Croquis.

This time the model in EAA Design Faculty`s drawing studio`s croquis is Julia.
Photo: Erik Peinar

MARTTA TUOMAALA: Artistic methods for making a difference
On Wednesday, 19 October at 5 pm there will be an open lecture Artistic methods for making a difference by Finnish artist and filmmaker Martta Tuomaala. She is the guest lecturer at the graphic art and installation/sculpture departments at the autumn semester. The lecture will take place at EKA Lembitu 10B building in room no 144
Martta Tuomaala (b. 1983) is a visual artist, currently living and working in Helsinki. She gained a Master’s degree in Fine Art from Aalto University, School of Arts and Architecture in 2014.

Tuomaala is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses mainly on various forms of film, video and socially engaged art. Her works deals with social, societal structures and power relations. Tuomaala has been working in several low-paid sectors, which has made a strong impact in her artistic practice. The main focus of her interest is work: research of working culture, working conditions, labor struggles, workers’ rights and different forms of organizing, especially in the low-paid and precarious women-dominated fields. One of her biggest projects Cleaner’s Voice, which combines different methods of artistic practice and militant research, consists of a 16-channel installation which is based on the interviews of cleaners.

Currently she is working on a project Finn-Spinning-Soumi-Perkele! dealing with generalized ideas of ‘Finnishness’, precarious work and the effects of austerity politics in Finland.

More information:

www.marttatuomaala.com
www.facebook.com/cleanersvoice

Olete oodatud!
You are warmly welcome!

We are glad to inform You about an upcoming open lecture in the Department of Art Education expanding upon the topic “Perspectives on art education in today’s global economy”.

Lecturers: Tomaž Zupančič, Professor at the Faculty of Education, University in Maribor, Slovenia
and
Jan van Boeckel, Professor in Art Pedagogy at the Faculty of Art and Culture, Estonian Academy of Arts

In our conversation we bring together the themes of art, art education and economy. Some people would hold that art is only worthwhile if it is completely interest-free (“l’art pour l’art”). But what happens when one engages with art for purposes that are external to its supposed own domain, for example when artmaking becomes an instrument to seek economic gains, to draw a spicy personal career plan or even to push society into a more sustainable direction? Is it still art then? And what are the implications of our views on this issue for the kind of art education we provide to young people?

Time: Wednesday 19 October, 12.30-14.30

Place: Estonian Academy of Arts,
Department of Art Education, Room 103, Suur-Kloostri 11, Tallinn

Info: Helen Arov (helen.arov@artun.ee)

Hope to see You soon!
Department of Art Education

Group of students of the department of glass – Maarja Mäemets, Sigrid Luitsalu, Külli Nidermann, Kateriin Rikken, Toomas Mäelt, Oleksandra Kotliar, Jay Siltavuo and Ida Leinonen – participated in the 10th International Blown Glass Symposium in Lviv, Ukraine. Tutor of the group, Professor Mare Saare, participated also as an invited artist, together with glass artist and drawing teacher of the EAA Peeter Rudaš in the program of the symposium, preparing exhibition works at the furnace of the Lviv Academy of Arts. The organizers of the event – in earlier years Prof Andriy Bokotei, now his son Mykhaylo Bokotei – also invited the students to participate in the exhibition at the National Museum in Lviv. Prof Saare was awarded with the Diploma of Honour of the Presidium of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts for her input into the development of international glass art. At the conference there were also presentations from Mare Saare and her students about Estonian Academy of Arts, and the creative work of Peeter Rudaš and Mare Saare. Piret Meos, one of the MA graduates of the dept of glass in 2016, was also presented at the exhibition with her glass object. The symposium is an important event in the international world of art glass, organized every second year and with participats from also as far as USA, Japan, and, of course Europe.

This time the model in EAA Design Faculty’s drawing studio’s croquis is Nikolai.

ARCHITECTURES, NATURES AND DATA:
THE POLITICS OF ENVIRONMENTS

Faculty of Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts
Tallinn, Estonia

April 20-23, 2017

CALL FOR PAPERS

Two themes stand out prominently in discussions, projects and strategies that are at the forefront of contemporary urbanisation. It is, on the one hand, the question of ecology, where the city and architecture are reconceptualised in “green” terms, such as sustainability, resilience, metabolic optimisation and energy efficiency. On the other hand, there is the cybernetic question, where the futures of architecture and urbanisation are staked upon the pervasive use of digital communication, interactive technologies, ubiquitous computing, and the “big data”. Moreover, these two questions have become increasingly intertwined as two facets of a single environmental question: while real-time adjustments, behaviour optimisation and “smart” solutions are central to urban environmental agenda, the omnipresent network of perpetually interacting digital objects constitutes itself as a qualitatively new environment within which urban citizens are enfolded. But, as digital networks become our “second nature,” we also hark back to the models derived from the “first nature.”

