Exhibition of artists’ films at the Tartu Art House

On Friday, 20 June at 5:00, the exhibition of artists’ films “Once More I Would Like To Return” * will open in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House. The exhibition is being curated by Marge Monko and designed by Karel Koplimets.

The exhibition features five films by artists that deal with home and the memories, longing and melancholy associated with it in various psychological and aesthetic registers.

The motifs of leaving home and longing for home are as old as human history. On a personal level, fleeing or being forcibly displaced is a tragic event that leaves a mark on the rest of our lives, even if we manage to adapt well. “They don’t know that they will never really fit in. No, never. Some part of them can´t be fully present, something left behind in the old country that won’t allow them to really settle in elsewhere, to put down roots,” writes the Lithuanian-American avant-garde film-maker Jonas Mekas in his memoir I had nowhere to go. Mekas has captured his experiences as a refugee and his search for self in a new homeland through his experimental film-making.

“Artistic film is a phenomenon that situates itself outside film industry formats but uses the (audio)visual means of expression offered by the moving image. In her book War is not a woman’s face, Svetlana Alexeyevich uses the term “luminous force” from optics to describe the difference in experience of war between women and men. The more luminous a lens is, the greater its ability to record an image in poor lighting conditions. Hopefully, the films selected for the exhibition will help to illuminate those layers of homesickness and longing that are overshadowed by the great narratives of history,” explains Marge Monko.  

*The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Marie Under’s poem “The Refugee”, written while she was in exile in Sweden.

Participating artists: Noor Abed, Paul Kuimet, Jonas Mekas, Marge Monko and Anna Scherbyna.

Thank you: Kaisa Maasik, Brigita Reinert, Eesti Kunstimuuseum, AS GoProperty, Valge Kuup OÜ

The exhibition is being produced in collaboration with the Photography Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition will be open until 20 July.

www.kunstimaja.ee

facebook.com/kunstimaja

The Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26) is open Wed–Mon 12.00–18.00. All exhibitions are free of charge.

The exhibition activities in the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu city government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

On Friday, 20 June at 5:00 p.m., Daria Morozova will open her solo exhibition “I Am Here” in the small gallery of the Tartu Art House.

The exhibition I Am Here is a retrospective of a personal crisis experience: fear, non-recognition and loneliness. It speaks of struggle: fighting for oneself, for one’s place in society, and for the right to exist without the constant need to change for others. What does it feel like to experience one’s duality? Is it possible to escape oneself? Or is the only way forward simply learning to exist?

Through her paintings, Daria explores this journey: fear, resistance, acceptance and finally the possibility of speaking. I Am Here is not an attempt to hide or change but an opportunity to remain true to oneself and be heard.

An identity crisis can be terrifyingly lonely. In moments when familiar landmarks fade, it may feel like your experience is a burden you have to carry on your own: untranslatable and incomprehensible to others. But that is not the case.

“Language, body and memory: all become part of this process. It is a search for an answer to the most fundamental question: since I am here, I am alive and I am afraid, what should I do and how should I be? The exhibition invites the viewer to see the situation of Russian-speaking people living in Estonia not as a political or abstract issue but as a vivid and personal experience. It is an invitation to reflect on what it means to live with this duality and how it feels to say out loud what most remain silent about,” the artist explains.

Daria Morozova (b. 2002) is an Estonian painter of Russian origin whose works explore themes of identity, belonging and internal conflict. She holds a BA from the Estonian Academy of Arts and is a member of the Estonian Young Artists’ Association (ENKKL). Her recent exhibitions include Surprize V – Dove sono? / Where am I? (2024, Italy), Maavaringlus (2024, Tallinn), and Life Can Never Stop (2025, Tallinn, City Gallery). The exhibition is co-curated by Eva Oizhinskaya.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

The exhibition will be open until 20 July.

This spring, 15 young artists are graduating from the MA Contemporary Art program at the Estonian Academy of Arts. 13 of them are exhibiting their MA thesis projects at TASE ‘25 graduation show at Rävala 8 and two at the community garden of Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Kursi 5.

