KVI research seminar: Marija Drėmaitė “Migration, heritage and resilience”

23.04.2026

KVI research seminar: Marija Drėmaitė “Migration, heritage and resilience”

The talk examines migration and the preservation of collective memory. Grounded in several case studies, this analysis explores the role of architectural heritage in sustaining cultural identity and resilience in contexts of displacement, geopolitical crisis, and contemporary restoration efforts. The paper contributes to current debates on heritage by shifting attention from material authenticity to the dynamic processes of cultural transmission, memory work, and symbolic attachment.

Dr. Marija Drėmaitė is a Professor in Architectural History and Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University. She specializes in 20th-century architectural heritage through historical, sociological, and anthropological perspectives. She is the author of Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Lithuania (Berlin, 2017) and the editor of Architecture of Optimism: The Kaunas Phenomenon, 1918–1940 (Vilnius, 2018). She led the research team behind the successful nomination of “Modernist Kaunas,” which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. Currently she leads a research project “Migration, Heritage and Resilience: Lithuanian Architects and Architecture in the crisis period 1939–1959” funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT).

Posted by Annika Tiko — Permalink

KVI research seminar: Marija Drėmaitė “Migration, heritage and resilience”

Thursday 23 April, 2026

The talk examines migration and the preservation of collective memory. Grounded in several case studies, this analysis explores the role of architectural heritage in sustaining cultural identity and resilience in contexts of displacement, geopolitical crisis, and contemporary restoration efforts. The paper contributes to current debates on heritage by shifting attention from material authenticity to the dynamic processes of cultural transmission, memory work, and symbolic attachment.

Dr. Marija Drėmaitė is a Professor in Architectural History and Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University. She specializes in 20th-century architectural heritage through historical, sociological, and anthropological perspectives. She is the author of Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Lithuania (Berlin, 2017) and the editor of Architecture of Optimism: The Kaunas Phenomenon, 1918–1940 (Vilnius, 2018). She led the research team behind the successful nomination of “Modernist Kaunas,” which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. Currently she leads a research project “Migration, Heritage and Resilience: Lithuanian Architects and Architecture in the crisis period 1939–1959” funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT).

Posted by Annika Tiko — Permalink

18.05.2026

PhD Thesis Defence of Taavet Jansen

On 18 May, 2026 Taavet Jansen, doctoral student of Art and Design curriculum, will defend his doctoral thesis „ Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre“ („Kehata kohalolu: voogteatri kontseptuaalne ja praktiline kaardistus“).
The public defense will take place at 10.00 at EKA (Põhja pst 7), room A101.
The defence will be held in Estonian.

Supervisor: Dr. Anu Allas (Estonian Academy of Arts)
External reviewers: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)
Dr. Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Opponent: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)

Thesis is available in EKA digital repository.

Theatre has long operated as an artistic practice grounded in the encounter of bodies within the same space. Contemporary culture, however, no longer limits itself to physical encounters, but extends its trajectories everywhere through digital means and virtual spaces. A large part of our communication, work, and self-expression takes place digitally, mediated through screens. In such a situation, a question has emerged: what new forms, spaces, and experiences can theatre create for itself in the digital sphere?

At the centre of this doctoral dissertation is livestreamed theatre, a form of performance in which presence, space, and audience participation function on different premises than in conventional theatre. Livestreamed theatre is situated at the point of contact between theatre, film, online environments, and interactive media, and is grounded in a real-time event in which performers and spectators share a common time, but not a common space.

How can one create an experience that does not appear merely as a transmission, but as an artistic encounter? What possibilities are offered by technology, dramaturgy, and the active participation of the spectator? And what does all this mean for theatre more broadly, at a time when art must increasingly relate to the possibilities offered by digital environments?

To open up these questions, the author employs a practice-led research methodology, drawing on three artistic experiments — WolvesMemento, and Inimeses hoitud — mapping the modes of operation of livestreamed theatre, the possibilities of audience participation, and testing its limits. Through these three projects, the work moves from video transmission toward interactive hybrid spaces, observing how the role of the performer, the position of the spectator, the experience of space, and the participants’ understanding of presence shift.

“Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre” approaches livestreamed theatre not as a peripheral phenomenon, but as a possible new form of theatre. The dissertation offers both a conceptual and a practical mapping of a field in which theatre seeks new forms of life in digital spaces and experiments with how to remain alive in a world that is increasingly at once material and digital.

Posted by Irene Hütsi — Permalink

PhD Thesis Defence of Taavet Jansen

Monday 18 May, 2026

On 18 May, 2026 Taavet Jansen, doctoral student of Art and Design curriculum, will defend his doctoral thesis „ Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre“ („Kehata kohalolu: voogteatri kontseptuaalne ja praktiline kaardistus“).
The public defense will take place at 10.00 at EKA (Põhja pst 7), room A101.
The defence will be held in Estonian.

Supervisor: Dr. Anu Allas (Estonian Academy of Arts)
External reviewers: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)
Dr. Raivo Kelomees (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Opponent: Dr. Ott Karulin (University of Tartu)

Thesis is available in EKA digital repository.

Theatre has long operated as an artistic practice grounded in the encounter of bodies within the same space. Contemporary culture, however, no longer limits itself to physical encounters, but extends its trajectories everywhere through digital means and virtual spaces. A large part of our communication, work, and self-expression takes place digitally, mediated through screens. In such a situation, a question has emerged: what new forms, spaces, and experiences can theatre create for itself in the digital sphere?

At the centre of this doctoral dissertation is livestreamed theatre, a form of performance in which presence, space, and audience participation function on different premises than in conventional theatre. Livestreamed theatre is situated at the point of contact between theatre, film, online environments, and interactive media, and is grounded in a real-time event in which performers and spectators share a common time, but not a common space.

