Assessment Marathon at EKA Gallery 01.–22.12.2022

December brings an opportunity to experience, in an exhibition format, works produced by students in the Faculty of Fine Arts as their term projects: every day there will be a fresh crop of university students’ works on display in the gallery.

Works in contemporary art, prints, installation, sculpture and painting curricula will be on display. On each morning of the marathon, a new exhibition will be installed and in the evening the exhibit will give way to the next one. Hopefully, viewers will be able to keep up with the pace of the young artists.

SCHEDULE

1.12. Drawing, supervisors Matti Pärk, Maiu Rõõmus

2.12. Drawing, supervisor Eero Alev

3.—4.12. Scenography, supervisor Mark Raidpere

5.12. Drawing, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja

6.12. Drawing, supervisor Britta Benno

7.12. Photography, supervisors Annika Haas, Kadri Otsiver

8.12. Photography, supervisor Taavi Piibemann

9.12. Photography, supervisor Kalle Veesaar

12.12. Graphic art, supervisors Liina Siib, Eve Kask, Maria Erikson, Len Murusalu, Martinus Daane Klemet, Viktor Gurov

13.12. Graphic art, supervisors Kadi Kurema, Mark Antonius Puhkan, Aarne Mesikäpp, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar

14.12. Painting, supervisors Tõnis Saadoja, Mart Vainre

15.12. Painting, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Mihkel Maripuu, Jaan Toomik

16.12. Painting, supervisors Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Alice Kask, Mart Vainre

17.12. Sculpture and Installation, supervisors Taavi Talve, Laura Põld

19.—22.12. Contemporary Art, supervisors Anu Vahtra, Jaan Toomik, Liina Siib, Taavi Talve, John Grzinich, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Marge Monko, Taavi Piibemann, Eve Kask, Maria Erikson, Kristi Kongi, Sirja-Liisa Eelma

Vent Space Gallery
Opening of the exhibition on November 26, 5-8 p.m.

The joint exhibition of Brit Kikas and Dana Lorên Vares looks at shedding the skin as a constant rebirth. Through repetition, jewelry art and graphics come together, bringing to the viewer tactile changes that form endless chains and patterns.

“There was one girl of us

We talked a lot among ourselves

We had no brothers or sisters, and neither did our father and mother

We didn’t grieve very often

Sad evil calls for beating

Besides, we knew that the parents are alive, they are hidden in a secret bunker made in the forest

We lacked upbringing, so to speak

We didn’t give anyone up

Two burning spots melted under our feet every spring

Only later did I realize that I live in the singular”

-Ene Mihkelson

Brit Kikas (1997) – He is a Master’s student of Contemporary Art of the Estonian Academy of Arts and is currently on exchange studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland. In 2022, Kikas was the co-curator of the youth exhibition “Slow maneuvers” of the 18th Print Triennale in Tallinn at EKKM, and in 2021 he organized his first solo exhibition “Corpora Prima” at Positiiv gallery. Previously, Kikas has participated in several group exhibitions, such as “Soft Narratives” (2020), “Spring Exhibition” (2021) in the Kunstihoone gallery. In addition, Kikas has also participated in several international group exhibitions “Book” (2021) at Kaapelitehda in Helsinki, “Blended Intensive Project” (2022) at Neuer Kunstverein Wien in Vienna.

Dana Lorên Vares (1998) Studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts in the magistracy of the department of jewelry and blacksmithing. In 2017, he staged his first dance performance “My name is how I call myself” as a collaborative project. During his undergraduate studies, he participated in several group exhibitions “Künnis” (2020), “TASE’21” (2021). During his master’s studies, Vares’ work has been represented in several joint exhibitions “Valus on” (2021), “B-106” (2022); several of them also international cooperation projects: “Notes on fashion and gender” (2022) and “Second chance” (2022). In addition, Vares has taken part in the dance production and performances “IHA” (2019), “Minevik, jag mina set samadan” (2020), “Greenfield: Fyüsis” (2018).

The exhibition is open from November 27 to December 3, from 2 to 6 p.m.

EKA Animation department invites you to join us on Wednesday (23 Nov.) from 10:30 – 12:00 in our auditorium (A101) for an insightful lecture from world-famous animated film director Theodore Ushev.

Theodore Ushev is a Bulgarian-born Canadian filmmaker who has created some of the most iconic animated films of recent decades. At the meeting Ushev introduces his animated world and talks about his working methods.

