EKA and PART Continue Their Collaboration
The Rector of EKA, Hilkka Hiiop, together with EKA’s International Relations staff Sandra Mell and Kati Saarits, visited PART International Art Residency in Vienna. During the visit, they became acquainted with the residency programme and its exhibition activities and confirmed the continuation of the collaboration between EKA and PART.
Currently in residence at PART is Odie Lap Chun Chow, a recent graduate of EKA’s Contemporary Art MA programme and the recipient of the first EKA × PART Horizons Residency Award. The award was announced on 27 May 2026 during the opening of EKA’s graduation festival TASE, and Odie’s two-month residency in Vienna takes place from August to September 2026.
The residency provides the artist with living and working space, a stipend, curatorial support and individual mentoring. In addition to the PART residency grant, Odie receives an Erasmus+ recent graduate traineeship grant through EKA, supporting her professional development and international experience.
During the visit, the EKA delegation also toured the current group exhibition “persona. fragments of identity” at PART’s exhibition space THE HALL, featuring works by both Odie and EKA alumna Edith Karlson.
Curated by Barbara Horvath, the exhibition grew out of an encounter with Edith Karlson’s work and explores questions of identity, transformation and the relationship between our perception of ourselves and the way we are seen by others. Alongside Karlson and Odie Lap Chun Chow, the exhibition includes works by Jakob Lena Knebl, Yein Lee and Paulina Semkowicz. The exhibition is open from 5 September to 16 October 2026.
Odie’s contribution approaches the exhibition’s theme through casting and the notion of absence, focusing on the empty space within a mould as a potential site for something new to emerge. At the exhibition opening, she also presented the performance “Fragmented Borders”.
PART International Art Residency Austria is located in the historic South Pavilion of Vienna’s Prater, originally built for the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair. The residency brings together artists, curators and researchers, providing a setting for artistic experimentation, dialogue and professional exchange.
The collaboration between EKA and PART began in 2025, when Austrian Ambassador to Estonia Peter Mikl introduced the residency programme to EKA and initiated discussions about creating a new opportunity for EKA graduates.
EKA would like to thank PART Director Alexandra Grausam and curator and Managing Director Barbara Horvath for their warm welcome and continued collaboration. Special thanks go to the Austrian Embassy in Tallinn and Ambassador Peter Mikl, whose personal initiative laid the foundation for the partnership between EKA and PART and for this new residency opportunity for EKA graduates.