There is growing pressure on architects, urbanists and planners to deliver ecological and techno-informational solutions, with (self-)monitoring of citizens “behaviour”, optimisation of the buildings “performance” and smoothing of urban “flows”, along with the respective substitution of democratic politics by automated governance models. As such, it is ever more important to interrogate the historical, theoretical, methodological and epistemological assumptions beneath the above set of processes that can be described, following Michel Foucault, as environmental governmentality. These questions will be explored under three thematic tracks.

———Optimised urban ecosystems

While urbanisation had for centuries relied on nature as its constitutive outside—as a resource and as a fantasy—it is only during the 1970s that the urban-nature dichotomy was subjected to the paradigm of limits and risks. Protection, conservation and sustainability had been institutionalised as regulative planning ideas in the following decades and the city itself was thereby reconceptualised as an ecosystem. More recently, however, urban “ecosystems” are being subjected to the criteria of resilience, and the ideals of harmony and balance replaced with emergence and complexity. Urban planning and development are transformed into variants of metabolic governance, the objective of which is to optimise energy flows, smooth eco-infrastructures, and stimulate ecosystemic self-organisation, even at the price of insulating the optimised, smooth and self-organised from the labour on which it essentially rests.

What are the histories and futures of sustainability, resilience and ecological optimisation and how can they be addressed as epistemic categories beyond their implied “solutionist” imperative? What roles have architectures and urbanisms played in these epistemic transformations? What are the broader political consequences of thinking the city as an ecosystem and urbanisation as a metabolic flow? To what extent is the widely analysed shift from planning and government to management and governance (or from Fordism to post-Fordism more generally) itself rooted in the urban ecological imperative of the last 40 years?

———Architectural turn to nature?

In terms of their relationship with nature, urbanisms and architectures today are caught in a peculiar paradox. On one side these disciplines recognise that there is no pure nature, that nature has been “planetary urbanised”. On the other hand, they are drawn to the idea of pure nature as a blueprint for spatial action. The morphology and morphogenesis of biological organisms inspire ostensibly resourceful tectonic solutions and efficient material performance. The evolutionary model and the ecological cycling of nutrients inspire ostensibly non-deterministic, open-ended models of urbanisation.

But why and how have biomimesis and ecomimesis come to constitute an unquestioned ideal for architecture and urbanism in the first place? What is a more fundamental historical and epistemological stake underneath their biomimetic and ecomimetic impulses? Why has nature, as described by natural sciences, been appropriated as a model and a teacher? Why is nature viewed as inherently efficient and intelligent and how does current architectures’ “turn to nature” differ from earlier such turns? What are the social costs of urbanisms’ green, “clean-tech” imaginations?

———”Big data” and urban subjectification

Similar questions can be directed at the notions of human nature and subjectivity. As the proliferation of data de-stabilises human subjectivity, rendering individuals into profiles and substituting individuation with algorithmic personalisation, the idea of a human-friendly city continues to inform urban design. While we expect that “big data” will help us to better design “for people” and make cities more “liveable”, we tend to ignore how these data simultaneously undo the very meaning of people and life. The ultimate embodiment of this paradox is the “smart city,” wherein puerile idea of a desirable urbanity correlates with the transformation of life into a data stream.

How have the environmental powers of architectures and urbanisms mutated since these disciplines started to unfold subjects in cybernetic environments? Who are the past, present and future subjects of digital governmentality-through-environments? Who is the “smart”, optimised, efficiently behaving and algorithmically desiring citizen? And, in what sense, if any, can they be called a democratic citizen? Have social classes and political parties been replaced by de-territorialised swarms? Has government been replaced by environmental modulation?

——————————————

Authors are welcome to submit analytical papers, theoretically well-grounded case studies, or architectural counter-projects for presentations while indicating their preference for one of the above tracks. At the same time, we ask that their contributions consider specifically how natures and data are intertwined in architectural and urban politics today, how the politics of environments is simultaneously ecological and cybernetic.

Please submit your proposal (max 400 words) and a short bio (max 50 words) to architecturesnaturesdata@gmail.com by November 1, 2016.

Conference keynotes will be given by Matthew Gandy, Antoinette Rouvroy and Douglas Spencer.

For further information, please visit www.architecturesnaturesdata.com.

The story of the unbuilt town hall:
On October 20th at 6 pm, the Open Lecture Series of the architecture faculty will be happy to present architect Jakob Lange from BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) at Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Pikk 20, Tallinn). Lange has been working for years on BIG’s proposal for Tallinn’s new town hall – the project that won the competition in 2009 and is yet to be built today, and has promised to share the story of the “village” typology proposed by BIG. Could architecture improve communication between people and the city government? Open Lectures are open to all architecture students, professionals and general audience intrigued by spatial matters: the lectures are in English and free of charge.

