EKA New Media students’ exhibition “I’m not playing games, I swear” at RaRa

Students of EVA Lab, the Experimental Video Games in Art laboratory of the Estonian Academy of Arts New Media Department, present their exhibition in a new gallery space inside the National Library of Estonia. Although the National Library or RaRa building itself will only reopen to the general public in 2027, this exhibition offers an early glimpse into a yet unnamed art space that has not previously existed and is being opened temporarily for this occasion.

*Important! Visits are only possible with a guide. Gathering takes place at the main entrance of RARA at the following times:

17.12 at 17:00, 17:30, 18:00 and 18:30

During the autumn semester, EVA Lab students explore video game and interactive art theory, engaged in conversations with artists and game makers, and were given an optional workshop for learning a game engine to support their development. Through these encounters, students were questioning how video games occupy an enormous role in global popular culture, yet discussions of “games” can still meet a complicated reception within the field of visual arts.

Within art education, students are expected to devote themselves to understanding and critically navigating visual culture. Meanwhile, their personal experiences with gaming often belong to the realms of leisure, hobbies, and everyday play. Activities not always granted the same artistic legitimacy. This tension informs the exhibition’s title, “I’m not playing games, I swear”, a statement that is both slightly defensive and quietly humorous, acknowledging how the vocabulary of games can feel out of place in certain art discourse.

For this exhibition, the supervisors invited students to articulate their own relationships with gaming and game culture. The works on display, spanning interactive and non-interactive formats, transform personal memories, play habits, aesthetic intuitions, and critical reflections into artistic responses that reimagine what games can mean within contemporary art. From introspective narratives to speculative systems, the exhibition presents a variery of approaches to thinking through games as more than pastime.

Rather than insisting that we are not playing, the exhibition asks what becomes possible when play, experimentation, and game culture are allowed to enter artistic practice on their own terms.

Participating artists: Lotta Karoliina Räsänen, Maria Cecilie Wrang-Rasmussen, Irmak Semiz, Sarah Riley, Robert Kapanen, Kimathi Agbanu, Filémon Aufort, Paul Rannik, Triin Mänd, Edward Mcgeorge Allport-Bryson, Rover Indigo Bertels

Supervisors: Camille Laurelli, Sten Saarits

Exhibition is supported by RaRa, EKA, EVA Lab, LVLup! Museum

On January 13 at 16:00 in room A101, Alison J. Clarke will give a public lecture titled “Design Anthropology: Its History and Its Discontents”. The lecture is part of the Faculty of Design’s public lecture series “Public Lectures in Design: Adjusting Perspectives,” curated by Stella Runnel and Taavi Hallimäe.

This talk explores the emergence of design anthropology as an approach that has gained popularity over the last two decades by melding social science and design practice. Clarke will argue the need to understand the phenomenon’s origins in the Cold War geopolitics of US expansionism, whereby it was applied as a political force to decolonized nations, in order to cast a critical eye over a contemporary practice that has come to operate as the invisible hand behind multiple facets of global life from health care provision, through to governance and data harnessing.

The public lectures are open to students, faculty, as well as anyone else interested in design!

​​Alison J. Clarke is a professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the director of Papanek Foundation. As a design historian and social anthropologist, Clarke’s research deals with the intersection of these disciplines, specifically in terms of their shared focus on the politics of material culture and social relations. Her most recent monograph Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World (MIT Press, 2021) explores the controversial origins of social design, casting a critical perspective on the origins of a movement that has claimed to promote social justice through people-centred approaches. Her present book and research project Design Anthropology: Decolonizing and Recolonizing the Material World (MIT Press) explores the blurred historical boundaries between design practice and anthropology, and the social consequences of the uptake of this melding in the contemporary corporate sector. Clarke’s research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Austrian Science Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, among others.

