Silence from the Ceiling

The solo exhibition “Silence from the Ceiling” by Mari-Liis Sõrg will be opened at Vent Space project space on Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 6pm. The exhibition will be open until 28 April 2019, Fri 2-7pm and Sat, Sun 12-6pm.

Mari-Liis Sõrg tackles the stories behind views that have entrenched themselves in the mind,
despite not being remembered. In a world, where moments have lost their duration, the fear of oblivion grows. Grasped by this fear, we begin to record the past and the present, the troubling
disquiet forces us to collect views, objects, data, writings. The calm that has been lost in the
panicked fervour of collecting is replaced by an uncertain perspective concerning the future. That said, the moments, which we have not attempted to archive, can enjoy the silence and freedom.
Using painting and photography, she looks at the discrepancy between depiction and conservation.

Mari-Liis Sõrg has graduated from the department of graphic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA 2018) and is continuing her studied in the contemporary art programme (MA).

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Our planet is dying.

A breakdown of our climate and ecology could very well drive humans and other animals to extinction within a couple of generations.

Governments and big corporations are busy making up excuses and hiding the truth, to steer the conversation away from the problems.

Is anyone dealing with this situation at all?

Yes!

From 15-21 April, the Week of International Rebellion is taking place in cities all over the world. Started by the Extinction Rebellion movement, these mass protests are spreading all over the world, with the epicentre in London.

The protesters have occupied important roads in cities, disrupting everyday hustle and bustle and demanding immediate action concerning the crisis, despite the mass arrests taking place.

Vent Space will be the climate protest centre of Estonia from 19-23 April. We will be broadcasting live events taking place in London, Estonia and other parts of the world, supporting the brave activists fighting for our future. Workshops and presentations on the subject of the climate crisis will also be held.

Vernissage on 19 April at 7 pm.

Additional information on the workshops and presentations TBA.

The project is lead by Tiiu Lausmaa, alumni of EAA painting department, year 2018 (bachelor’s degree), along with the rest of the XR Estonia team.

Join us for the opening of “Rythm and Rhyme” and a performance on April 22, 6 PM at EKA Billboard Gallery.

The exhibition “Rythm and Rhyme” is born through a performance with live painting, music and poetry reading by students from the Faculty of Design. They are painting on sketches from the old EKA building made by previous design faculty students.

The curator Kadri Kangilaski is teaching painting at the Faculty of Design. Before the demolition of EKA old building, she gathered and kept the old sketches that otherwise would have been thrown away. Now she has invited students she teaches from different departments, choosing them by their spontaneous and expressive painting style. By changing the old relic sketches part of the new installation we are celebrating the new EKA.

The performance is accompanied with music by “Vesi päästab”, Patrick Zavadskise and Villem Sarapuu (graphic design) and with poetry by Karl-Christoph Rebane (fashion design).   

Painters: Robin Siimann and Kristjan Hinno (graphic design), Ingrid Helena Pajo (textile design), Kairit Mäeots (ceramics), Tauris Reose (jewellery and blacksmithing) and Kadri Kangilaski.

Kadri Kangilaski (b. 1973) holds an MFA in painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts, she is a freelance artist and is currently teaching painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She is a freelance artist and has had solo shows with Toomas Tõnissoo at Hobusepea, Draakon and Vaal Gallery and has been in group shows in New York, Berlin, Paris, Helsinki and in Tallinn at KUMU, Kunstihoone and others.

The exhibition is opened until May 26.

The gallery is located outside of EKA, on the building wall at Kotzebue street.

Dreams and Reality: Open Lecture by Archigram founder Sir Peter Cook

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be British architect, professor, and writer Sir Peter Cook, who has been a pivotal figure within the global architectural world for over half a century. Cook will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 25th of April at 6 pm.

Professor Sir Peter Cook RA is a founder of Archigram, a former Director at the Institute for Contemporary Art, London (the ICA) and Bartlett School of Architecture at University College, London. His ongoing contribution to architectural innovation was recognised via the conferral of an honorary doctorate in April 2010 by the Lund University, Sweden. Cook’s achievements with radical experimentalist group Archigram have been the subject of numerous publications and public exhibitions and were recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2002, when members of the group were awarded the RIBA’s highest award, the Royal Gold Medal.

In 2007, Peter was knighted by the Queen for his services to architecture. He is also a Royal Academician and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic. Peter is currently a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London. His professorships include those of the Royal Academy, University College London and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Staedelschule) in Frankfurt-Main, Germany.

