Textiles 110: Open Lecture by an Artist Duo EJTECH “Being Metamaterial”

On March 27 at 4:30 p.m in room A501

Formed by Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre,  EJTECH [ˈeɪtɛk’] is an polydisciplinary artist duo working with hyperphysical interfaces, programmable matter, and augmented textiles as media to investigate sensorial and conceptual relationships between subject and object, aiming to rediscover networks of emerging structures and immanent causality within realist metamaterialism. 

Sound, space, light and time as material building blocks are paramount elements in their practice, analyzing the process of unfolding patterns between technology and the human body. Driven by material research, resulting in performative installations, multichannel sonic sculptures and dynamic surfaces. Influenced by the philosophy of New Materialism, Holonic Theory and Somaesthetics, EJTECH aims to provide tools for exploring liminality, thirdspace, and the elusive state of now.

Their work has been presented in galleries, festivals and exhibitions such as Japan Media Arts Festival, European Media Arts Festival, Sensorium Festival, Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, Design Museum Holon, Ludwig Museum, Budapest Kunsthalle, LRRH Gallery, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Trafo House of Contemporary Arts, HayArt Center in Yerevan, Eastopics Gallery, Horizont Gallery, LOM Art Space, iii Instrument Inventors Initiative, Rewire among others.

EJTECH has created commissioned art pieces for cultural institutions and commercial brands such as DIOR, Blade Runner 2049, Dune: part two, Material ConneXion.

They regularly hold workshops and lectures on new media art and creative technology internationally. Founded the Soft Interfaces Lab in 2020 for further research in soft technology and material ecologies at MOME.

The artist duo currently works and lives in Budapest, Hungary.

Textile 110 is a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of EKA’s textile design education, as part of which a series of open lectures focusing on textiles will be held, a series of publications will be published, and a selection of works from the EKA Museum’s textile collection can be seen throughout the year.

The lecture series opens up the spectrum of diverse opportunities in the field of textiles, both in design, industry, and creative practices, bringing out different roles and methods of creation in the field through various invited guests.

Supported by the Research Fund of EKA and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Artist talk by Tris Vonna-Michell at 17:30 on March 4th in EKA, A-501

The artist is visiting EKA to run a workshop in the department of photography on March 24-26, 2025 together with Henrik Follesø Egeland.

Tris Vonna-Michell (1982) is an artist, publisher and guest professor in Expanded Performance and Installation at the Royal College of Art in Stockholm.

Recent works can be found in public collections such as Serralves Museum, Porto, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Tate Modern, London, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Vonna-Michell has exhibited widely, most recently at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

Vonna-Michell’s work utilises a plethora of technical devices, modes of presentation and installational approaches, encompassing performance, audio recordings, slide projections, poetry, sound poetry, printed matter, photography and film. Since 2010 he has been co-running the publishing space and analogue studio Mount Analogue.

https://www.vonna-michell.com

Annual Conference of EKA Doctoral School will take place on 10 April 2025.

Please register by 01.04.

PROGRAM

08.20 – Registration
08.30 – Opening words
prof. Linda Kaljundi (EKA Vice Rector for Research)

Panel 1: Cultural Heritage & Conservation, moderator prof. Victoria Donovan
08.35 Footwear Fashion in Late Medieval Europe
Tuuli Jõesaar (supervisors dr. Erki Russow, dr. Marquita Volken)

09.10 Climate Impact on Wall Paintings and Salt-Induced Decay
Mariam Sagaradze (supervisors dr. Lisa Shekede, dr. Anneli Randla, prof. Hilkka Hiiop)

09.45 Rethinking of Historical Wood Waste
Aljona Gineiko (supervisors dr. Mihkel Kiviste, dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.20 Eiffel’s Lighthouses and the Theseus’s Paradox: A Study of Identity and Change
Indrek Laos (supervisor dr. Riin Alatalu)

10.55 – Coffee, tea, snacks (15 min)

Panel 2: Art & Design, and Art History & Visual Culture, moderators dr. Jaana Päeva and prof. Andres Kurg
11.10 Painting as a Mirror: Symmetries and Reflections.
Sirja-Liisa Eelma (supervisor dr. Alari Allik)

11.45 Listen To My Scream: Autotheory in Practice-Based Research
Maria Kapajeva (supervisors dr. Redi Koobak, prof. Annika von Hausswolff)

12.20 What Kind of Art is Expected in School Buildings?
Karin Paulus (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Kara Diane Brown)

12.55 Oak Night: Looking for Any-Space-Whatevers in the Poststructuralist Thicket of Estonian Experimental Art and Literature in the 2000s
Sven Vabar (supervisors prof. Virve Sarapik, prof. Jaak Tomberg)

13.30 – Lunch break (30 min)

Panel 3: Architecture & Urban Planning, moderator dr. Jan van Schaik
14.00 Non-manifold Topology in Digital Architectural Models: Bridging Spatial Design and Industrial Production
Kaiko Kivi (supervisor dr. Renee Puusepp)

