KVI research seminar: Begüm Sönmez “A Brief History of Modern and Contemporary Art in Turkey”

Begüm Sönmez is an art historian based in Turkey. She holds her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Hacettepe University, and Anadolu University, respectively. Her research areas include contemporary art, appropriation art, sculpture, and comparative postmodernism. She worked as a research assistant at Hacettepe and Anadolu universities, and as a lecturer at Yaşar University. Currently, at EKA, she is conducting research on contemporary Estonian art for a comparative study with Turkey, funded by a research grant from the Estonian Education and Youth Board.

This presentation, titled “A Brief History of Modern and Contemporary Art in Turkey,” will provide an overview of the prominent trends, themes, forms, and artistic activities in Turkish art from the 19th century to the present, focusing on the highlights of the art scene.

“Image Is for Illustrative Purposes Only. Interventions in the Monumental Murals of the Old Airport Terminal’s Central Waiting Hall at Tallinn Airport”
EKA Gallery 21.02.–22.03.2026
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm, free entry (NB! EKA Gallery is closed on February 24.)
Opening: Friday, February 20 at 1 pm
Guided tour: Thursday, February 26 at 3.30 pm

What should be done with the legacy of totalitarian regimes? Should it be intervened in? And if so, in what circumstances – and how?

The exhibition grew out of a practical need to engage with two ideologically charged socialist realist monumental paintings in the old terminal of Tallinn Airport. One is View of Moscow by Viktor Karrus and the other View of Tallinn by Richard Sagrits (both 1955). In 2025, in cooperation with Tallinn Airport, a competition was held to create intervening artworks, but the winning proposal was ultimately not realised by decision of the commissioning body. For the exhibition, the paintings have been loaned to the Estonian Academy of Arts to present artists’ interventions in dialogue with the original works. Additional layers are revealed through archival materials related to the airport. After the exhibition, the painting will be given to the Art Museum of Estonia.

The exhibition has been created as part of “How to Reframe Monuments”, a collaborative project between the Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University, funded by the Estonian Ministry of Culture.

Artists: Hanna Piksarv, Kati Saarits, Anna Škodenko, Sigrid Viir, Jevgeni Zolotko and Viktor Karrus, Richard Sagrits
Curators: Linda Kaljundi, Kirke Kangro
Curator of archival materials: Jarmo Kauge
Designer: Anna Škodenko
Technical support: Margus Elizarov, Erik Hõim, Ain Kilk, Priit Laanekivi, Oliver Kanniste, Madis Kaasik, Visa Nurmi, Sofia Schneider-Sepping, Mattias Veller
Graphic designer: Kristjan Mändmaa
Language editors: Phillip Marsdale, Hille Saluäär
Näituse töörühm: Merike Kallas, Taavi Tiidor, Annika Tiko, Maris Veeremäe

The exhibitions at EKA Gallery are supported by Tallinn City and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.

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.

On February 26 at 6 pm Kaisa Karvinen will give a lecture “From Care to Concrete: Exhibiting Architecture”.

Architect, curator, and researcher Kaisa Karvinen’s lecture examines exhibitions within architectural discourse in a time of ecological crisis, when questions of repair and maintenance become increasingly urgent. The analysis draws on Karvinen’s exhibitions, including Stripped Frame, at Merihaka, Helsinki (2022), which addressed the demolition and reuse of modernist concrete buildings; FIX: Care and Repair, at Architecture & Design museum, Helsinki (2024), which approached maintenance and care as forms of skilled labour and as aesthetic questions; and Teo Ala-Ruonas Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture, Nordic Countries Pavilion, Biennale Architettura, Venice (2025), which examined the entanglements of fossil culture, architectural production, and the body.

Kaisa Karvinen works across exhibition-making and academic research. She is currently preparing an exhibition for the Finnish Pavilion at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale and is undertaking doctoral research at the University of Oulu. Karvinen is also a co-founder of the Trojan Horse collective.

Urban Studies presents:
Huda Tayob “Archival Imaginaries”

February 18th, at 18:00-19:30, 4th floor open area A-400

This talk will focus on the co-curated online exhibition,  Archive of Forgetfulness – a pan-African digital exhibition and podcast series. This project is a space for interrogating the archival encounter, from the bodily and spoken, to the written and performed. As a collection of work centered on the African continent, the various contributors interrogate archival gestures, raise questions on personal and political histories that emerge through borders, and resurface forgotten conversations. In these works, archival labour and memory-work are understood simultaneously as deeply political, personal and speculative. The project opens up a space to question how an archival shift might open the space for pedagogical interventions and alternative ways of reading global urban environments. 

Huda Tayob is a South African architectural historian and theorist, currently Senior Tutor (Research) at the Royal College of Art. She has previously taught at the University of Manchester, the University of Cape Town, the Graduate School of Architecture (University of Johannesburg), and the Bartlett School of Architecture. She holds a PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, awarded a RIBA Commendation for research, and undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Architecture from the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on minor, migrant, and subaltern architectures across the African continent and the global south. She is co-curator of the open-access curriculum Race, Space & Architecture and lead curator of the pan-African digital exhibition Archive of Forgetfulness. In 2023, she participated in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice with Index of Edges, tracing watery archives and coastal histories from Cape Town to Port Said.