How can one create an experience that does not appear merely as a transmission, but as an artistic encounter? What possibilities are offered by technology, dramaturgy, and the active participation of the spectator? And what does all this mean for theatre more broadly, at a time when art must increasingly relate to the possibilities offered by digital environments?

To open up these questions, the author employs a practice-led research methodology, drawing on three artistic experiments — WolvesMemento, and Inimeses hoitud — mapping the modes of operation of livestreamed theatre, the possibilities of audience participation, and testing its limits. Through these three projects, the work moves from video transmission toward interactive hybrid spaces, observing how the role of the performer, the position of the spectator, the experience of space, and the participants’ understanding of presence shift.

“Disembodied Presence: A Conceptual and Practical Mapping of Streamed Theatre” approaches livestreamed theatre not as a peripheral phenomenon, but as a possible new form of theatre. The dissertation offers both a conceptual and a practical mapping of a field in which theatre seeks new forms of life in digital spaces and experiments with how to remain alive in a world that is increasingly at once material and digital.

Posted by Irene Hütsi — Permalink

30.04.2026

KVI + ARH Open Lecture: Emma Cheatle “Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity “

New Date!

The 2025/2026 academic year open lecture series will be held in collaboration with the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and the Faculty of Architecture. The theme of this academic year is “Architecture and the Ethics of Care” and the lectures will be curated by KVI Senior Researcher Dr. Ingrid Ruudi.

Architecture will be addressed from the perspective of the ethics of care: how does architecture take care of people’s physical, emotional and social needs, both today and in a historical perspective?

On April 3oth at 6 pm Dr Emma Cheatle will give a lecture “Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity”.

This research, and my book of the same name, studies the spatial, architectural experience of childbirth, through both a critical history of maternity (lying in) spaces and buildings and a creative exploration of those that we use today.

Where conventional architectural histories objectify buildings (in parallel with the objectification of the maternal body), the book presents a creative-critical autotheory of the architecture of lying-in. It uses feminist, subjective modes of thinking, which travel across disciplines, registers and arguments. The research assesses the transformation of maternity spaces—from the female bedchamber of the eighteenth-century marital home, to the lying-in hospitals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries purpose built by man-midwives, to the late-twentieth-century spaces of home and the modern hospital maternity wing—and the parallel shifts in maternal practices. The spaces are not treated as mute or neutral backdrops to maternal history, but as a series of vital, entangled atmospheres, materials, practices and objects that are produced by, and, in turn, produce particular social and political conditions, gendered structures and experiences.

Moving across spaces, systems, protagonists and their subjectivities, I show how historic hospital design and protocol altered ordinary birth at home and continues to shape maternal spatial experience today.

Dr Emma Cheatle is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at University of Sheffield. She trained as an architect in the UK and has a PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett, UCL which was awarded RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis, 2014. Her research is interdisciplinary and examines the political, cultural and social implications of architecture, art and urban space, with a particular interest in addressing health, gender, race and disability inequalities. Her monograph Part-Architecture: The Maison de Verre, Duchamp, Domesticity and Desire in 1930s Paris (Routledge 2017) is a complex architectural humanities project, which engages critical and creative writing and drawing to analyse the building the Maison de Verre and the artwork “the Large Glass”, placing new primary and archival material in the context of social, sexual and medical histories of 1920s and 30s Paris. Her second book, Lying in the Dark Room: the Architectures of British Maternity (Routledge 2024), examines how the spatial histories of lying-in and maternal practices continue to shape the maternal body today. Emma is the UK Editor for the Bloomsbury Global Encyclopaedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015 (Bloomsbury 2025), and part of several feminist projects including the Feminist Art and Architecture Collaborative (FAAC). Her collaboration with Hélène Frichot, University of Melbourne, led to a major edited collection of articles on the feminist theorist Jennifer Bloomer, for the Journal of Architecture (2024).

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture.

All lectures are held on Thursdays at 6 pm in the EKA main auditorium. All lectures are in English and free of charge.

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Previous open architecture lectures can be viewed at www.avatudloengud.ee

Posted by Annika Tiko — Permalink

KVI + ARH Open Lecture: Emma Cheatle “Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity “

Thursday 30 April, 2026

New Date!

The 2025/2026 academic year open lecture series will be held in collaboration with the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture and the Faculty of Architecture. The theme of this academic year is “Architecture and the Ethics of Care” and the lectures will be curated by KVI Senior Researcher Dr. Ingrid Ruudi.

Architecture will be addressed from the perspective of the ethics of care: how does architecture take care of people’s physical, emotional and social needs, both today and in a historical perspective?

On April 3oth at 6 pm Dr Emma Cheatle will give a lecture “Lying in the Dark Room: Architectures of British Maternity”.

This research, and my book of the same name, studies the spatial, architectural experience of childbirth, through both a critical history of maternity (lying in) spaces and buildings and a creative exploration of those that we use today.

Where conventional architectural histories objectify buildings (in parallel with the objectification of the maternal body), the book presents a creative-critical autotheory of the architecture of lying-in. It uses feminist, subjective modes of thinking, which travel across disciplines, registers and arguments. The research assesses the transformation of maternity spaces—from the female bedchamber of the eighteenth-century marital home, to the lying-in hospitals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries purpose built by man-midwives, to the late-twentieth-century spaces of home and the modern hospital maternity wing—and the parallel shifts in maternal practices. The spaces are not treated as mute or neutral backdrops to maternal history, but as a series of vital, entangled atmospheres, materials, practices and objects that are produced by, and, in turn, produce particular social and political conditions, gendered structures and experiences.

Moving across spaces, systems, protagonists and their subjectivities, I show how historic hospital design and protocol altered ordinary birth at home and continues to shape maternal spatial experience today.