Peter has from the very beginning made waves in architectural circles, however, it is since the construction of his Art Museum in Graz, Austria (The Kunsthaus Graz) that his work has been brought to a wider public, a process continuing with the completion of the Vienna Business and Economics University’s Departments of Law and Central Administration Buildings and Bond University in Australia’s Abedian School of Architecture. Peter has also built in Osaka, Nagoya, Berlin, Frankfurt and Madrid. More info about the projects from Crab-Studio’s (co-founded with Gavin Robotham) website: http://www.crab-studio.com.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali
www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

Erinn M. Cox artist talk at her solo show “loneliness is the slowest death : a requiem for longing”

Join the artist for a conversation about the works from her new series titled Longing, including a personal tour of the exhibition at EKA Gallery. The artist talk is in English.

For more about the artist, visit www.erinnmcox.com

The exhibition is open until April 27.
Supported by Põhjala Brewery.

The group exhibition “Lasnamäe?”
will open at Vent Space project space on Friday, 12 April 2019 at 7pm. The exhibition will remain open until 17 April.

Participating artists: Anna Kaarma,
Lee Kelomees, Tõnis Laurson, Tiiu Lausmaa, Janne Lias, Riin Maide,
Vassa Ponomarjova

Considering Lasnamäe, the first things that spring to mind are the rows of prefabricated buildings and the wastelands interspersed between them. As a manifestation of a characterless, purely utilitarian space in the cityscape, it continues to be an important and intriguing environment for us, the young people born in the former Soviet Union or right after its collapse. The impersonal nature of Lasnamäe provides us with breathing space, creating a gap into which it was possible for us to write our story. It is our conceptual playground between the real playgrounds and rows of windows, where memories and the emotions they conjure intertwine with the foreign, thereby making it familiar.

The exhibition does not aspire to be an overview nor a broad research of the given subject, we have selected examples from the work by students at the fine art department at EKA created in recent years. The decisive factor in most of the works is coincidence, the initial task of the artist was not to depict Lasnamäe, these works have been by-products in the processes of other works.

The exhibition will remain open during April 13–17 from 12pm to 6pm.

Anna Kaarma (1992) received her bachelor’s degree in graphic design at EKA (2015) and will graduate from her master’s studies in photography/contemporary art this spring. Concurrently, she is preparing a second solo exhibition, which looks at the architectural aesthetics and ideological frame of reference for Lasnamäe, to which she ascribes a human perspective and dreamlike spatial experience through her own perspective. That said, she is also attempting to work past the anonymity of the district and reach its origin. A lifelong inhabitant of Lasnamäe.

Lee Kelomees (1995) is a photographer with a bachelor’s degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts and has lived in Lasnamäe since her early childhood. The inspiration for Lee’s previous work has been the industrial romance unfolding from the window of her 11th floor childhood home, which can be considered her emotional shelter and carrying force, based on her previous work.

Tõnis Laurson (1996) is studying graphic art at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. He has lived in Lasnamäe for the past two years, but was not born there nor did he grow up there, therefore, it would be an exaggeration to claim he is from Lasnamäe. That said, living deep in Lasnamäe, the peculiarities of the district have influenced his work in many ways.

Tiiu Lausmaa (1989) graduated from the bachelor’s studies at the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2018. She was 2 years old when she moved to Lasnamäe and, for her, it was her first home. She thinks, it was a good place to grow up: it wasn’t too sleek or safe, instead, you could experience real life. There were playgrounds meant for children, but the little woods and wastelands, where you could create your own world, were much more interesting.

Janne Lias (1981) is studying painting at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. She was 10 years old, when her family moved from a Mustamäe dormitory room to a 3-room apartment in Lasnamäe with all the conveniences. While she was trying to acclimatise to Lasnamäe, Ivo Linna sang “Stop Lasnamäe!” on the radio. Janne moved away from Lasnamäe already at the beginning of the 2000s, but the awkwardness of living in the wrong place has remained.

Riin Maide (1997) is studying graphic art at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Riin has lived in a prefabricated building, although, in Keila, where there were precisely three buildings tall enough to require a lift. All those “Lasna” and other “mäed” (hills) seem utopic, because the buildings there really are full of people.

Vassa Ponomarjova (1984) is studying painting at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Vassa lived in Lasnamäe for 2 years, now she lives in Õismäe. She considers Lasnamäe to be an area separated from the rest of Tallinn – a city within a city, where the mentality is a little different to that which exists in the rest of Tallinn.

The lecture takes place in EKA Main Hall (Põhja puiestee 7) on Tuesday, 16 April 18:00 and is open to everyone.

We experience so many innovations daily that we tend to forget that before their acceptance, many of these innovations have been met by resistance among the public, or by people whose livelihoods are threatened by them.

By looking into past innovation case studies we begin to understand the underlying reasons for resistance of innovations and become better equipped to propose innovative designs for our uncertain future to ultimately become the designers of tomorrow.

