Japanese Happiness: roundtalk on Japanese sauna culture and architecture

The 2025 Spring semester session of the Open Lectures ”City as novel ecosystem” focuses on landscape architecture and, more specifically, urban nature.

The lecture series is being put together by landscape architects Karin Bachmann, Merle Karro-Kalberg and Anna-Liisa Unt, who have co-founded and edited the landscape architecture magazine ÕU for 7 years and are currently leading the project “Curated Biodiversity”, which experiments with ways to make urban landscaping more diverse as an environment. Therefore, the open lectures in the spring will also turn their attention to the quality of the space between buildings and, using the speakers’ words and creations, show how to make the city more biodiverse and enjoyable and how people and other species that call the city their home can live in symbiosis.

The first lecture of the spring semester lecture series will take place on March 27 at 6:00 pm in the EKA large auditorium. Architects Justyna Dziedziejko and Magdalena Wnęk from the Polish landscape architecture firm TopoScape will take the stage with a lecture „Park on the Warsaw Uprising Mound – design development method”.

„The topic of this lecture is to discuss the design process we used in the creation of the ‘Park on the Warsaw Uprising Mound’. During the lecture we will discuss strategies aimed at creating a place-related design that supports biodiversity and closed cycle economy, we will define principles for typifying components that constitute the value of a place. The example of the park realises our postulation of an interdisciplinary design process, combining ideas based on the history of a place and nature. We will talk about the practical principles of information selection, interdisciplinary cooperation and guidelines for the construction phase of the park. The example of the Warsaw park shows how a degraded, abandoned and forgotten area, which is a post-industrial type space (brownfield), becomes a vibrant place again.”

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.

Schedule of the Spring 2025 lectures:

March 27. Toposcape

April 3. Ingo Kowarik

April 10. Jan van Schaik

April 24. Taktyk

For those registered for optional subjects, the essay submission date is 12.05.2025.

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Faculty of Architecture of EKA presents a dozen unique practitioners and valued theorists in the field in Tallinn every academic year.

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

www.avatudloengud.ee

The head of EKA Sculpture and Installation Department, Taavi Talve will open the exhibition “The Man who Fell Down on the Ground in His Head” at the ARS Showroom on March 6th.

Taavi Talve lives in Tallinn. He graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in sculpture. Since 2005, he has been involved in various collaborative projects and has also been involved in solo work.

ARS Showroom Gallery

6–28.03.2025
Mon–Fri 12–18

FEAST. Shared moments. 

Piret Hirv, Eve Margus, Erle Nemvalts, Taavi Teevet

Between the done and the undone, between the cooling forge and the warming skin, we gather—not as revellers, not as mourners, but as those who wait, as those who celebrate the passing of time.

The feast is not yet consumed, yet neither is it untouched. Hands have shaped these fragments of time, folded process into form, cast intention into weight and curve. Nothing is whole, and yet everything is full.

Each piece contains its own becoming — the long roads walked, the hesitations, the moment a choice cleaved one path from another.

To wear is to bear witness, to become part of what came before and what is yet to follow. The place matters, the moment matters — the object is a whisper in the silence before speech, a moment before something is revealed.

This is the nature of all things held and passed on, touched and released. We do not own, we do not keep. We pause here, at the edge of time’s turning, knowing the feast is both here and elsewhere, both now and then. The weight of all things rests lightly, just for this moment, before the silence breaks and we move on.

We come together. Everything might change. We come together. Everything might stay the same.

Opening days & hours:

Opening 12.03 (Wednesday) 19:00
13.03-14.03 (Thursday-Friday) 12:00 -18:00
15.03 (Saturday) 12:00 – 16:00

Exhibition supporters:

Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian National Culture Foundation

Bart Pushaw is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. His research, teaching, and curatorial work focus on Arctic and Baltic art histories.