Dr Emma Cheatle is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at University of Sheffield. She trained as an architect in the UK and has a PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett, UCL which was awarded RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis, 2014. Her research is interdisciplinary and examines the political, cultural and social implications of architecture, art and urban space, with a particular interest in addressing health, gender, race and disability inequalities. Her monograph Part-Architecture: The Maison de Verre, Duchamp, Domesticity and Desire in 1930s Paris (Routledge 2017) is a complex architectural humanities project, which engages critical and creative writing and drawing to analyse the building the Maison de Verre and the artwork “the Large Glass”, placing new primary and archival material in the context of social, sexual and medical histories of 1920s and 30s Paris. Her second book, Lying in the Dark Room: the Architectures of British Maternity (Routledge 2024), examines how the spatial histories of lying-in and maternal practices continue to shape the maternal body today. Emma is the UK Editor for the Bloomsbury Global Encyclopaedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015 (Bloomsbury 2025), and part of several feminist projects including the Feminist Art and Architecture Collaborative (FAAC). Her collaboration with Hélène Frichot, University of Melbourne, led to a major edited collection of articles on the feminist theorist Jennifer Bloomer, for the Journal of Architecture (2024).

The lectures are intended for all disciplines, not only for students and professionals in the field of architecture.

All lectures are held on Thursdays at 6 pm in the EKA main auditorium. All lectures are in English and free of charge.

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Previous open architecture lectures can be viewed at www.avatudloengud.ee

Posted by Annika Tiko — Permalink

30.04.2026 — 06.06.2026

Exhibition “Reality of Dreams” 

Opening of the exhibition “Reality of Dreams” at 18:00 at OKAPI Gallery in Tallinn

Participating artists: Ksenia Verbeštšuk, Nina Maria Allmoslechner

Curator: Ilja Jakovlev

Graphic design: Ksenia Kvitko

In the Victorian era, amateur photography became one of the hobbies of the “new and progressive” age that was socially acceptable for women. Initially, men believed that, much like drawing or embroidery, photography would serve as a pastime through which women could distract themselves from daily duties and engage in it playfully. However, quite quickly, women moved from depicting flowers, domestic animals, and garden views to more serious statements and visual experimentation. This has come down to us today through the work of outstanding Victorian women photographers such as Anna Atkins and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Somewhat later, women began to use photography for even bolder forms of expression, often in subtle and veiled ways, almost creating their own dreamlike worlds, sharply social self-portraits, or revealing the “double bottom” of existing reality, as seen in the works of Francesca Woodman and Diane Arbus.

Since its inception, analogue photography has undergone several periods of technological modification, and at a certain point it became an “alternative” way of capturing reality (or its altered states) against the backdrop of the growing popularity of digital photography. In the 21st century, film photography experienced a new rise, becoming extremely popular among followers of countercultural movements. Nevertheless, throughout all these periods, analogue photography has retained its power to enchant. It is practiced, studied, pursued professionally, and chosen as the primary medium in artistic work. The essence of analogue photography lies in its depth, the uniqueness of each frame, and the complex relationships between the environment, the author, and the final work.

Nina Maria Allmoslechner and Ksenia Verbeštšuk work with analogue photography, using it as a way of archiving different, sometimes liminal states of reality. For them, this manual photography is a process of creating a personal album of memory, within which their own dreamlands unfold.

Both artists, exhibiting together for the first time, enter into a dialogue about the interpretation of perceiving and understanding reality through the act of analogue photography—not so much from an aesthetic perspective as through the prism of mental states and emotions.

Nina Maria presents a series of tomograms of her brain alongside photographs of nature and self-portraits in the forest. She is interested in the relationship between human nature and the surrounding environment through the form of the brain, both visually and conceptually. Here, the brain is an ambivalent form: on the one hand an organ, on the other a portal between the “self” and the “surrounding.” The question is how one transforms into the other, where the boundary between these worlds lies, and whether it exists at all. After all, it is the brain that ultimately creates our personal reality, which is then recorded again on film. Nina Maria also reflects on the experience of derealization, raising the question of how a person perceives their place in “reality” and what happens when this perception is disrupted.

Ksenia interprets the creation of her reality through the very act of photography. The choice of composition, framing, subject matter, and the attempt to convey the play of light and shadow does not emerge from nowhere—it is a complex process that also takes place in our minds. By photographing people, animals, and landscapes, she archives her memory, creating a kind of album of places and events. In a sense, their analogue photographs are themselves tomographic self-portraits that exist inseparably from the surrounding environment they construct—sometimes almost surreal in nature.

An important theme for both artists is also their work with text. Ksenia keeps a personal diary and often accompanies her works with excerpts from it. This year, Nina Maria published the book When White Blankets. In the exhibition, they “meet” not only through photographs but also through text—large handwritten sentences on the wall.

Drinks at the opening are provided by PÕHJALA!

Exhibition dates:

30.04–06.06.2026

Wed–Fri 12:00–18:00

Sat 12:00–16:00

OKAPI Gallery

Niguliste tn 2, 10146, Tallinn

We thank the exhibition supporters:

OKAPI Gallery, PÕHJALA

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

Exhibition “Reality of Dreams” 

Thursday 30 April, 2026 — Saturday 06 June, 2026

Opening of the exhibition “Reality of Dreams” at 18:00 at OKAPI Gallery in Tallinn

Participating artists: Ksenia Verbeštšuk, Nina Maria Allmoslechner

Curator: Ilja Jakovlev

Graphic design: Ksenia Kvitko

In the Victorian era, amateur photography became one of the hobbies of the “new and progressive” age that was socially acceptable for women. Initially, men believed that, much like drawing or embroidery, photography would serve as a pastime through which women could distract themselves from daily duties and engage in it playfully. However, quite quickly, women moved from depicting flowers, domestic animals, and garden views to more serious statements and visual experimentation. This has come down to us today through the work of outstanding Victorian women photographers such as Anna Atkins and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Somewhat later, women began to use photography for even bolder forms of expression, often in subtle and veiled ways, almost creating their own dreamlike worlds, sharply social self-portraits, or revealing the “double bottom” of existing reality, as seen in the works of Francesca Woodman and Diane Arbus.