In the third open seminar for IxD.ma, and the second for IxDA Tallinn, we invite Haig Armen, Head of Interaction Design at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, to talk about designers’ role in creating the future.

As one of Canada’s most respected and innovative digital designers, Haig has been designing brands, advertising, and interactive projects for two decades. He has received a variety of awards throughout his career, including three The Webby Awards, two Prix Italia for Web Arts and Drama and a Gold Medal from the Art Director’s Club of New York to name only a few.

For the past six years, Haig holds a position as the Head of Interaction Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His research explores the intersection of design and programming, focusing on data visualization, gestural interfaces and music technology.

Interaction design (IxD) is a theme that has emerged to address the ongoing advancements in technology and the way it relates to people. At IxD.ma we keep a broad view on the field and cover more areas than what is related to digital technology.

Date: June 4, 6, 7 at 10.00 to 17.00

Venue: Estonian Academy of Arts, Põhja pst 7, room A202

Lecturer: Benjamin Lignel

Artist, writer and curator Benjamin Lignel will conduct a 3-day seminar in June, focusing on the challenges and opportunities inherent to artistic research. We will be thinking through the temporalities of making, documenting, and argumenting, and the different sort of “proof” they invoke; we will attempt a 21st century autopsy of the author-function and look at subject-positions with the help of Italo Calvino, Joan Scott and Audre Lord; we will play at presenting an object (textual or physical) for public scrutiny with a view to understanding what “stewardship of ideas” might imply.

Students who sign up for the seminar will be required to read 3 texts in advance:

Audre Lord, the Use of Anger, Women responding to Racism (1981)

Joan Scott, The Evidence of Experience (1991)

Ulrike Müller, Herstory Inventory (2011)

You will also be required to write, in conversational/diaristic mode, how you first met an idea that subequently guided your current research (max. 500 words).

Registration

The seminar is open to PhD and MA students.

Registration form

Registration is open until 28.05.2019.

This event is organised by the Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts, supported by the ASTRA project of the Estonian Academy of Arts – EKA LOOVKÄRG (European Union, European Regional Development Fund).

Tuesday, 9th of April at 18.00 Finnish artist Tuukka Kaila will hold a public presentation of his work in room A202 at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Tuukka Kaila (b. 1975) is a Helsinki-based artist working at the intersection of visual art, research and publishing. Since the late 90’s, Kaila has been actively involved in independent publishing, artist-run spaces and the cultivation of other forms of self-organized cultural production taking place outside of and occasionally overlapping with the institutional. Through various initiatives such as Numero Zine (1998-2004), Värinä darkroom co-op (2002-), Myymälä2 gallery (2003-), Bookies publishing event (2012-), Vallilan risopaja micro press (2017-) and Rooftop imprint (2017-), Kaila’s practice has consistently gravitated towards enabling a shared learning experience through participation and placing the means of artistic production and distribution at the hands of artists.

Kaila’s practice often materializes as photographs, texts and public events. Kaila’s recent works find their point of departure in questions concerning the production of knowledge. The works evolve organically through the use of a wide variety of artistic forms and epistemic strategies from dialogue to practice-based research to darkroom experimentation and printed matter.

Tukka Kaila was invited to Tallinn on behalf of the Department of Photography of Estonian Academy of Arts. During April 8–12, he is giving a workshop on analogue colour photography printing.

Unusual landscapes inspiring architecture: Open Lecture by Austris Mailītis

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be Latvia architect Austris Mailītis, one of the most original thinkers of the new generation from the Baltics. Mailītis will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 11th of April at 6 pm to talk about unusual landscapes and cultural context that has inspired his own work, introducing among others, the Shaolin Flying Monks Temple as well as the Latvian National Open-air Stage project.

Mailītis’ portfolio includes several unique art and architecture projects, including the Latvian pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the Latvian National Open-air Stage – the biggest open air stage in the world. During recent years, Mailītis designed the Latvian national pavilions at the 55th and 56th Venice Art Biennale and worked on a unique building for levitation – Shaolin Flying Monks Temple in China. In 2011, he was awarded Latvian national architecture award for his contribution to the development of Latvian architecture. In 2014, his work was nominated for EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture, Mies van der Rohe Award 2015 for the temporary pavilion designed for Esplanade park in Riga to mark the city’s year as the European Capital of Culture in 2014.

His architecture studio Mailitis Architects is based in Riga. In 2017, Mailitis Architects received the the Latvian Architecture Award for Shaolin Flying Monks Temple in China. At the moment, Mailitis Architects’ focus is on the reconstruction of the Open-air Stage in Mežaparks.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali
www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/