Rävala 8, III floor:
KitKit Para: ‘Shrek and The Aphrodite Beans’, supervisor Anu Vahtra, reviewer Anna Jensen
Yuko Kinouchi: ‘embodiment – -> de-zombification’, supervisors Madis Kurss and Else Lagerspetz, reviewer Taavi Suisalu
Brit Kikas: ‘Touch’, supervisors Tõnis Jürgens and Else Lagerspetz, reviewer Piibe Kolka
Viktoria Martjanova: ‘Visit’, supervisors Anita Kremm and Anu Vahtra, reviewer Sten Saarits

Rävala 8, II floor:
Eleftheria Kofidou: ‘Rapprochement’, supervisors Laura Cemin and Else Lagerspetz, reviewer Evelyn Raudsepp
Tea Lemberpuu: ‘Impersonal self-portrait. The daily choice to be seen or to hide’, supervisors Anu Vahtra and Maris Karjatse, reviewer Hasso Krull
Gerda Hansen: ‘One Piece at a Time’, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja and Else Lagerspetz, reviewer Lilian Hiob-Küttis
Liza Tsindeliani: ‘Trauma Made Me Hot’, supervisors Paul Kuimet and Maris Karjatse, reviewer Anna Škodenko
Chloé Geinoz: ‘Water, fountains and witches’, supervisors Liina Siib and Maris Karjatse, reviewer Elo-Hanna Seljamaa
Mia Felić: ‘What Goes Around’, supervisors Piibe Kolka and Maris Karjatse, reviewer Tõnis Jürgens

Rävala 8, I floor:
Kristi Vendelin: ‘Põletab, närib, ronib’, supervisors Kaspar Tamsalu and Maris Karjatse, reviewer Hanna Piksarv

Rävala 8, basement floor:
Vitor Pascale: ‘Room for Play’, supervisors David Ross and Else Lagerspetz, reviewer Jaanus Samma
Joel Jõevee: ‘selfportrait’, ‘self portrait 2’, ‘birthing pains’, ‘intimate separation’, supervisors Holger Loodus and Taavi Varm, reviewer Peeter Laurits

Community garden of EKKM, Kursi 5:
Yvette Bathgate & Jake Shepherd: ‘a space to gather, a place to grow’, supervisors Yvonne Billimore and Joss Allen, reviewers Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Sandra Pihlapson (Kosorotova)

Also participating in TASE ´25 exhibition: Lara Brener, Eri Rääsk, Iryna Tanasiichuk, Aivar Tõnso, Paula Vool

This year the thesis committee consists of five members for the Estonian graduating group and of six members for the international group. The core members are: artist and filmmaker Ingel Vaikla, curator and head of CCA Estonia Maria Arusoo, artist and educator Taavet Jansen. For June 3, they are joined by two more Estonian speaking members: artists and educators Marge Monko and Mart Vainre. For June 4 & 5, they are joined by three international members: writer, editor, and independent researcher Eric Otieno Sumba, and artists and educators John Grzinich and Léann Herlihy.

Maria Arusoo is a curator and dramaturge. Since 2013, she has been the director of the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art and the commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She holds an MA in Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has worked as an assistant to Martin Creed. Arusoo has curated numerous exhibitions and conferences, published widely, taught at the Estonian Academy of Arts and SAIC, and edited several art publications. Her current projects include a solo exhibition by Edith Karlson in Vilnius (2025) and the Estonian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (2026), featuring Merike Estna.

Taavet Jansen is an interdisciplinary artist whose work integrates movement, digital technologies, and interactive performance. His practice focuses on blurring the boundaries of art at the intersection of the viewer’s physical and digital presence. Jansen has situated his work in various environments, including theatre, galleries, and virtual spaces—his current focus lies in audience engagement in hybrid spaces and mixed reality. He is currently completing a PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Ingel Vaikla is an artist and filmmaker based in Brussels. Her practice focuses on the representation of architecture in relation to communities, working with video, 16 mm film, and found footage. Rather than depicting architecture as sculptural form, she explores its existential and ideological dimensions. Vaikla has been a resident at HISK in Ghent and WIELS in Brussels, and is currently completing her doctoral studies at PXL-MAD/UHasselt. Her works have been shown internationally, including at IDFA, Kunsthalle Wien, EKKM, Bozar, Videonale, and Manifesta 13.

Marge Monko is an artist based in Tallinn, working with photography, video, and installation. Her work engages with historical events and is informed by psychoanalysis, feminist theory, and visual culture studies. Recent projects examine romantic discourse and its manifestations in advertising and commercial design. Monko has participated in the HISK program and artist residencies in New York, Vienna, Hong Kong, and São Paulo. Her works are held in several major collections, including MUMOK, Folkwang Museum, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, FRAC Lorraine, and the Art Museum of Estonia.

Mart Vainre is an artist living and working in Tallinn. He combines traditional painting techniques with digital tools such as image editing, 3D scanning, and modelling. His works explore the interplay between human and machine-generated visuals, reflecting on the interface between humanity and contemporary technology. Vainre holds a BA in painting and an MA in new media from the Estonian Academy of Arts and has exhibited in solo shows as well as curated exhibitions at KUMU and the Tallinn Art Hall.