EKA FOTO presents:
Screening of films by Ingel Vaikla

“Double Exposure” (2020)

“EUR42” (2022)

“Moi aussi, je regarde” (2024)

February 12 at 6 p.m.

EKA Auditorium A-101

The screening will be followed by a conversation with Ingel Vaikla.

Ingel Vaikla (b. 1992, Tallinn) is a Brussels-based visual artist and filmmaker who works primarily with video, 16 mm film, and found footage. Her artistic practice explores the representation of architecture through its relationship with communities, seeking a visual language that goes beyond viewing architecture as a sculptural form. Instead, she attempts to convey the existential, conceptual, and ideological nature of spaces. Ingel has been a resident at HISK in Ghent (2018-2019) and at the WIELS Contemporary Art Center in Brussels (2021), and is pursuing a PhD at PXL-MAD/UHasselt University (2025). Her audiovisual works, including “The House Guard”, “Roosenberg”, “Double Exposure”, “Papagalo”, “What’s the Time?”, “EUR42”, and “Moi aussi, je regarde” have been shown internationally at film festivals and art institutions, including IDFA in Amsterdam, Kunsthalle Wien, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia and Tallinn Art Hall, Beursschouwburg and Bozar in Brussels, Manifesta 13 in Marseille, Videonale in Bonn, Tramway in Glasgow, European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, Busan International Video Art Festival, etc.

On Thursday, February 12 at 16:00–17:30, a public review and opening of the third exhibition of the doctoral project of Jane Remm “Moths are chewing the uneven fabric of life,” will take place at the Terra Gallery of Tallinn University.
The doctoral thesis is supervised by Dr. Urve Sinijärv (Tallinn Botanical Garden), the exhibition reviewers are Prof. Linda Kaljundi (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Dr. Nelly Mäekivi (University of Tartu).

The first signs of spring are out there – the sky is higher, tits are singing of spring, icicles and noses are dripping like birches sap. How did our ancestors, who spent the long dark autumn and winter in the dirty and cold farm houses, perceived the arrival of new light? Jane Remm’s exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” focuses on the everyday and experiential connection of traditional human culture with other species and local nature. Through mutual interdepence, people have been connected to plants and animals, forests and waters. This connection is expressed in metaphors and symbols used in language and images to this day, such as plant and animal-named patterns and the transcriptons of bird songs, as well as conventions when communicating with nature. Jane Remm is interested in the bodily and everyday interweaving with other life forms, (women’s) connection with local nature and its symbolic expression in traditional culture, patterns, food, healing – in the fabric of life. Through art, she creates a dialogue between the traditional ecological knowledge of our ancestors and contemporary ecology and environmental humanities and explores how we can learn from other lfe forms. The more diverse life, the more connections, vitality and love.

The exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” is the third peer-reviewed event of Jane Remm’s doctoral project “Art’s (artist’s) possibilities for relating to nature from representation to co-creation and ecological art interventions”. The exhibition “Moths chew the neven fabric of life” is open from January 19 to March 8 at the Terra Gallery of Tallinn University (Terra House, 2nd floor).

Jane Remm is an artist and art educator, lecturer at the BFM at Tallinn University and doctoral student at Estonian Academy of Art. Jane Remm’s work focuses on the representation of experience of nature, co-creation and communication with different life forms. In her artistic practice, she seeks ways to act more locally, more sustainably and meaningfully in collaboration with humans and nonhumans. As a visual artist with a background in painting, a teacher, and a artistic researcher, she finds that art’s way of creating knowledge about the world is special, valuing manual work and collaboration as an opportunity to perceive oneself as part of nature.

DANCING WITH THE STARS!
EKA Billboard Gallery 16.02.–17.05.2026
Open 24/7, free admission

The exhibition “Dancing with the Stars!” by the 1st year students of graphic design showcases the designed letters and the process of the class Typography I. During 14 weeks, several exercises and experimentations were carried out, drawing was done both by hand and on the computer, using things like stencils, feathers, rocks, nail polish or even keys.

While the first seven weeks were dedicated to experimentation and playing, the last seven focused on creating an entire alphabet and going through the whole letter design process. Vectorised letters were created which in turn were made into working font files during a week-long workshop.

Students: Johannes Adrik, Art Allik, Helen Forsel, Mia Klooren, Art Kruus, Adele Markova, Ischa Mestdagh, Jaako Lauri Puudist, Ann Aotäht Sarv, Mia Greta Sepp,Ariana Sigin, Linnea Süvari, Jakob Tüür, Karol Henrik Vana, Rei Helin Varres
Supervisor: Agnes Isabelle Veevo
Supervisor of the workshop: Patrick Zavadskis

The fonts can be downloaded for free from the SUVA Type Foundry website: suvatypefoundry.ee

SUVA Type Foundry makes the typefaces designed by EKA GD students public.