Since its inception, analogue photography has undergone several periods of technological modification, and at a certain point it became an “alternative” way of capturing reality (or its altered states) against the backdrop of the growing popularity of digital photography. In the 21st century, film photography experienced a new rise, becoming extremely popular among followers of countercultural movements. Nevertheless, throughout all these periods, analogue photography has retained its power to enchant. It is practiced, studied, pursued professionally, and chosen as the primary medium in artistic work. The essence of analogue photography lies in its depth, the uniqueness of each frame, and the complex relationships between the environment, the author, and the final work.

Nina Maria Allmoslechner and Ksenia Verbeštšuk work with analogue photography, using it as a way of archiving different, sometimes liminal states of reality. For them, this manual photography is a process of creating a personal album of memory, within which their own dreamlands unfold.

Both artists, exhibiting together for the first time, enter into a dialogue about the interpretation of perceiving and understanding reality through the act of analogue photography—not so much from an aesthetic perspective as through the prism of mental states and emotions.

Nina Maria presents a series of tomograms of her brain alongside photographs of nature and self-portraits in the forest. She is interested in the relationship between human nature and the surrounding environment through the form of the brain, both visually and conceptually. Here, the brain is an ambivalent form: on the one hand an organ, on the other a portal between the “self” and the “surrounding.” The question is how one transforms into the other, where the boundary between these worlds lies, and whether it exists at all. After all, it is the brain that ultimately creates our personal reality, which is then recorded again on film. Nina Maria also reflects on the experience of derealization, raising the question of how a person perceives their place in “reality” and what happens when this perception is disrupted.

Ksenia interprets the creation of her reality through the very act of photography. The choice of composition, framing, subject matter, and the attempt to convey the play of light and shadow does not emerge from nowhere—it is a complex process that also takes place in our minds. By photographing people, animals, and landscapes, she archives her memory, creating a kind of album of places and events. In a sense, their analogue photographs are themselves tomographic self-portraits that exist inseparably from the surrounding environment they construct—sometimes almost surreal in nature.

An important theme for both artists is also their work with text. Ksenia keeps a personal diary and often accompanies her works with excerpts from it. This year, Nina Maria published the book When White Blankets. In the exhibition, they “meet” not only through photographs but also through text—large handwritten sentences on the wall.

Drinks at the opening are provided by PÕHJALA!

Exhibition dates:

30.04–06.06.2026

Wed–Fri 12:00–18:00

Sat 12:00–16:00

OKAPI Gallery

Niguliste tn 2, 10146, Tallinn

We thank the exhibition supporters:

OKAPI Gallery, PÕHJALA

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

24.04.2026

Conference “Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities”

Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities.
Date: 24/04/2026
11.00 – 18.00
Room: A-501
Estonian Academy of Arts
Põhja puiestee 7
Tallinn 10412
or online.

Print culture has long been recognised as a driver of new identities (McLuhan 1962). In particular, print media have enabled the imagining of national communities, thereby shaping modern national consciousness (Anderson 2006). Typefaces, as cultural artefacts embedded in books, documents, and ephemera (Shaw 2017), are a tangible expression of this process. This theoretical framework is particularly evident in the Baltic context, seeing typography and identity intertwine throughout history and today. The conference explores this Baltic print and typographic heritage, including historic and contemporary examples. It builds on the initial findings of the Ministry of Culture Creative Research Grant (KUM-LU)Constellations in Type: Estonian Print Identity, 1918-1940, while extending the discussion to encompass perspectives from further regions.

Please register here: https://forms.gle/HkJ2z96vvVftYM9t9
The conference is also available online.

Please make it known in the form if you would like to attend online and we will send a link.

Speakers:

Aleksandra Samuļenkova
Paweł Schulz
Laimė Lukošiūnaitė
Lewis McGuffie
Julia Syrzistie
Danila Rygovskiy
Ivar Sakk

Conference program

10.30 Coffee and arrivals

11.00 Welcome and Introduction Danila.

11.30 Aleksandra Samuļenkova

12.15  Paweł Schulz

13.00 Lunch Break

14.00 Laimė Lukošiūnaitė

14.45 Lewis McGuffie

15.30 Coffee break

16.00 Julia Syrzistie

16.45 Ivar Sakk

18.00 Close

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

Conference “Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities”

Friday 24 April, 2026

Constellations in Metal: An Exploration of Baltic Typographic Identities.
Date: 24/04/2026
11.00 – 18.00
Room: A-501
Estonian Academy of Arts
Põhja puiestee 7
Tallinn 10412
or online.

Print culture has long been recognised as a driver of new identities (McLuhan 1962). In particular, print media have enabled the imagining of national communities, thereby shaping modern national consciousness (Anderson 2006). Typefaces, as cultural artefacts embedded in books, documents, and ephemera (Shaw 2017), are a tangible expression of this process. This theoretical framework is particularly evident in the Baltic context, seeing typography and identity intertwine throughout history and today. The conference explores this Baltic print and typographic heritage, including historic and contemporary examples. It builds on the initial findings of the Ministry of Culture Creative Research Grant (KUM-LU)Constellations in Type: Estonian Print Identity, 1918-1940, while extending the discussion to encompass perspectives from further regions.

Please register here: https://forms.gle/HkJ2z96vvVftYM9t9
The conference is also available online.

Please make it known in the form if you would like to attend online and we will send a link.