Baltic actors played a critical role in the expansion of the Russian Empire across the Pacific. Starting in the eighteenth century, people from throughout the Russian Empire facilitated the invasion and occupation of Alaska Native homelands until the U.S. acquired “Russian America” in 1867. The imperial initimacies that entangled these edges of the Russian Empire — the Baltic Sea and the Bering Sea — also brought Alaska Native artworks and material culture to Estonia. Today, these objects remain in collections throughout the country. This talk explores the histories that made it possible for Alaska Native art to come to Estonia, and what futures might be possible as museums reconsider their role in rematriation.

Lecture is connected to the joint project of KUMU Art Museum and Estonian Academy of Arts Expedition: Estonian and Indigineity.

Lecture is held in cooperation with KUMU Art Museum and is funded by:

From 6 March, exhibition by artist and graphic designer Andrew Hill, titled “Scaled Views. Details from CCA Archive”, showcasing findings from the archive of Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art will be open at the library of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Influenced by his experience of working at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design library and archive, Andrew treated the CCA archive as material deposit and shaped his findings to be exhibited in various compositions of the A4 format. Therefore, the showcase focuses on rendering of scale and the indefinite potential of archival material and possible interpretation and not so much on reconstructing past events. In this exhibition, the focal point lies on the infrastructure of the exhibits, on the quotidien information carriers, which shape the material into a bureau aesthetic exposition.

Andrew Hill is an artist and graphic designer from Nova Scotia, Canada, currently based in Tallinn. He is a founder of the Halifax Art Book Fair and OTCHO, a periodical about fingerboarding. His work in public libraries and immigration archives informs his approach to publishing and organizing. He dreams of being illuminated by an Emeralite, next to a stack of yearbooks, sleeping in a banker’s box.

The exhibition is curated by Marika Agu from the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art.

The exhibition will be open until 6 May 2025.

Karl Joonas Alamaa’s solo exhibition “Daily Play and Bread”
EKA Gallery 7.–30.03.2025
Open Tue–Sat 12–6pm Sun 12–4pm, free entry
Opening: 6.03.2025 at 6pm

Artist and designer Karl Joonas Alamaa is interested in personal and collective power — how the strength of individuals can oppose authority and politics. The exhibition is based on interviews with people from different parts of the world who have been forced to leave their home countries for various reasons. Working with archival materials and collecting personal stories, their works highlight the power of seemingly small actions to unite people and create social change.

“The basis of the research is the story of my great-aunt Leili, who was deported to Siberia during the Stalinist purges,” explains Alamaa. “In Siberia, Leili was sent to work in a birch forests. On another day of work, she carved her name and family details into the bark of a birch tree. Unexpectedly, that log reached the workshop where her father worked, and he happened to see it after a long time of separation.” This notion of hope amidst extreme repression raises critical questions about the nature of hope, resilience, and resistance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. How can individuals find hope in the most desperate situations? How do small, personal acts of resistance challenge the carefully designed power structures and contribute to broader social change?

The title of the exhibition is derived from the aphorism of the ancient Roman poet Juvenal “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” This refers to bread as a cross-cultural symbol, representing everyday well-being and basic needs as well as their use as a tool of oppression. The exhibition brings together textile sculptures and other interactive and playful works that explore memory and society, delving into the themes of finding hope and purpose in a world that often feels suffocating and restrictive.

Karl Joonas Alamaa (2000) has studied fashion at the Estonian Academy of Arts and costume design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In their practice, they often engage with the notion of the mundane, exploring the potential of everyday phenomena and small actions to create change, working with historical archival materials, personal memories, and experiences. The exhibition has grown out of their master’s project, for which they have received the Mathilde Horlait-Dapsens Prize, the JAT Prize and the Future Proef Award.

Cheerful trio: Karl Joonas Alamaa, Linda Mai Kari, Mikk Lahesalu

Language editor: Olivia Soans

Lighting designer: Mikk-Mait Kivi

Technician: Erik Hõim

Graphic designer: Fatima-Ezzahra Khammas

Special thanks: Myriam Van Gucth, Esther Severi, Vaast Colson, Helena Kask, Martin Lahesalu, Visa Nurmi, Andres Alamaa, Siiri Alamaa, Peeter Kari, Asmus Soodla, Jim Wockenfuß, Lisette Sivard, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Eesti Vabaõhumuuseum.

