Cultural Heritage & Conservation

The aim of the Cultural Heritage and Conservation programme is to provide knowledge and the necessary practical skills for qualified professional work in the field of cultural heritage protection, preservation, conservation and restoration.

  • The Academy of Arts is the only school of higher education in Estonia where one can acquire an academic higher education in cultural heritage and architectural conservation and restoration, as well as the conservation and restoration of art. The department’s faculty members are recognised and highly respected specialists in their fields.
  • The curriculum is responsive to changes and developments in the philosophy, as well as theories and practices, of cultural heritage and restoration. It is based on the principles of sustainable development and balanced innovation through the consistent development of the cultural environment.
  • Preserving and protecting the cultural legacy, and its professional conservation and restoration necessitates the education of highly qualified specialists.

News and events

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CFP: Uncomfortable Heritage in the Baltic Sea Region and Beyond: From Negation to Re-interpretation

EKA co-organizes an international interdisciplinary spring school on 10–15 March 2024 in Kulice, Poland. The understanding of heritage as purely preserving and managing the remains of cultural/national value has been increasingly disputed during the last decades. The approach of multidirectional memories (Michael Rothberg), critical heritage (Sharon Macdonald, Rodney Harrison), and ...
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Open Lecture: Seeking Shelter

David K. Ross and Rebecca Duclos (EKA Visiting Lecturers, MACA, Museum Studies) recently travelled across northern Ukraine to visit 8 arts schools in Lviv, Kharkiv and Kyiv.  David will be showing images from this trip and discussing some of the pressing issues facing arts eduction in Ukraine at this moment.
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Port Cities: Values and Sustainable Development

The follow-up project of the research Tallinn Old Town: Sustainable Management and Presentation. The aim of the project is to ensure the implementation and further development of what was achieved in the first period of cooperation between the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Port of Tallinn. A new topic is the mapping of the values of Paldiski, as the potential of Paldiski as a port city and ...
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Green Office Certificate to the Estonian Academy of Arts first of Estonian Universities

The Estonian Academy of Arts was the first Estonian university to be recognized by the European Green Office. As of May 2, 2023, the Estonian Academy of Arts has been the first university in Estonia to be officially recognized as a European Green Office. The Estonian Environmental Management Association (EKJA) issues the Green Office certificate to environmentally friendly organizations. In ...
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War on Monuments: Debates over Russian/Soviet Heritage in Eastern and Central Europe since 2022

Online roundtable Since February 2022, many Russian Imperial and Soviet statues and symbols have been removed from public space, accompanied by heated discussions in the local (social) media. The nature of the actions varies, but in several countries political rather than expert decisions have been the guiding force, with an immediate effect on the actual monuments of art, architecture and ...
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Riin Alatalu Recognized with the White Star Decoration

Associate professor Riin Alatalu received the Valgetähe IV class medal (White Star) from the President of the Republic, Alar Karis. Riin Alatalu is an energy bomb in the field of heritage, not afraid to speak loudly even in difficult and conflicting public debates, be it the red monuments, the extension of Estonia theater, the restaurant project of Tartu Cathedral or any other crisis issue ...
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Guild Painters: Artistic Creation Between Innovation and Tradition in Baltic Provinces from 17th to 19th Century

The research project examines an area that has been little studied so far – the painters of guilds in the period of the 17th-19th centuries in Estonia. It is planned as a broad multidisciplinary approach that interweaves an art historical approach with a social historical perspective and includes aspects of conservation, technical art history, analytical chemistry, archival studies and ...
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Third Estonian art historians’ joint MA seminar in Purdi

On 9th–10th January 2023 a seminar bringing together MA students from Estonian universities who work on art history, visual culture, curating, conservation, museum studies and museum education was held in Purdi manor. This was the third one in the series (after 2019 and 2022), with the aim of discussing each other’s topics from multiple perspectives. 40 students and leading staff members from ...