Speakers:

Aleksandra Samuļenkova
Paweł Schulz
Laimė Lukošiūnaitė
Lewis McGuffie
Julia Syrzistie
Danila Rygovskiy
Ivar Sakk

Conference program

10.30 Coffee and arrivals

11.00 Welcome and Introduction Danila.

11.30 Aleksandra Samuļenkova

12.15  Paweł Schulz

13.00 Lunch Break

14.00 Laimė Lukošiūnaitė

14.45 Lewis McGuffie

15.30 Coffee break

16.00 Julia Syrzistie

16.45 Ivar Sakk

18.00 Close

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

27.05.2026 — 19.06.2026

EKA Grad Show TASE ‘26

The EKA Graduation Show Festival TASE ’26 opens on May 27, 2026 at 17:00.

At the graduation festival, the faculties of architecture, design, art culture, and fine arts will present this year’s final projects.

TASE ’26 will take place on the EKA campus in Kalamaja – in the EKA main building (Põhja pst 7 / Kotzebue 1), as well as in the buildings at Kotzebue 4 and 10, and on the Kotzebue 2 plot.

At the opening event, the Young Artist, Young Applied Artist, and Young Designer awards will be presented to bachelor’s and master’s level students.

The TASE ’26 exhibition will remain open from May 28 to June 19, daily from 13:00 to 19:00.

TASE chief organizer:
Kaisa Maasik-Koplimets, kaisa.maasik@artun.ee

Posted by Maarja Pabut — Permalink

EKA Grad Show TASE ‘26

Wednesday 27 May, 2026 — Friday 19 June, 2026

The EKA Graduation Show Festival TASE ’26 opens on May 27, 2026 at 17:00.

At the graduation festival, the faculties of architecture, design, art culture, and fine arts will present this year’s final projects.

TASE ’26 will take place on the EKA campus in Kalamaja – in the EKA main building (Põhja pst 7 / Kotzebue 1), as well as in the buildings at Kotzebue 4 and 10, and on the Kotzebue 2 plot.

At the opening event, the Young Artist, Young Applied Artist, and Young Designer awards will be presented to bachelor’s and master’s level students.

The TASE ’26 exhibition will remain open from May 28 to June 19, daily from 13:00 to 19:00.

TASE chief organizer:
Kaisa Maasik-Koplimets, kaisa.maasik@artun.ee

Posted by Maarja Pabut — Permalink

17.04.2026

Peer-review of Maria Erikson’s exhibition “Imprint of Vulnearbility”

The peer-review of PhD student Maria Erikson’s exhibition “Imprint of Vulnearbility” will take place on Friday, April 17th, 11:30–13:00, at EKA Printmaking Studio (B409) and via Zoom (Meeting ID: 679 0217 2738, Passcode: 155386). The event is in English.

The exhibition is a creative project of Erikson’s practice-based artistic research Matrix, Trace, and Feminist Possibilities: Reimagining Printmaking as a Space of Material Agency and Embodied Knowledge.

Reviewers: Dr. Daina Pupkevičiūtė (Lithuania) and Sveta Grigorjeva
Supervisors: Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu) and Jaana Kokko (PhD candidate Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland)

“Every heart is broken!” writes Rick Dolphijn, framing the wound not as something to be healed but lived. Maria Erikson’s first artistic component, Imprint of Vulnerability, explores the wounding inherent in printmaking processes while drawing connections between the female body and geological endurance in the context of the matrixial sphere.

Focusing on female experience and the human condition, Erikson’s practice explores contact and materiality between human and non-human bodies through methodology of print and process-driven inquiry. Working across printmaking, sculpture, and installation, she explores emergence of material knowledge through their agentic capacities and bodiliness. Materials such as stone, gum arabic, and cheesecloth are no longer merely tools but carriers of meaning, enacting imprinting, pressure, and separation.

Imprint of Vulnerability is a duo exhibition with Mari Männa, curated by Madli Ljutjuk (Tallinn Art Hall), and is on view at Tallinn City Gallery until April 12th, 2026.

Posted by Irene Hütsi — Permalink

Peer-review of Maria Erikson’s exhibition “Imprint of Vulnearbility”

Friday 17 April, 2026

The peer-review of PhD student Maria Erikson’s exhibition “Imprint of Vulnearbility” will take place on Friday, April 17th, 11:30–13:00, at EKA Printmaking Studio (B409) and via Zoom (Meeting ID: 679 0217 2738, Passcode: 155386). The event is in English.

The exhibition is a creative project of Erikson’s practice-based artistic research Matrix, Trace, and Feminist Possibilities: Reimagining Printmaking as a Space of Material Agency and Embodied Knowledge.

Reviewers: Dr. Daina Pupkevičiūtė (Lithuania) and Sveta Grigorjeva
Supervisors: Dr. Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (University of Tartu) and Jaana Kokko (PhD candidate Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland)

“Every heart is broken!” writes Rick Dolphijn, framing the wound not as something to be healed but lived. Maria Erikson’s first artistic component, Imprint of Vulnerability, explores the wounding inherent in printmaking processes while drawing connections between the female body and geological endurance in the context of the matrixial sphere.

Focusing on female experience and the human condition, Erikson’s practice explores contact and materiality between human and non-human bodies through methodology of print and process-driven inquiry. Working across printmaking, sculpture, and installation, she explores emergence of material knowledge through their agentic capacities and bodiliness. Materials such as stone, gum arabic, and cheesecloth are no longer merely tools but carriers of meaning, enacting imprinting, pressure, and separation.

Imprint of Vulnerability is a duo exhibition with Mari Männa, curated by Madli Ljutjuk (Tallinn Art Hall), and is on view at Tallinn City Gallery until April 12th, 2026.

Posted by Irene Hütsi — Permalink

09.04.2026

Performance “∞Eight∞”

We are excited to invite you to our performance “∞Eight∞”.

The performance is created by Chia-Ling from EKA MA Animation, Mayu from Accademia Dimitri in Switzerland and Rikuo based in Berlin. We met in Prague last year and developed this piece together. Now we are very happy to share with you our performance on 09.04 in EKA!

This performance brings together a dancer, Mayu Shirai (Japan), a live painter, Chia-ling (Taiwan), and a musician, Rikuo Toyono (Japan).