In 2027, it will be 100 years since the birth of Vello Asi (1927–2016), an important figure of Estonian interior architecture and a long-time lecturer at the Department of Interior Architecture. In this regard, the Department of Interior Architecture is planning an anniversary exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts and Design. This fall semester, we began researching and interpreting Asi’s legacy in the first-year master’s course Creative Research (supervisors Gregor Taul, Merilin Tee). Ten students were divided into five pairs, working on one specific aspect of Asi’s life’s work: his home in Merivälja, his work as a graphic designer; his contribution as a teacher, artifacts and archive materials, interiors, and exhibition designs. As a final result, the students present their creative research through three formats: object, visual interpretation and narrative. In the case of an object, it is a three-dimensional work that interprets the chosen theme. The visual interpretation is a graphic art, and as an (interior) architectural narrative, the students have added an extension in any text format that presents one specific aspect of Vello Asi’s work.

Participating artists: Marleen Armulik, Kadi Berens, Lauri Eltermaa, Katariina Kivi, Anni Kärmik, Roger Matthias Laas, Laura Movits, Kairi Mändla, Sven Samyn, Maarja Varkki.

EKA Graphic Design MA program invites prospective students to join the online info session on Thursday, January 29, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from the faculty.

The online info session will be hosted on Zoom, the link will be e-mailed to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

Please register by Wednesday, 28 January 2026, 15:00h EET. A zoom-link will be e-mailed out to all registrants a few hours before the event starts.

Register HERE

More information about the Graphic Design MA programme:

• https://eka-gd-ma.ee/
• https://www.artun.ee/ma-gd/
• https://www.instagram.com/ekagd_ma/

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

EKA Interaction Design MA programme invites prospective Master’s students to join the online info session on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

You’ll have an opportunity to hear about the mission and philosophy of the programme, learn about student experiences and see their projects, take a virtual tour in our studios, and meet and ask questions directly from the faculty, students and alumni.

The info session will be hosted online over Zoom. If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

Register HERE

More information about the Interaction Design MA (IxD.ma) programme:

• https://www.ixd.ma
• https://www.artun.ee/ixd
• https://www.facebook.com/IxD.ma
• https://www.instagram.com/ixd.ma/

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

EKA Contemporary Art MA program invites prospective students to join the online info session on Monday, January 19, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be an opportunity to hear more about the program, to meet and ask questions directly from the faculty.

The online info session will be hosted on Zoom, the link will be e-mailed to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below.

Register HERE

More information about the Contemporary Art MA programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/maca
• https://www.instagram.com/macatallinn/

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

EKA Craft Studies MA programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Thursday, January 15, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the curriculum, and to meet and ask questions from the people behind the programme.

The online info session will be hosted online over Zoom and the link will be e-mailed out to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below.

Register HERE

More information about the Craft Studies MA programme: 

• https://www.artun.ee/en/curricula/craft-studies/overview/
• https://www.instagram.com/eka_craftstudies

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

EKA Animation MA programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Tuesday, January 13, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the programme and to meet and ask questions directly from the people of animation department – both the teaching staff and the current students.

The online info session will be hosted online over Zoom and the link will be e-mailed out to all registrants 2 hours before the start of the event.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below.

Register HERE

More information about the Animation MA programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/animation
• https://www.facebook.com/EKAanimatsioon
• https://vimeo.com/ekaanima

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

EKA Urban Studies MSc programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Monday, January 12, 2026 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This online info session will be a good opportunity to hear more about the curriculum, and to meet and ask questions directly from people behind the Urban Studies programme. The info session will be hosted online over Zoom.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

REGISTER HERE

More information about Urban Studies MSc programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/urban-studies
• https://www.facebook.com/urbantallinn
• https://www.instagram.com/ekaurbanstudies

Next admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

A public peer-review of knowledge transfer PhD student Liisi Tamm’s first case study will be held on December 17th at 16:00–17:30 at the Estonian Academy of Arts, room A202. The case study is part of a creative doctoral thesis analyzing design practice and methods of working with wool to determine its influence on design decisions and the designer’s role in meaning making. The knowledge transfer partner for the doctoral project is Pallas University of Applied Sciences.

Supervisors: Jaana Päeva PhD (EKA) and prof. Aet Ollisaar (Pallas)
The peer-reviewers are Ave Matsin and Nithikul Nimkulrat PhD (OCAD University)

The first case study focuses on the process of creating the material – making wool yarn. It examines how working directly with wool – from sorting and washing to hand- and machine-spinning – shapes textile students’ experience with the material, influencing their design process, aesthetic choices, and attitudes toward the value of local wool.