John Grzinich (he/him) is an audio-visual artist based in Estonia. His work integrates sound, moving images and site-specific installations to explore perceptions of sound and space, seeking resonances between people and places. Grzinich’s recent focus questions our anthropocentric views through performative and fixed media works by combining earthly agencies, expanded listening practices and participatory engagement.

Léann Herlihy (they/them) is an artist, researcher, and educator based in Dublin. Their practice engages with trans*, queer ecological, feminist, and abolitionist theory, spanning performance, video, sculpture, text, and radical pedagogy. Herlihy critiques normative frameworks of identity, focusing on collective agency and resistance beyond binary categories. They lecture at the National College of Art and Design and are a recipient of multiple Arts Council of Ireland awards. Recent exhibitions include Precarious Joys (Toronto Biennial, 2024), The Salvage Agency (TULCA, 2024), and PLAYING GOD (Innsbruck International, 2026). Herlihy is a studio artist at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios and currently in residence at Fire Station Artists’ Studios.

Eric Otieno Sumba is a writer, editor, and researcher based in Berlin. His work draws on social theory, political economy, postcolonial studies, and art criticism. He is editor for publication practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Recent editorial projects include Destination Tashkent and Echos der Bruderländer (2024, HKW & Archive Books). As a curator, he co-developed Riverberi (2024) with Spazio Griot at Mattatoio in Rome. His writing has appeared in Contemporary And, Frieze, Camera Austria, Text zur Kunst, The Guardian, and others.

Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight / isthisit?
Artists: Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjasov, Olev Kuma, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa- Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Nora Schmelter, Aidan Timmer and Edvard Vellevoog
11 th – 22 nd June
Opening 10 th June, 6-9pm
Uus Rada gallery, Raja tn 11a, 12616 Tallinn, Estonia

The curatorial platform isthisit? is excited to present About The Birds, an exhibition at Uus Rada that explores house sparrows, their ubiquity and resilience, alongside their status as invasive pests. Stemming from an interest in how pervasive and common this species of bird has become, and how they have spread all over the world, About The Birds is an exhibition exploring ideas surrounding the home, transformation and change.
Each artist in the exhibition was provided with a custom-built wooden bird house, made specifically for house sparrows. They were given free reign with what to do with the structure, enabling the artists to produce a new work of art that echoes their ongoing practice whilst asking them to reflect on their own relationship to this common bird.

The exhibition at Uus Rada is the first piece of a three-part curatorial project. Once the exhibition ends the bird houses will be installed in and around Tallinn on different trees and buildings, for the public to visit and discover. The different locations will be accessed via a map published on the isthisit? website. Once installed, the works will be left to live outside in the natural environment, decaying and transforming with time.

The final part of the project will be a book published in late 2025, featuring documentation of the different works, both at Uus Rada and in their locations around the city, as well as a series of short texts reflecting on the project and its themes.
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Bob Bicknell-Knight (b. 1996, Ipswich, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator currently based in Tallinn, Estonia, working with digital media producing films, paintings, sculptures and installations. His practice explores ideas surrounding time, control and degradation, with a particular interest in the underlying mechanics of video game worlds and power structures
that proliferate online and in new forms of technology. Bicknell-Knight is influenced and inspired by our pre-apocalyptic present, climate collapse, virtual worlds and 24/7 hyper- capitalism.

Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, a platform for art that’s specialised mainly in digital art since its creation in May 2016, and has worked with hundreds of artists since its inception. Through the platform he curates online and offline exhibitions, hosts an infrequent residency programme and has designed and edited a series of books, focusing on several broad themes from contemporary modes of surveillance to fake news and video game culture.

Poster Font: MAURIZIO by Jaan Pavliuk (2020)

Alyona Movko-Mägi’s solo exhibition Soo is open from June 6 to September 27, 2025, at the Museum of Photography’s Seek gallery, situated in Tornimäe.

The exhibition inaugurates the new season in Estonia’s one-of-a-kind Night Gallery format. During the summer months, the gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday during late evening and nighttime hours: from June to August, 20:00–02:00; in September, 20:00–00:00.

Soo (Estonian for “Bog”) explores the relationship between body and landscape, treating the bog as a layered archive—a place where bodies, stories, and histories accumulate. It is a site of preservation and transformation, where life is held and reshaped. The exhibition invites reflection on the symbolic relationship between embodied presence and terrain, with the bog acting simultaneously as a keeper of memory and a space of change.