Jakob Lange is a partner at BIG and has collaborated with Bjarke Ingels since 2003. As a project leader for several award-winning projects, Jakob has been instrumental to many of BIG’s largest commissions. He led the design and development of The Mountain mixed-use residences in Copenhagen, completed in 2008, and served as the Project Leader for the new Tallinn Town Hall in Estonia, which received a MIPIM Future Award 2011. He is currently Partner in Charge of Stettin 7, a 20.000 m2 sustainable luxury residential building in Stockholm, Sweden. Jakob also heads BIG IDEAS, BIG’s technology driven special projects division. Through analysis and simulation, BIG IDEAS informs BIG’s design decisions with research-based information—Information Driven Design. Special projects, including a green window farm, customized furniture, and innovative building systems support the studio’s work from small details to the BIG picture.

More about BIG’s Tallinn town hall project: http://big.dk/#projects-tat

Open Lecture Series is supported by Estonian Cultural Endowment and organised by the Estonian Academy of Arts architecture department.
Series curated by Sille Pihlak and Siim Tuksam (PART)
www.avatudloengud.ee

More info:
Lisainfo:
Pille Epner
arhitektuur@artun.ee
+372 642 0071

This time the model in EAA Design Faculty`s drawing studio`s croquis is Natalja.

Artist statement:
I strive to explore the tension between industry and the organic. I choose forged steel as my primary method. I do this because forged steel retains an industrial weight as it simultaneously can be made plastic and non linear. Within this merging duality I find a larger narrative. These feelings resonate with my own interests in understanding how we as a people seek to find balance in the world. A balance of our own.
The industrial ruins that dot the American landscape inspire some forms in my work. Other forms are directly related to anatomy and the human body. A recent body of work explores the aesthetic nature of graffiti that dominates these industrial ruins. It is my goal to explore the flux of human impact on the natural world and to comment on our social and physical impact through this exploration.

Zachary Lihatsh is an artist, designer, and blacksmith. Born and raised in New Hampshire, Zach later settled in Arizona where he established his studio. He received his undergraduate degree form Prescott College in northern Arizona and is currently an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. He has taught blacksmithing at high school and college levels as well as assisting at the Penland School of craft in North Carolina. He has exhibited work nationally and internationally. His Public art commissions can be seen in Tucson, Arizona and at The University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
www.zachlihatsh.com

On October 6th, the Open Lecture Series of the architecture faculty will host Lina Ghotmeh, one of the architects behind the mega-project of Estonian National Museum, to be opened for public on October 1st. Ghotmeh will share her story of how the Estonian National Museum was built – from the original concept to the grand opening, touching also upon the changes that took place during the ten years, and what the project means to her. The lecture will take place at Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Pikk 20, Tallinn) and is open for free to architecture students and professionals of the field as well as people interested in architecture.

Lina Ghotmeh is an architect, ‘distinction’ graduate from the American University of Beirut and the École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris. Prior to establishing her office, she had worked between Paris, London and Beirut collaborating with Ateliers Jean Nouvel. In 2006, after winning the 1st Prize of the international competition of the Estonian National Museum, she established along with Dan Dorell and Tsuyoshi Tane DGT / Architects: an international design platform based in Paris. Lina practices a sensitive architecture through a multi‐disciplinary and research driven approach. She has received numerous awards, among which: the Areen and the Azar Awards prized along her studies, the French Ministry of Culture Architecture prize ‘’AJAP 2007‐08’’, and the French Architecture Academy Dejean Prize 2016.

In 2010, she was selected for the «10 for 2010 Visionary Architects for a new decade» by the European Architects Review and recently the Estonian National Museum has been awarded the GRAND PRIX AFEX. Lina is also actively involved in the academic world. She has taught Architecture as an Associate Professor at the École Spéciale d’Architecture (2008‐2015). She has also lectured, led workshops and been juror at architectural schools and institutions including Parsons School of Design, Paris; the Rhode Island School of Design, RISD, Providence; the Royal Academy of Arts in London and Columbia University in New York.

The Open Lecture Series of the Estonian Academy of Arts architecture faculty invites renowned architects, theoreticians, architecture critics and urbanists to Tallinn to speak about the latest ideas and points of view making ripples in architecture, design, city planning and critical thinking. The lectures are in English, free and open to anyone and especially intended for architecture students and professionals of the field as well as the general audience interested in matters concerning space.

Open Lecture Series is supported by Estonian Cultural Endowment and organised by the Estonian Academy of Arts architecture department.
Series curated by Sille Pihlak and Siim Tuksam (PART)
www.avatudloengud.ee
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1240960255955870/