Each collaborator explores IKIIKI—a Japanese term meaning a state of being fully alive in the present—through their own medium by only using a simple, universally accessible motif of the figure-8, seeking a balance between autonomy and coexistence. 

Their collaboration is rooted in improvisation and relational exchange, where each practice continuously influences the others. Beyond technical skill, the performers are chosen for their character, humor, and sensitivity to shared space.

Performance will be on:
09.04 Thursday 
at 4p.m. 
A-100.1 (Trepid, Stairs next to Café) in EKA

Duration:
60mins+ 20mins talk!

It’s free of charge and family child friendly!
Welcome to join with your friends, families and share your feelings with us!

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

Performance “∞Eight∞”

Thursday 09 April, 2026

We are excited to invite you to our performance “∞Eight∞”.

The performance is created by Chia-Ling from EKA MA Animation, Mayu from Accademia Dimitri in Switzerland and Rikuo based in Berlin. We met in Prague last year and developed this piece together. Now we are very happy to share with you our performance on 09.04 in EKA!

This performance brings together a dancer, Mayu Shirai (Japan), a live painter, Chia-ling (Taiwan), and a musician, Rikuo Toyono (Japan).

Each collaborator explores IKIIKI—a Japanese term meaning a state of being fully alive in the present—through their own medium by only using a simple, universally accessible motif of the figure-8, seeking a balance between autonomy and coexistence. 

Their collaboration is rooted in improvisation and relational exchange, where each practice continuously influences the others. Beyond technical skill, the performers are chosen for their character, humor, and sensitivity to shared space.

Performance will be on:
09.04 Thursday 
at 4p.m. 
A-100.1 (Trepid, Stairs next to Café) in EKA

Duration:
60mins+ 20mins talk!

It’s free of charge and family child friendly!
Welcome to join with your friends, families and share your feelings with us!

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

24.04.2026 — 16.05.2026

Jaanika Peerna “Glide Through the Thaw”

ARS Project Space 24.04.–16.05.2026

Opening 23.04.2026 from 6 PM

In May 2025, Jaanika visited the Alps. The landscape dictated the artist to keep her balance, which didn’t allow her to see further than the next slope. It was the low season for tourism, so no ski lifts were operating to ease her journey upward. Jaanika was alone with the mountain, as she continued her way forward. The glacier at the foot of the mountain had melted and in order to come into contact with the ice and snow, she had to climb even higher. This was her first direct encounter with glaciers: until that moment, she had only experienced them through the sounds, videos, literature and photographic material of other authors. All of these contained descriptions of glacial ice, its essence and foreseeable fate. The expansive, solid and mountainous landscape made her feel small. Yet the desire to reach what seemed unattainable remained.

The glacier is considered unpredictable, even dangerous both in real life and as a symbol. It might be seen as the historic archive of atmosphere, giving us hints of past climates and exposing the ways we are all connected to our ancestors and the generations that follow us. We are bound together by a shared destiny and responsibility. We use scientific methods to describe and interpret the mountain, but the actual experience of it might feel sublime and ordinary at the same time.

The glaciologist Jemma Wadham perceives glaciers as characters who have their own personalities and destinies. René Daumal has written about an imaginary expedition to an imaginary mountain, inviting us to interpret it as a symbolic and spiritual journey. Reaching for the sublime is a universal human desire. The mountain climber is not simply a hiker or an adventurer, but a truth seeker whose journey seems almost predestined. In the current exhibition, the mundane is brought together with the divine, the scientific with the sublime.

The exhibition features a large-scale installation, melting ice, ink works on wax paper and a meditative space imbued with John Grzinich’s soundscape. The artist has also inspired students from the Sally Studio Art School located within the ARS Art Factory: under the guidance of Annely Köster six artworks in dialogue with the exhibition were created and will be displayed as a satellite project in the courtyard windows of the Sally Studio Art School. In the framework of the public programme, an artist talk with Jaanika Peerna and the sound artist John Grzinich will take place on 15 May at 5:00 PM, followed by their joint performance at 6:00 PM.

Jaanika Peerna is an Estonian-born artist who lives and works in Estonia, Portugal and New York. For more than a decade, she has dedicated herself to the study of glaciers, working through a vast amount of material about the lifespan and condition of glaciers, while associating it with travelling, philosophy and spiritual ideas. In her artistic practice, she has woven these themes into drawings, installations, videos and performance art. Her performances often engage with the audience, inviting them to reflect upon the ongoing global warming. Peerna’s practice stems from the physical human experience and strives towards a greater awareness of the fragility, interconnectedness and uniqueness of all living things.

She has exhibited her works and given performances around the world. Her last solo exhibition was held in Seoul, Korea. Her works can be found in numerous private collections in Europe and the USA, as well as in public collections, such as the French National Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Curator

Liisi Kõuhkna is a curator and project manager who graduated with a master’s degree in health sciences from the Tallinn University and has also studied in MA programme of curatorial studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in various galleries in Estonia and abroad. Since March of this year, she works as the gallery assistant for the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Exhibition information

Location: ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt. 154, Tallinn

Artist talk and performance together with sound artist John Grzinich: 15.05, respectively from 5 PM and from 6 PM

Open for visitors: 24.04.–16.05.2026, Mon–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

Photo documentation: Roman-Sten Tõnissoo

Sound design: John Grzinich

Technical support: Aksel Haagensen, Mattias Veller

Special thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, ARS Art Factory, Estonian Artists’ Association, Merike Hallik, Sandra Sirp, Liis Tedre, Gunnar Kalmet, Agu Peerna, Hannes Egger, Mari Volens, Sally Studio ja Annely Köster

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

Jaanika Peerna “Glide Through the Thaw”

Friday 24 April, 2026 — Saturday 16 May, 2026

ARS Project Space 24.04.–16.05.2026

Opening 23.04.2026 from 6 PM

In May 2025, Jaanika visited the Alps. The landscape dictated the artist to keep her balance, which didn’t allow her to see further than the next slope. It was the low season for tourism, so no ski lifts were operating to ease her journey upward. Jaanika was alone with the mountain, as she continued her way forward. The glacier at the foot of the mountain had melted and in order to come into contact with the ice and snow, she had to climb even higher. This was her first direct encounter with glaciers: until that moment, she had only experienced them through the sounds, videos, literature and photographic material of other authors. All of these contained descriptions of glacial ice, its essence and foreseeable fate. The expansive, solid and mountainous landscape made her feel small. Yet the desire to reach what seemed unattainable remained.