14.35 New Force Majeure in Urban Greenery: Nature Restoration and Amending
Regulation of the European Parliament and The Council
Karin Bachmann (supervisors prof. Urve Sinijärv, prof. Mart Kalm)

15.10 Climate Branding, Local Perceptions, and the YIMBY-NIMBY Conflict: The Case of Putukaväil Place-Making
Karina Vabson (supervisor prof. Maroš Krivy)

15.45 Chapters of Temperate. The Challenge of Doing More with Less in Urban
Greening
Anna-Liisa Unt (supervisor dr. Epp Lankots)

16.20 – Coffee, tea, snacks (10 min)

16.30 – Decolonising Research and Curating in Ukrainian Industrial Areas (= Institute of Art History and Visual Culture open lecture)*
prof. Victoria Donovan (University of St. Andrews), moderator prof. Linda Kaljundi

17.50 – Break (10 min)

18.00 – The Work is the Knowledge (= Faculty of Architecture open lecture)*
dr. Jan van Schaik (RMIT University, MvS Architects, Melbourne), moderator dr. Siim Tuksam

* The lectures are organised in cooperation with the Estonian Doctoral School. Project “Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies” (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.

More information:

Triin Metsla, triin.metsla@artun.ee
Mirje Tammaru, mirje.tammaru@artun.ee

13 March at 18.00, as part of the exhibition “Japanese Happiness“, we will be screening the documentary Soundscapes of Japan in room A-400, which portrays the master metalworkers of Tsubame-Sanjo. The film will run for an hour. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Open 21.-28.03.2025
Every day 14:00-18:00
and by appointment (+37253437533)

Opening: 20.03.2025 at 18:00

“The Scattering of Times to Dust ” is a spatial installation by Riin Maide at Uus Rada Gallery. The exhibition builds a cityscape from paper that takes the viewer beyond a border – to a place that has been left behind and worn thin. It’s a way to imagine nonexisting pasts and to feel nostalgia for the future.

Through mainly photo-based staged structures, the artist aims to find wistful beauty and material warmth in the languages of absence and arbitrariness. Paper and cardboard are tools to highlight the transience of architecture, to explore the fragmentation and dispersion of the city, and to create spectacles that barely exist. Both creation and decay are observed at once.

Riin Maide is an artist and scenographer based in Tallinn, whose practice focuses on indeterminate and intermediate areas and displaced spaces. She deals with topics such as memory and presence through playful installations and staged environments. Riin has received various awards, for instance the EKA Young Artist Award (2020) or the Eduard Wiiralt Scholarship (2022). She holds a BA degree of graphic arts from EKA Faculty of Fine Arts and has also studied in Vienna and Prague, and is currently a master’s student in the Department of Scenography of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On Tuesday, March 18th, we’re reading a series of writings by the EKA Craft Studies MA programme students.
All texts were composed through research, writing and editing supervised by Lieven Lahaye and Else Lagerspetz. The event takes place at the Craft Studies Krulli studio (Kopli 70a, II floor), from 18:00-20:00

There are 8 texts as part of the components required for graduation, reflecting on a diverse range of topics and approaches relevant to the students’ individual practices and the expanded field of design and craft, with links to the making and footwork-handwork-headwork relations.

Belongings

Written by Kati Saarits
This text is exploring local material culture history through the lens of industrial ceramics heritage, touching on questions of how sentimentality settles into material and how surroundings shape our perception of home.

Creature. Maker. Mire. 
Written by Alyona Movko-Mägi
Through the entanglement of organic and digital materiality Creature. Maker. Mire explores the bog as an archive — where bodies, landscapes, and crafts are preserved, transformed, and reinterpreted across time.

Reblow toolset
Written by Rait Lõhmus 
Reblow toolset examines ways to upgrade premade glass objects and explores the causes of devaluation and potential for revaluations.

Through the hammer, through the body

Written by Elias Sormanen
A deep look into the importance of skill in making, as seen through the craft of a metal hammerer.

Hääbuda, et taas tärgata.
Written by Juulia Aleksandra Mikson
A poetical observation of decay as an integral part of the cyclical process of life, while approaching it with acceptance and a sense of hope.

On Extractivism and Care for Landscapes:
From Mines to Mountains in the East of Estonia
Written by Hannah Segerkrantz
This text explores the post-industrial mountains of mining waste in the east of Estonia through questions about how we relate to our surroundings and their materiality.

Movement Matter. Embodied knowledge in material practices
Written by Iohan Figueroa
Series of dialogues between materials and the way we embody our practice, the importance of contact during the making process.

A Book of Mashed Potatoes
Written by Sofiya Babiy
A contemplation on shades of vanishing through photography, trees, cinema, land, time, death and family.

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 is free of charge.

More info:
https://www.artun.ee/en/calendar/karl-joonas-alamaa-daily-play-and-bread-at-eka-gallery/