KVI Open Lectures

Academic year of 2024/25, the open lecture series of the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts focuses on decolonial practitioners and practices. The series departs from a new wave of decolonisation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, strongly influenced by Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.

The lecturers include prominent researchers and curators who are invited to share their perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonisation in different fields and parts of the world. The series aims to create new comparisons between different decolonising contexts and to contribute to a dialogue between Eastern Europe and Central Asia and other regions.

We want to contribute to the decolonisation processes in Eastern Europe by helping the region to position and vocalise itself in relation to other and often older decolonisation traditions, and at the same time also emphasise the importance of solidarity.

Decolonisation challenges and dismantles grand dominant discourses about history, culture and art. Equally in need of a decolonising perspective are museum and exhibition practices, whose choices have also depended on the colonisers’ view of what is valuable in art and why it is valuable.

The series was curated by prof. Linda Kaljund

In addition to students and faculty from the Estonian Academy of Arts, other universities and schools, we therefore invite art, museum and cultural professionals – and anyone else interested – to join us.

The lectures are held in English, free of charge and open to everyone interested.

Programme in 2024/2025:

• • 14th October 17:30 in A-501 Klara Kemp-Welch: “Free Movement? Tracking Migration and Mobility in Eastern Europe since the early 2000s” – in cooperation with Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts
  • 16th December 17:00 at A-501 Inga Lāce (Almaty Museum of Arts) Making a museum, being a guest
  • 11th February 18:00 at A-501 Charis Gullickson (Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø) “Decolonisation of Nordic museums” – in cooperation with KUMU
  • 19th March at 18:00 Bart Pushaw (University of Tennessee Chattanooga) “The Histories and Futures of Alaska Native Art in Estonia” – in cooperation with KUMU
  • 10th April at 18:00 Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews) “Life in spite of everything: Decolonial Approaches to Writing and Research” – in cooperation with Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts
  • 21st October at 18:00 in A-501 a lecture and discussion: Erica Lehrer, Joanna Wawrzyniak, Mariann Raisma “Decolonial Museology Re-centered: Thinking Theory and Practice through East-Central Europe”

The 2025/26 season of public lectures examined architecture from the perspective of the ethics of care. How does architecture care for people’s physical, social and emotional needs, both today and from a historical perspective? While traditionally everything related to care has been considered issues of the private realm, in reality the question of who, how and to what extent is considered worthy of care and attention is one of the central agreements of a social organization. Architecture plays a very important role in this, both as a creator of specific spatial conditions and as a conditioner of unspoken attitudes and a formative force for social subjects. The starting point for many of the speakers in this lecture series is intersectional feminism – the desire to empower users who, due to their gender, sexuality, nationality, social background, age, or physical or mental characteristics, have not received full attention and support in standard architectural and planning practices. Topics covered will range from feminist urban criticism to the role of architects in the context of wars and refugee crises, from considering disabilities and neurodivergence in design practice to the spatial experience of queer and trans people.

Programme 2025/2026:

• 25.09  at 18:00 in A-101 Elke Krasny (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) “Architecture and the Right to Care”
• 16.10 at 18:00 in A-101 Leslie Kern (Toronto) “Towars a feminist city” 
• 27.11 at 18:00 in A-101 Robert Mull (Limerick and Harkiv) “The free world”

• 26.02 at 18:00 in A-101 Kaisa Karvinen “From Care to Concrete: Exhibiting Architecture”
• 26.03 at 18:00 in A-101  Jos Boys (London) “Doing disability differently in Architecture”
• 9.04 at 18:00 in A-101 Katarina Bonnevier (Stockholm)“Living Organisms – Queerying Architecture with Trolls and Clay”
• 30.04 at 18:00 in A-101 Emma Cheatle (The University of Sheffield) “Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity”
• 14.05 at 18:00 in A-101 Iulia Statica (The University of Sheffield) “Landscapes of care with wildflowers: women, plants and domesticity in (post)socialist Romania”