he developed a refined visual handwriting which, across twenty years of diary entries, forms a kind of knitted fabric. Alongside drawings depicting metaphysical matter on the pages of his diaries, he transforms the mental and physical notes of everyday life into visual material that becomes the seed for new techniques.

The gouache paintings in this exhibition serve as a means of testing ideas and developing seriality. Working with material for an animation film currently in progress, Rosso depicts environments gathered during expeditions through human-shaped landscapes. In these paintings, he addresses the accountability in transforming our living environment, the new sensations that accompany it, and its impact on our perception of the world.

Francesco Rosso’s solo exhibition “Gouaches and Other Graphic Notes” at the Estonian Academy of Arts Library presents works created since 2023 that have not previously been publicly exhibited. It is an exhibition that places time-resistant manual skills at its centre, within a context increasingly saturated with automated means of production. The exhibition is curated by Marika Agu from the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art.

More information:


Rene Mäe


EKA Library

Francesco Rosso (b. 1987) is an animator and artist living and working in Tallinn. His practice explores the mental and physical aspects of everyday life, transforming them into visual material. Rosso devotes a great deal of time to hand-made animation and detailed drawing. He merges animated material with filmed footage collected during exploratory journeys in urban and natural environments. Over the past decade, Rosso has worked across numerous artistic fields, including illustration, film, analogue photography, painting, printmaking, poetry, video art, and various animation techniques. His short animated films have been shown to international audiences, including at festivals in Clermont-Ferrand, Hiroshima, L’Étrange, Hamburg, Seoul, Interfilm, and the Encounters Short Film Festival.

Marika Agu (b. 1989) is a curator and archive project manager at the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art. Having studied semiotics, art theory, and library and information science, her curatorial practice focuses on creative work with archives, emphasising site- and time-specificity, interdisciplinarity, and symbolic as well as material shifts in the creation and perception of contemporary art. In addition to her curatorial work, Agu publishes articles in both Estonian and international outlets and works as a lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

This exhibition features handmade books by EKA students as the culmination of a course in which they worked with photographs in book format. They explored the similarities and differences between artist books, self-publishing, and book dummies. In addition to creating and editing visual materials, students tried their hand at design, pre-press, and binding by hand. 

The books contain both analog and digital photos in the form of collages, typologies, narratives, and archival materials. The subjects explored include personal themes such as hometown, friendship, family, and childhood, as well as everyday life, the inexpressibility of feelings and perceptions, and mundane architecture.

Artists participating in the exhibition: Mikk Keis, Olesja Prants, Gleb Volodtšenko, Mari Karjus, Viktoria Weiszova, Tobias Tikenberg, Jana Mätas (MACA), Kristiina Aarna (DKT).

Supervisor Mirjam Varik.

From December 2 to December 11, EKA Library will be open from Tuesday to Thursday from 10am to 10pm.

On December 3 and 10, the library will also open its Emergency Writing Assistance Department (EWD) in half-hour flash feedback sessions from 18 to 20. Bring along your texts and presentations and ask for advice on referencing and finding sources. Appointments will take place on a first-come, first-served basis.

Free coffee, tea, and gingerbread cookies to students and readers!

Sven Mantsik, a master’s student in Contemporary Art, has explored various disciplines such as installation, printmaking, self-publishing, animation and video games, while always nurturing his primary passion: drawing.

Sometimes fictional, sometimes autobiographical, his drawings present a social satire of an all-too-common daily life, blending melancholy, dreamlike elements, sharpness and humour. His exhibition “Timeline”, offers an in-depth look at his narrative and visual approach. The EKA Library’s showcase space features a selection of his graphic works.

The exhibition is open until December 19.

Julia Maria Künnap, “Travelling Light. A Study on the Movement of Light in Experimentally Cut Gemstones”

EKA Library 21.10-4.11.2025

This artistic research explores the fundamental principle of gemstone faceting — the refraction and reflection of light – in the combination of faceted and freeform elements. The aim of the exhibition is to demonstrate how individual reflective elements, through their mutual interaction, create the brilliance of a gemstone. To illustrate this theory, the exhibition presents both work in process and finished gems set in jewelry. The Exhibition is the First Creative Project of Doctoral Thesis “Playing with fire. Possibilities for designing four-dimensional gemstones by combining traditional faceting and free-form engraving. Time as a design element.” Supervisor Prof Krista Kodres

Julia Maria Künnap is a PhD student and junior researcher in Art and Design.