Mental Health Week

Mental Vitamin Week is back and happening next week! From November 18–22, we will host various exciting activities to bring some fun and relaxation to the long and tiring school days.

**MONDAY, 18.11.2024**

– Morning run at 8:00 (meeting in front of the school)
– Fruit in exchange for your phone
– 12:00–18:00 Sauna in the school courtyard
– Gaming in A300

**TUESDAY, 19.11.2024**

– Morning run at 8:00 (meeting in front of the school)
– Health shots
– 12:00–18:00 Sauna in the school courtyard
– Gaming in A300
– Scream room in the ÜE tower
– 19:00 EKAAJU quiz (in the atrium, registration required)

**WEDNESDAY, 20.11.2024**

– Morning run at 8:00 (meeting in front of the school)
– Gaming in A300
– Confession room and worry box (5th floor box)

**THURSDAY, 21.11.2024**

– Morning run at 8:00 (meeting in front of the school)
– Gaming in A300

**FRIDAY, 22.11.2024**

– Final morning run of the week at 8:00 (meeting in front of the school)
– Gaming in A300

Design Issues: Hasso Krull’s Talk “Earth Thought: sentipensar con la tierra Arturo Escobar and the Cosmovisions of the Relational Ontology” on Tuesday, November 19 at 4:00 PM, in room A501 at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA).

We have been taught that we live in the modern world. The axis of modernity is progress, based on rationality, development and technology. However, we have also learned that modernity is in a perpetual crisis. But why does development always lead to a disaster? Maybe modernity is not a solution, but in itself a problem? If that is the case, we need to redefine it. We need several new cosmovisions and something that Arturo Escobar has called pluriversal politics.
Hasso Krull (b. 1964) is an Estonian poet who has published sixteen books of poetry and nine collections of essays that include literary criticism as well as writings concerning art, cinema and society. During 1990-2017 he was teaching cultural theory at the Estonian Institute of Humanities (special courses on creation myths, oral tradition, continental philosophy and psychoanalysis). From 2019 he has been teaching creative writing in the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The Design Open Lecture series 2024 is part of Sandra Nuut and Ruth-Helene Melioranski’s Design Issues course. It is public and open to all.

A conference from the series “Studies in Contemporary Culture”, dedicated to Andrus Kivirähk’s novel from 2000 with the Estonian title “Rehepapp ehk November” and its multiple adaptations in various media, will be taking place on November 25th at Tallinn’s Writers’ Building (Harju 1). The conference is organized by the Research Group of Contemporary Estonian Culture in collaboration with the Estonian Writers’ Union.

Minna Henriksson: Archive as artwork. Kiila Feminist Archive and other cases

Artist Minna Henriksson will talk about the crucial role archives have played in her artworks, both as source of information and influence. In addition, Henriksson has built archives, or complemented existing ones, as artworks. During the talk she will introduce several cases, where she has implemented archives and archiving in her artistic practice in different ways, and aims to explain her motivations for working with archives, and history writing in general.

Minna Henriksson (b. 1976, Oulu, Finland, lives in Helsinki) is a visual artist working with a disparate range of tools including text, drawing, painting and linocut. In dealing with historical cases, Henriksson hopes to politicize contemporary events that seem neutral and inevitable. The ideological nature of historiography is a recurring theme in her work.

Contemporary Art and Context is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art. This lecture is organized in collaboration with Archival Impulse, an elective course taught by Lieven Lahaye that introduces students to the practicalities, considerations and possibilities of using archives and archival material as part of their practice as artists and designers.

The lecture is held in English, everyone is welcome to join!

Liis Vares and Taavet Jansen’s new mixed reality production, Held in Human II: Rose in Your Brain, premieres on November 14 at the University of Tartu Library and will be open until November 28. This VR experience draws inspiration from materials collected from the public during the installation Held in Human at the EKA Gallery in the fall of 2023.

“Something is changing, I can no longer make sense of what here means, as I increasingly feel that while I am here, I am also always a little bit there. There, where my thoughts are, there where my imagination roams — and not only mine, but someone else’s as well, simultaneously. It is real. I am always inside a body, in this form that makes me visible and touchable; yet I am also always in a space, where no one can see me. It is a space of thought, an invisible space, but also an ever-present network, a movement. I am present, held in human.”

Held in Human II: Rose in Your Brain is a mixed reality performance, a collective thought space where linguistic thinking meets the instinctive physique. It is a physical reading experience, a choreography of thoughts that you can experience within your own body using mixed reality glasses. Plug in — let your body and thoughts carry you.