At the heart of the exhibition is the female body—as a bearer of life, memory, and belonging. The stratification of bodily experiences—ranging from creation to sacrifice and transformation—intertwines with the landscape, where human traces and narratives blend into visible and invisible layers.

Alyona Movko-Mägi (b. 1984) is an artist whose practice intersects material-based research, expanded photography, and memory embedded in nature. Living and working beside the bogs of Lahemaa in northern Estonia, she gathers and processes materials remembered by the land. Her work weaves together leather, glass, light, photography, motion, and digital forms—bringing forward how time moves through both body and earth, and how care, disappearance, and transformation remain held in matter.

In the artist’s words:
“The bog invites slowness. It gathers silence, light, moisture, and pressure. Movement becomes perception; presence begins to settle in layers. Each pause creates a space for listening—quietly and attentively, without explanation. Photography unfolds here as an embodied act. Light gathers the surface, layering presence. The image does not depict an object, it shapes the conditions for presence and perception, connecting body and space.”

Throughout the summer, the accompanying public program will feature talks on folk heritage, concerts, and workshops on analog photography.

Exhibition Team
Curator: Annika Haas
Sound design: Maksim Adel
Lighting design: Mikk-Mait Kivi
Graphic design: Katariin Mudist
Installation team: Mikk Kivila, Marten Esko, Valge Kuup

Supported by:
The Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA), Department of Glass and Department of Photography.
This exhibition is part of the TASE ’25 graduate festival program.

Night Gallery Opening Hours
• June–August: Wed–Sat, 20:00–02:00
• September: Wed–Sat, 20:00–00:00

The Museum of Photography—located behind Town Hall in a former medieval prison—is part of the Tallinn City Museum and the home of Estonian photographic heritage. In its SEEK gallery, contemporary photography enters dialogue with architectural history.

Here For Six Hours
A hybrid event of exhibition, performance and hanging out

05.06.2025 at 5pm–11pm
Ankru Studio (Ankru 6, Tallinn)
Artists
Anna Ovtšinnikova
Anumai Raska
Bob Bicknell-Knight
Clara Jantson-Köstner
Edvard Vellevoog
Fausta Noreikaite
Keithy Kuuspu
Liisbeth Horn
Mats Johan Soosaar
Nora Schmelter
Olev Kuma

Ricu and Anrku ateljee

On June 5, we invite you to Here for 6 Hours — a six-hour hybrid event that blends the concepts of an exhibition, performance and casual, unrushed hangout. The event begins at 17:00 and ends at 23:00, welcoming those who are curious and interested in the idea of slowing down time. To participate it is necessary to be present for the entire duration of the event, but fresh air breaks are possible on the balcony!

How can you stay in a space for six hours without feeling the need to rush?
Is it possible to look at art for longer than 30 seconds?

The space is filled with works by sixteen artists — installations, paintings, live broadcasts, sound pieces, performances and other interdisciplinary gestures. Some works are activated by the artists, whilst others only require the gaze of the participants.

Within the event being together is the content, reflecting on rapid consumption and hustle culture, capturing and streaming both the meaningful and meaningless moments of idling, live to EKA TV and via influencers’ Instagram feeds. How instagrammable is idling? How instagrammable is simply being present? Does loitering remain loitering when it is documented? Six hours is long enough for the unpredictable to unfold, to let go of all expectations and to settle into a relaxed, and perhaps boring, timeless state.

Curated by: MA Contemporary Art students, EKA

Location: Ankru Studio (Ankru 6, Tallinn)

Date & Time: 05.06.2025 | 17:00–23:00

Free entry, registration needed: https://forms.gle/NxWLLu3iqMsnGJHt9

Vegeterian food and drinks available on site

More info:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kuustundikohal/

EKA TV link: coming soon on facebook event and instagram

The additional intake for the Urban Studies Master’s programme at EKA is open until 19 June 2025. On Thursday, 5 June 2025 at 16:00 (EET), all prospective Master’s students are warmly invited to join an online info session introducing the programme.

This is a great opportunity to learn about how the Urban Studies Master’s programme is structured, how to prepare for the admissions process, and what is expected from candidates. There will also be a chance to ask questions. The info session will be held in English.

Those interested are kindly asked to register via the link below. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants shortly before the start of the session.

Register HERE

More information about the Urban Studies Master’s programme can be found here:

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

The application period for the international Urban Studies Master’s programme at EKA remains open until 19 June 2025.

More information about admissions can be found here.

Young Narvian Paulina is excited to invite all to the premiere screening of the animated film inspired by real-life stories and her personal memories of her hometown.