The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Mathilde Horlait-Dapsens Foundation and Tallinn City.

Opening drinks from Põhjala Brewery.

See photos of the opening here.

Artist Karl Joonas Alamaa and curator Mikk Lahesalu will lead three guided tours at the exhibition “Daily Play and Bread” at EKA Gallery:
– on Thursday, March 13 at 4 pm, in Estonian
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 4 pm, in English
– on Wednesday, March 19 at 5 pm, in Estonian

Participation in the tours is free of charge.

POSSIBLE WORLDS
EKA Billboard Gallery 3.03.–2.04.2025
Open 24/7, free

An exhibition by III year graphic design students displaing fragments of their graduation thesis projects.

Participants: Andres Alliksaar, Rasmus Einman, Anete Ots, Mette Mari Kaljas, Kätriin Reinart, Nelli Viisimaa, Filipp Rodtšenkov, Diana Tammets, Kasper Korsen, Hanna Marnat, Markus Laanisto, Lola Pärna, Ines Uudam, Martin Merirand, Rasmus Lukas, Marlene Schwindt

Supervisors: Ott Kagovere, Kert Viiart

Japanese Happiness. In search of the happiness of inner peace through aesthetic experiences

ARS Project Space
7-23 March 2025

Opening ceremony (by invitations only): 6 March 18:00 at Studio 98

Guided tours and workshops by appointment: Mon–Fri

Exhibition opening hours: Sat–Sun 12:00–18:00

 If there is one universal desire that connects humanity, it is the pursuit of happiness. Despite the challenges we face, our determination to seek joy never wanes. Around the globe, individuals explore various avenues in their quests for greater happiness, and there is much we can learn from one another. The exhibition Japanese Happiness – In search of the happiness of inner peace through aesthetic experiences invites visitors to discover new and often overlooked inspirations that enrich our lives. It highlights the profound relationship between aesthetics and happiness, a bond deeply embedded in Japanese culture. This immersive and sensory exhibition illuminates the connections between happiness and Japanese aesthetics through a curated selection of everyday items, design pieces, and works of art – raging from metal tools created with extreme attention to detail, as well as the uniform of the Tokyo public toilet cleaners made famous in Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days.

The objects on display at the exhibition were selected 20 representatives of the fields of art, design, philosophy, cooking, Japanese studies, music, fiction, fashion, photography and typography from both Europe and Japan who are inspired by Japanese culture. The initiators of the exhibition are the Identity Foundation, which develops philosophical culture in Düsseldorf, and Philipp Teufel, professor emeritus of exhibition design at the Peter Behrens School of Art (PBSA). It is a traveling exhibition that first opened in the spring of 2024 at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Cologne. The design of the exhibition was completed in collaboration with the PBSA exhibition design and the interior architecture master’s students of the Estonian Academy of Arts. The exhibition design is both experimental and playful, radiates calmness and simplicity and evokes a wide variety of sensory impressions.

The exhibition in the ARS Project Space (Pärnu mnt 154) is open to the public on weekends: 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23 March from 12:00 to 18:00. On all other days, visits to the exhibition take place with pre-registered guided tours. The exhibition is accompanied by a daily programme of workshops, film evenings, lectures and discussion groups at ARS Project Space and EKA in cooperation with TTK University of Applied Sciences, the Japanese Cultural Society in Estonia and the Japanese Embassy in Estonia.

Information and registration: https://www.artun.ee/en/curricula/interior-architecture/japanese-happiness/side-programme/

Curator: Philipp Teufel

Exhibition team: Masayo Ave, Annika Kaldoja, Jüri Kermik, Veiko Liis, Ranvir Singh Sandhu, Rainer Zimmermann, Gregor Taul

Organisation: Department of Interior Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts in cooperation with TTK University of Applied Sciences, the Japanese Cultural Society in Estonia and the Japanese Embassy in Estonia

Supporters:

Identity Foundation, Estonian Artists’ Association, ARS Art Factory, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Erasmus+ Program

Text by Gregor Taul

Additional information:

Gregor Taul
Guest lecturer, EKA Interior Architecture Department
gregor.taul@artun.ee
+37255690456