Authors: Liis Vares and Taavet Jansen

Mixed reality solution: Norbert Pape

Sound design: Mihkel Tomberg

Graphic design: Jaan Evart

Room design: Mari Möldre

Photographer: Alissa Šnaider

Producer: Anu Almik, elekrton.art

Premiere: 14.11.2024 at University of Tartu Library

Next performances: 15.-28.11.2024. UT Library is open Mon-Fr 9-21 ja Sat-Sun 12-18

Festivals: 26.-27.10 showing PAD festival Wiesbaden Germany

Supporters: Estonian Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tallinn city, Dortmund Academy of Theater and Digitality, Estonian Academy of Arts through the ACuTe project, Erasmus program, VARES Valga Architecture Residency, University of Tartu

The production was developed as part of the ACuTe project, in which EKA is one of the partners.

11.11
Triin Tint – “Stitch by stitch – a journey from EKA to the H&M knitting design team (and who knows where to go)”

Triin Tint is a designer with a background at EKA and Aalto University, whose niche is knitwear. The designer, who has long been interested in conceptual (fashion) art and telling stories through clothes, ironically has been working for the last few years in one of the biggest fashion brands in Stockholm.

In the lecture on 11.11, Triin will talk about his own journey and its development.

The lecture will be held in English

On 9 December at 14:00 Hasso Krull will defend his thesis “Cosmic Trickster in Estonian Mythology” (“Kosmiline trikster eesti mütoloogias”).

The public defence will be held in EKA (Põhja pst 7), room A501.
The defence will be broadcast on EKA TV.
The defence is in Estonian.

Supervisors: Prof. Virve Sarapik, (Estonian Academy of Arts), Dr. Margus Ott (Estonian University of Life Sciences)
External reviewers: Prof. Ülo Valk (University of Tartu), Dr. Jaan Undusk (Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Under and Tuglas Literature Centre)
Opponents: Prof. Ülo Valk, Dr. Jaan Undusk

An Estonian mythology, does it really exist? Yes, but only on one condition: it exists, if the Estonian landscape equally exists. Cosmic trickster is the creator of the Estonian landscape. Therefore, the Estonian landscape is a mythical landscape, appearing and becoming visible to us after we have acquired the mythical narrative.

Until today, the Estonian mythology has been described either following a taxonomic or a concentric model. Neither of them should be underestimated. I propose a new concentric model focusing on the cosmic trickster. He often acts as one pole of a creator pair.

Trickster was already active in a primordial creation time, when everything was still in flux and even the stones were soft. Landscape carries many visual signes of his activity: rocks and stones, sources, rivers and lakes, mountains and valleys. This landscape is different from the modern landscape, that is dominated by a homogenuous space without any mythical dimension.

The treatise is divided into four parts. First part analyzes the concept of the trickster. Second part describes the course of mythologial studies in the 19th Century. Third part explores the creation myth, where the central protagonist is the trickster. Fourth part observes the return of the trickster in literature. Finally there is an exodus, outlining a project of a mythical ecology.

The thesis is available HERE.

Defence Committee: Prof. Andres Kurg, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Krista Kodres, Dr. Anneli Randla, Prof. Hilkka Hiiop, Prof. Aigi Rahi-Tamm, Prof. Eneken Laanes

Karolin Tampere: Curiosity led learning through curating, collaboration and care

Karolin Tampere will show and tell from her ongoing PhD research project Down in the Bog – Thinking with Peatlands. A project led by an ambition to create cross-pollinating meeting grounds for art, natural science, environmental issues and the public. The three chapters project emphasizes the sharing and embodying of knowledge and awareness to create attention towards the need for increased care for peatland areas, locally, nationally and internationally. Practically and conceptually, the topic of peatlands act as a guiding map and compass to learn about historical, cultural and contemporary and geopolitical changes in the environments in Sápmi / Northern Norway, Estonia and selected places internationally.

Throughout the two group exhibitions Down in the Bog: Hibernation (Tromsø Art Center) and Down in the Bog – Sporulation (EKKM, Tallinn) followed by Thinking with Peatlands symposium, artists, natural scientists, environmental activists, NGOs and the public have lent the ecosystem of peatlands as a prism for sharing, learning and collaboration. Together we have dived deep into the bog, listened, smelled, touched it and learnt from it.

Karolin Tampere is an artist and curator currently a PhD Research fellow in Curatorial practice at Tromsø Art Academy, UiT and KMD, Faculty of Fine Art, Bergen, Norway. She has a particular interest in collaborative, cross disciplinary, long term socially engaged art practices, sound, music and listening. Karolin´s curatorial practice has dealt with a wide range of topics fueled by her interests, including gentrification, city development, art in public space, rights of nature, socially engaged art and ecology and the other-than-human.