On February 9, 14.30-16.00 the public peer-review of Taavi Varm’s doctoral project “The Plant Walker” will take place in Zoom.
Zoom LINK  (Meeting ID: 616 6458 4084, Passcode: 182273).

Reviewers of the project: Dr. Liina Unt, PhD (University of Tartu), Dr. Steinunn Hildigunnur Knúts-Önnudóttir.
Supervisors: Dr. Varvara Guljajeva (Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar), Dr. Helen Uusberg (University of Tartu).

The Plant Walker is the third part of Taavi Varm’s doctoral thesis, “Designing Video Games as Experiential Practice: Co-Creation and Sustainable Psychological Well-Being.” Game was created during the 2024/25 academic year as part of the EVA Lab’s ‘Small Lives’ course and research project at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Project reflects on the video game’s creation process and outcome through a video essay as a Work Story.

The Plant Walker became a turning point in the research, where the researcher turned back to being a creator and artist.  The creative process consciously used theories of mindfulness and flow theory, later enriched by ecological, societal, and political valuation through practical analysis. Therefore the project views creation as a process that supports the artist’s mental health and creative sustainability.

Creating slow, ecologically sensitive game meant deliberately rejecting patterns based on competition, optimization, and constant performance. The Plant Walker offers a playful space for slowing down, being present, and ways of being in harmony with nature.

The video essay is available via a YouTube link. Headphones and viewing on a smartphone are recommended.
Youtube link (english version): https://youtu.be/zw6Cfy6PNpc
Small lives games:
Apple App Store / Google Play

Jakobson’s solo exhibition Downloads Folder creates a personal digital archive from random, hastily taken screenshots by preserving them on canvas.

The exhibition approaches painting as a way of remaining in continuous dialogue with a personal digital archive that was not originally intended for display. Through rapid circulation, the original purpose of downloaded files disappears; they persist more out of habit than meaning. The exhibition is concerned less with the images themselves than with their unsystematic accumulation and their slowing down through the act of being fixed in paint.

In a late-capitalist world oriented towards economic growth, productivity has become a sacred cow. Living within a constant flow of information, an ever-increasing pace of work, and social pressure demand more and more from us, without allowing time for reflection or interpretation. Transferring casually taken screenshots onto canvas is a conscious choice to slow down rather than rush, offering the possibility to organise what has been produced so far in a meaningful way and to take a pause.

The randomly selected images that form the basis of the paintings function as source material that is reworked through the artist’s process. The repetition of anonymous and temporary images through multiple layers of irony and subjectivity creates new images that no longer carry their former meaning and have lost their original, quickly consumable function.

Curator: Adrian Abner
Design: @gertworld

Anu Jakobson (b. 2005) is an Estonian visual artist currently in her second year of studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her practice focuses on exploring online culture and its visual language, which she approaches through experimental painting methods, primarily using an airbrush. This technique allows her to capture the haziness and ephemerality characteristic of internet imagery. She works with images saved as screenshots from the internet and edits them according to her vision, in a way similar to how memes circulate, transferring this process onto the canvas. This method situates her work within the context of collective culture, as the circulation of memes reflects current events and broader value systems.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

On February 3rd, 2026 at 19:00 Azeem Hamid’s doctoral study second peer-review “Participation as Relation: Designing Relations of Care” will take place online on zoom.
Peer-review zoom LINK (Meeting ID: 660 0113 5320, Passcode: 807935).

The peer-reviewers are Dr. Oscar Tomico Plasencia (Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands) and Dr. Jesper Falck Legaard (Designskolen Kolding, Denmark).
The thesis supervisors are Dr. Kristi Kuusk (EKA, Estonia) and Dr. Nithikul Nimkulrat (OCAD U, Canada).

Azeem Hamid invites attendees to engage with analysis and reflections from the Remote Grandparents project, the second case study of his ongoing doctoral research. The study explores participation as a relational and care-led design practice in remote, intergenerational contexts, focusing on sensorial play co-designed by children and their geographically distant grandparents.
Grounded in research-through-design, relational sensitivities, and autoethnographic practice, the inquiry challenges participation as co-presence by attending to distance, domestic settings, and family relations. The research identifies affective distance, sensory touchpoints, and improvised mutual shaping as key constructs through which relations are formed across people, materials, and places.
The research contributes to ethical and reflexive approaches to participatory and intergenerational design, by proposing vocabulary and methods for sensorial co-presence in distributed, care-centred contexts.
Azeem Hamid, originally from Lahore, Pakistan and now based in Tallinn, is a design researcher, educator, and facilitator focusing on transition design, placemaking, and design pedagogy. He is a doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and holds a MSc. in Design and Technology Futures alongwith MPhil. in Art & Design Education (Research).