Paulina Belik is a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Animation Department. She was born and raised in Narva — a city that became both the inspiration and the setting for her graduation film From Narva with Love. Paulina is not only the director, but also the narrator and main character of the film, which draws from her personal memories and real-life stories. It is an autobiographical and documentary animation that reflects her deep connection to her hometown and its complex social landscape.

Narva is a border city with a complicated history and many social cracks. It is here that the film’s heroes, street kids, grew up, and their adventures became the foundation for this story. How to find joy in life when you’re surrounded by abandoned buildings, endless slush, and indifferent adults? What to do when social care is just a formality and the street becomes the school of growing up? The film shows Narva through the eyes of those whose childhood unfolded on its streets. This is an honest, slightly dark, but loving and subtly romantic confession from the author to Paulina’s hometown.

An end-of-the-year exhibition by Craft Studies first year MA students showcasing a broad spectrum of material-led practices.

In the first semester of the studies, we discuss at length the difference between objects and things — what makes something an object and another a thing? Wikipedia encourages their editors to be “straightforward, just-the-facts, instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated” when explaining and describing the subject at hand. This exhibition is precisely not that. The works in this exhibition are both, neither and in-between. We encourage you, the visitor, to think about the works you see in essay-like, argumentative and opinionated ways, doubting and departing, considering thingness and objectness as up for discussion.

Object or Things II takes place in the studio of the Craft Studies programme at Kopli 70a, Krulli Kvartal, 2nd floor. The opening is on May 30 at 18:00. Visitors are welcome from 13–19:00 on May 31 and June 1,2,3, or by appointment.

For more information, please get in touch with Marite Kuus marite.kuus@artun.ee

Participants: Sylvia Whananaki Treep Burgess, Lap Chun Chow, Margus Elizarov, Maia Margareta Hellman, Nele Kurvits, Marite Kuus, Lyly Letzer, Peixuan Lin, Mariam Mestvirishvili and Joanne-Heleene Sõrmus.

Curators: Juss Heinsalu and Kärt Ojavee

The public defenses of this year’s master’s theses of the Department of Interior Architecture will take place on Thursday and Friday, May 29 and 30, from 10:00 to 15:15 in the auditorium of the former House of Designers (Rävala 8). The defenses will also be broadcast live, which can be followed on EKA TV.

29 MAY

10.00-10.50 Silvia Ingver “The Use of Agricultural Products and Residues in Interior Architecture”. Reviewer Sandra Mirka. 

10.50-11.40 Laura Tõru “The In-Between House: co-living in Tallinn Old Town, Vana-Posti 4”. Reviewer Eneli Kleemann.

11.40-12.30 Ville Lausmäe “Third place – Water-space”. Reviewer Karen Jagodin. 

12.30-13.30 Pause

13.30-14.20 Kätlin-Karin Lond “Circular Interior Architecture. The G-building in Telliskivi”. Reviewer Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla. 

14.20-15.10 Anna Aurelia Minev “Normal Environments for Normal People”. Reviewer Daniel Kotsjuba.

30 MAY

10.00-10.50 Linda Maria Urke “Spatially Affected. Supportive Home Environment for People with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Reviewer Keiu Albi. 

10.50-11.40 Laura Pormeister “Adapted Hero. Adapting an Abandoned Building to a Contemporary Environment Using the Example of a Small Town.” Reviewer Iiris Tähti Toom.

11.40-12.30 Kairi Karp-Konceviča “Hospital as an educational space Rethinking the Endocrinology Classroom at Tallinn Children’s Hospital”. Reviewer Loviise Talvaru.

12.30-13.30 Pause

13.30-14.20 Hanna-Loora Arro “In the Field of Temporary Architecture: Towards a More Sustainable Stage Design”. Reviewer Anna-Liisa Unt. 

14.20-15.10 Mari Uibo “Hairline. The Fine Line Between Human and Space”. Reviewer Sveta Grigorjeva. 

The master’s theses were supervised by Mariann Drell (MA), Pavle Stamenović (PhD) and Gregor Taul (PhD) and the consultants were Johan Kirsimäe (MSc) and Maria Helena Luiga (MA).

The master’s theses are evaluated by a committee consisting of Malle Jürgenson (chairman of the committee), Manten Devriendt, Ardo Hiiuväin, Kadi Berens and Siim Tuksam. The secretary of the committee is Marie-Katharine Maksim.

The interior architecture final thesis projects can be viewed at the TASE exhibition at the House of Designers. The exhibition opens on May 28 at 5:00 PM and will then be open until June 19 every day from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Stop by!