The glacier is considered unpredictable, even dangerous both in real life and as a symbol. It might be seen as the historic archive of atmosphere, giving us hints of past climates and exposing the ways we are all connected to our ancestors and the generations that follow us. We are bound together by a shared destiny and responsibility. We use scientific methods to describe and interpret the mountain, but the actual experience of it might feel sublime and ordinary at the same time.

The glaciologist Jemma Wadham perceives glaciers as characters who have their own personalities and destinies. René Daumal has written about an imaginary expedition to an imaginary mountain, inviting us to interpret it as a symbolic and spiritual journey. Reaching for the sublime is a universal human desire. The mountain climber is not simply a hiker or an adventurer, but a truth seeker whose journey seems almost predestined. In the current exhibition, the mundane is brought together with the divine, the scientific with the sublime.

The exhibition features a large-scale installation, melting ice, ink works on wax paper and a meditative space imbued with John Grzinich’s soundscape. The artist has also inspired students from the Sally Studio Art School located within the ARS Art Factory: under the guidance of Annely Köster six artworks in dialogue with the exhibition were created and will be displayed as a satellite project in the courtyard windows of the Sally Studio Art School. In the framework of the public programme, an artist talk with Jaanika Peerna and the sound artist John Grzinich will take place on 15 May at 5:00 PM, followed by their joint performance at 6:00 PM.

Jaanika Peerna is an Estonian-born artist who lives and works in Estonia, Portugal and New York. For more than a decade, she has dedicated herself to the study of glaciers, working through a vast amount of material about the lifespan and condition of glaciers, while associating it with travelling, philosophy and spiritual ideas. In her artistic practice, she has woven these themes into drawings, installations, videos and performance art. Her performances often engage with the audience, inviting them to reflect upon the ongoing global warming. Peerna’s practice stems from the physical human experience and strives towards a greater awareness of the fragility, interconnectedness and uniqueness of all living things.

She has exhibited her works and given performances around the world. Her last solo exhibition was held in Seoul, Korea. Her works can be found in numerous private collections in Europe and the USA, as well as in public collections, such as the French National Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Curator

Liisi Kõuhkna is a curator and project manager who graduated with a master’s degree in health sciences from the Tallinn University and has also studied in MA programme of curatorial studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in various galleries in Estonia and abroad. Since March of this year, she works as the gallery assistant for the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Exhibition information

Location: ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt. 154, Tallinn

Artist talk and performance together with sound artist John Grzinich: 15.05, respectively from 5 PM and from 6 PM

Open for visitors: 24.04.–16.05.2026, Mon–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

Photo documentation: Roman-Sten Tõnissoo

Sound design: John Grzinich

Technical support: Aksel Haagensen, Mattias Veller

Special thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, ARS Art Factory, Estonian Artists’ Association, Merike Hallik, Sandra Sirp, Liis Tedre, Gunnar Kalmet, Agu Peerna, Hannes Egger, Mari Volens, Sally Studio ja Annely Köster

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

09.04.2026 — 10.05.2026

Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman “On the Verge of Completion”

On Thursday, 9 April at 6:00 PM, a duo exhibition On the Verge of Completion by contemporary artists Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman will be opened at the Hobusepea Gallery.

The end is actually an unspeakably bleak place where no clear way forward presents itself and nothing no longer seems to lie ahead. The duo exhibition by Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman invites the viewer to experience art not only as something definitive, but as a way of becoming. The exhibition reveals the stages of artistic practice that usually remain hidden, offering a chance to step into the moment where a work is born and where meanings have not yet settled.

The exhibition examines the boundaries between completion and incompletion, approaching finality not as a destination, but as a state in which the forward movement is temporarily suspended. The creative process, often shaped by uncertainty, experimentation and internal tension, is usually resolved when the artist decides to declare a work complete. In this exhibition however, the viewer comes into contact with the process rather than the finalised work. The presented works do not conceal their unfinished state. Instead, they emphasise its value. On these canvases, thoughts remain dispersed, forms and tones are still taking shape, and meanings remain open. It is a moment where possibilities remain unended and the potential of the work is still unfolding.

Perhaps completing a work is a merely provisional decision, a pause within an ongoing process? The artist appears here as a practitioner of continuous choices and interruptions, guided by an intuitive and often sensitive self-reflection. Imperfection, repetition and error are not deviations, but integral to the organic nature of making. As Gilles Deleuze suggests, artworks are not defined by what they appear to be at a given moment, but by what they might become. The exhibition offers an insight into the concealed layers of artistic production, presenting the artwork as something that unfolds over time.

In Hansen’s works, layered structures strive toward presence and transparency. Repeating forms and interruptions create a rhythm that does not lead to a solution but instead exposes different stages of the creative process. She is interested in the moment when a work of art dissolves and comes into being at the same time. In Norman’s practice, the notion of completion is examined through its various permutations including the use of unstable colour pigments. For her, the apparent incompleteness of a work is not a deficiency, and the abundance of potential is realised through the material itself. The tension between continuation and completion becomes a deliberately sustained condition, in which the work does not close, but remains in an active and meaningful state of breathing.