Since 2004 she has regularly contributed to the “forever lasting” art project Sørfinnset skole/the nord land initiated by artists Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen. Together with Åse Løvgren their ongoing collaboration Rakett was initiated in 2003. In 2013 and partly 2014 she was serving as director of Konsthall C in Stockholm and collaboratively transformed the directorship of the institution into a collective named the Work Group/Arbetslaget. In 2017-2022 she served as curator at North Norwegian Art Centre, realizing context specific projects with artists across the whole region of Northern Norway. She co-curated Lofoten Sound Art Symposium (with Svein Ingvoll Pedersen) and LIAF2019 Lofoten International Art Festival (with Hilde Mehti, Torill Østby Håland and Neal Cahoon). Since 2011 she is part of ENSAYOS – a collective research practice that has developed distinct inquiries into extinction, human geography, and coastal and peatland health. The mission of Ensayos is to do eco-cultural conservation work in Tierra del Fuego and other archipelagos through collaborative art, science and community projects in partnership with existing decolonial, ecological, and cultural conservation initiatives. In 2022 ENSAYOS presented «The Gift» as part of «TURBA TOL HOL HOL TOL» – The Chilean Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale.

«Contemporary Art and Context» is a lecture series hosted by MA Contemporary Art.

The lecture will be held in English, everyone is welcome to join! 

The Open Lecture series of the EKA Faculty of Architecture will take place in the autumn of 2024 under the general title S*cial – Values in the built realm.

The lecturers will focus on the ongoing shift in planning practice, where considerations other than pure economic viability increasingly play a role in decision-making.

On November 28 Petra Marko will hold the lecture “Meanwhile City – The power of temporary interventions in long-term change”.

Petra Marko is an architect and placemaking expert dedicated to creating people-centric cities and public spaces. She serves as Chief executive of the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava, driving strategic architecture, urban planning and participatory placemaking initiatives to enhance quality of life. She’s known for leading Marko&Placemakers, an urban design practice in London and campaigning to unlock London’s small sites. An advocate for greener cities and active travel, Petra has co-authored VeloCity and Meanwhile City – a best practice and how-to guide for temporary interventions.

Mattias Malk, curator of the autumn lecture series, PhD student and visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, describes the main theme of the lecture series as follows:

Inclusion, the valorisation of social space and the changing role of architects, especially in the public sector, are gaining ground in Europe’s spatial development, but things are still moving slowly in Estonia. So far, our economic growth has been based on environmental degradation and, despite rigid market-driven planning, we are among the weakest in the EU in resource use. However, the foundations of a smarter spatial policy, which is more profitable than profit, are still undefined and untested. 

One of the aims of the lecture series is to define and rehabilitate the word ‘social’ in Estonian spatial policy, including the social responsibility mentioned in the new planned public procurement. All the invited lecturers deal with the issues of space and sociality in their daily work and will share their experiences of the changing role of architects through examples. 

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

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. See all the lectures: www.avatudloengud.ee

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

New Media 30

EKA New Media department is celebrating 30th anniversary during the EKA 110 event. Our program includes a series of talks on media art, presentations of alumni work, a student exhibition and an evening for video games.

Birthday week program:

4.11
18:00 New Media 30: Paul Galloway (US) – Video Games at MoMA (Paul Galloway will be joining us from New York city via screen. In English, Main hall A-101)

5.11
18:00 New Media 30: Ava Imogen Grayson (CA/FI) & John Grzinich (US/EE) – Discussing Sound Art (Ava will be joining us from Helsinki via screen. In English, B-305)
19:15 New Media 30: Jaime Lobato (MX/EE) – The right to forget. Artificial intelligences humanly inspired in contemporary art (Jaime will be joining us from Mexico via screen. In English, B-305)

7.11
18:00 New Media 30: Raivo Kelomees – Metamorphoses in Media Art (In Estonian, Main hall A-101)
15:00 – 21:00 New Media 30: Video Art Screening Program (Works by graduates and students of the Department: Mari-Liis Rebane, Katrin Enni, Evi Pärn, Lauri Lest, Tõnis Jürgens, Sten Saarits, Taavi Suisalu, Martin Rästa and others) (B308)

8.11
15:00 – 22:00 New Media 30: Video Art Screening Program (Works by graduates and students of the Department: Mari-Liis Rebane, Katrin Enni, Evi Pärn, Lauri Lest, Tõnis Jürgens, Sten Saarits, Taavi Suisalu, Martin Rästa and others) (B308)
18:00 Opening of the exhibition “Lifetime of a Building” (Kotzebue 10 + Kotzebue street)
19:00 – 23:00 New Media 30: LVLup Video Games Chill Out Lounge (B307)