Artists                                   

Gerda Hansen (b. 1994) is a contemporary Estonian-based artist whose practice explores the intersections of painting and digital image-making. She holds a BA in painting (2022) and an MA in contemporary art (2025) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In the current exhibition, Hansen brings together manual processes with AI-based generative systems. Her works emerge through a visual dialogue with the machine in which images remain intentionally ambiguous and leave the attribution of meaning to the viewer. Hansen has exhibited both in Estonia and internationally and is the recipient of the 2023 Adamson-Eric Young Artist Scholarship.

Rebecca Norman (b. 2001) graduated in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2025), while also supplementing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2024). Her practice addresses the convergence and misalignment between the author and the material and the resulting dissonant outcomes. Her works often engage with seemingly insignificant moments that call for new forms of categorisation through sustained attention. She is drawn to utilitarian objects that have irreversibly lost their function and various forms of apparent nonsense that mimic purposefulness. Norman has participated in several group exhibitions and received the Endover Prize for her 2025 graduation work Loaded Vacuity.

Curator

Liisi Kõuhkna is a curator and project manager who graduated with a master’s degree in health sciences from the Tallinn University and has also an MA from curatorial studies and a BA in jewellery and blacksmithing from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in various galleries in Estonia and abroad. Since March of this year, she works as the gallery assistant for the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Exhibition information

Location: Hobusepea Gallery, Hobusepea 2, Tallinn

Opening: 9.04.2026 from 18:00

Open for visitors: 10.04–10.05.2026,Wed, Fri–Sun 12–18, Thu 12–19

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Helena Pass

Photo documentation: Kail Timusk

Special thanks to: Estonian Artists’ Association, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Hans-Otto Ojaste, Mari Volens, Märt Vaidla, Paul Aadam Mikson, Jaana Kormašov, family members of the artists, Põhjala Pruulikoda, Nudist Drinks

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink

Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman “On the Verge of Completion”

Thursday 09 April, 2026 — Sunday 10 May, 2026

On Thursday, 9 April at 6:00 PM, a duo exhibition On the Verge of Completion by contemporary artists Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman will be opened at the Hobusepea Gallery.

The end is actually an unspeakably bleak place where no clear way forward presents itself and nothing no longer seems to lie ahead. The duo exhibition by Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman invites the viewer to experience art not only as something definitive, but as a way of becoming. The exhibition reveals the stages of artistic practice that usually remain hidden, offering a chance to step into the moment where a work is born and where meanings have not yet settled.

The exhibition examines the boundaries between completion and incompletion, approaching finality not as a destination, but as a state in which the forward movement is temporarily suspended. The creative process, often shaped by uncertainty, experimentation and internal tension, is usually resolved when the artist decides to declare a work complete. In this exhibition however, the viewer comes into contact with the process rather than the finalised work. The presented works do not conceal their unfinished state. Instead, they emphasise its value. On these canvases, thoughts remain dispersed, forms and tones are still taking shape, and meanings remain open. It is a moment where possibilities remain unended and the potential of the work is still unfolding.

Perhaps completing a work is a merely provisional decision, a pause within an ongoing process? The artist appears here as a practitioner of continuous choices and interruptions, guided by an intuitive and often sensitive self-reflection. Imperfection, repetition and error are not deviations, but integral to the organic nature of making. As Gilles Deleuze suggests, artworks are not defined by what they appear to be at a given moment, but by what they might become. The exhibition offers an insight into the concealed layers of artistic production, presenting the artwork as something that unfolds over time.

In Hansen’s works, layered structures strive toward presence and transparency. Repeating forms and interruptions create a rhythm that does not lead to a solution but instead exposes different stages of the creative process. She is interested in the moment when a work of art dissolves and comes into being at the same time. In Norman’s practice, the notion of completion is examined through its various permutations including the use of unstable colour pigments. For her, the apparent incompleteness of a work is not a deficiency, and the abundance of potential is realised through the material itself. The tension between continuation and completion becomes a deliberately sustained condition, in which the work does not close, but remains in an active and meaningful state of breathing.

Artists                                   

Gerda Hansen (b. 1994) is a contemporary Estonian-based artist whose practice explores the intersections of painting and digital image-making. She holds a BA in painting (2022) and an MA in contemporary art (2025) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In the current exhibition, Hansen brings together manual processes with AI-based generative systems. Her works emerge through a visual dialogue with the machine in which images remain intentionally ambiguous and leave the attribution of meaning to the viewer. Hansen has exhibited both in Estonia and internationally and is the recipient of the 2023 Adamson-Eric Young Artist Scholarship.

Rebecca Norman (b. 2001) graduated in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2025), while also supplementing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2024). Her practice addresses the convergence and misalignment between the author and the material and the resulting dissonant outcomes. Her works often engage with seemingly insignificant moments that call for new forms of categorisation through sustained attention. She is drawn to utilitarian objects that have irreversibly lost their function and various forms of apparent nonsense that mimic purposefulness. Norman has participated in several group exhibitions and received the Endover Prize for her 2025 graduation work Loaded Vacuity.

Curator

Liisi Kõuhkna is a curator and project manager who graduated with a master’s degree in health sciences from the Tallinn University and has also an MA from curatorial studies and a BA in jewellery and blacksmithing from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in various galleries in Estonia and abroad. Since March of this year, she works as the gallery assistant for the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Exhibition information

Location: Hobusepea Gallery, Hobusepea 2, Tallinn

Opening: 9.04.2026 from 18:00

Open for visitors: 10.04–10.05.2026,Wed, Fri–Sun 12–18, Thu 12–19

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Helena Pass

Photo documentation: Kail Timusk

Special thanks to: Estonian Artists’ Association, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Hans-Otto Ojaste, Mari Volens, Märt Vaidla, Paul Aadam Mikson, Jaana Kormašov, family members of the artists, Põhjala Pruulikoda, Nudist Drinks

Posted by Andres Lõo — Permalink