Ushev latest feature film “Phi1.618” is going to get the international premiere at PÖFF 26 | Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival!

“Phi1.618” screenings at PÖFF

For more information about Theodore Ushev

Join us on November 21st at 6–8 p.m. (Estonian time) to find out more information about the Garage48 Future of Wood: Rebuild Ukraine makeathon.

AGENDA

– Opening words and makeathon introduction.

– Challenges overview

– Startup Estonia Challenge: Wood industry in 2050

– Thermory & Ülemiste City Challenge: Revitalising the urban environment with timber

– Get acquainted with the submitted ideas and pitch your idea to find team members from Ukraine

– Matchmaking through breakout rooms

– Closing words

The final team formation happens at the beginning of the makeathon on Nov 25th. The pre-webinar is an additional option to start matchmaking already before.

How does the pitching work? Participants who have an idea will present the idea over a 90-second pitch. After ideas are presented, we will facilitate matchmaking over Zoom breakout rooms.

Join us at the webinar on ZOOM

Artist’s talk: Film and the Practice of Social Dreaming by Andrea Luka Zimmerman 22 November at 3.45 pm / Room A 403 

How we might resist being framed exclusively through class, gender, ability or disability, and even through geography… I will outline my working process, spanning over a decade, which contributes attention to the under-expressed intersection of public and private memory and itinerant lives, human and otherwise, often in relation to structural and political violence. Processes where radical encounters call for uncommon commons and futures, using filmmaking practice as a form of social dreaming.
Curator and event / film producer Gareth Evans will conclude the presentation by examining the various possible distribution and exhibition platforms for such work.

Andrea Luka Zimmerman is a filmmaker and artist whose engaged practice calls for a profound reimagining of the relationship between people, place and ecology. Focusing on marginalised individuals, communities and experience, her practice employs imaginative hybridity and narrative reframing, alongside reverie and a creative waywardness. Informed by suppressed histories, and alert to sources of radical hope, the work prioritises an enduring and equitable coexistence. Andrea’s feature length films have won numerous awards internationally. Andrea is Professor of Possible Film at Central Saint Martins.

www.fugitiveimages.org.uk 
https://linktr.ee/andrealukazimmerman

The peer-review of Maria Kapajeva’s exhibition “Loose Photos, Odds and Ends” will take place on 29 November 16.00 at EKA (room A202). This exhibition is the first event of Kapajeva’s practice-based doctoral studies.

The thesis is supervised by Dr. Redi Koobak (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) and Prof. Annika Elisabeth von Hausswolff  (University of Gothenburg). The peer-reviewers of the exhibition are Dr. Ingrid Ruudi (EKA) and Prof. Mika Elo (Uniarts Helsinki).

The exhibition is open 14.06.- 30.12.2022 at Kumu, the Project Space II.

The exhibition “Loose Photos, Odds and Ends” is Maria Kapajeva’s artistic experiment: presenting a research process as an installation. What can you do and what would you do with a random collection of photographs?

Kapajeva experiments with different ways of opening up the potential of the often undervalued, under-researched, marginalised heritage of vernacular photography. In the age of automated face recognition software – partly developed by historical archives, but even more so by state and military institutions and international corporations – her project demonstrates the benefits of “slow recognition”. As she slowed down for an artistic exploration of this collection, Kapajeva also made this a part of her own homecoming, as she has lived abroad for years, just like the photos she is exploring.

Gradual identification of the photographers and the people portrayed by them reveals new perspectives on Estonian (micro-)history, which gain new meaning in the context of the permanent exhibition focusing on “landscapes of identity”. By focussing on the faces of the photographed people, their stories and some other forgotten facts which she learned from these images, Kapajeva shows her appreciation for each person and every individual story in our history.

Exhibition design: LLRRLLRR – Laura Linsi, Karolin Kull
Graphic designer: Maria Muuk
Exhibition coordinator: Magdaleena Maasik
Exhibition technician: Andres Amos
Artist’s research assistant: Ketlin Käpp
With contribution in kind by Linda Kaljundi, Annika Toots and Karmen-Eliise Kiidron

Special thanks to Liisa Kaljula, Merilis Roosalu (Tallinn City Museum – Museum of Photography), Aado Luik, Janeli Suits, Piret Karro, Lembi Anepaio, Aljona Kapajeva and the Sokk family.

An open lecture and discussion on the possibilities of artistic research to approach socially complex and even conflicting questions through the practices of the curator and architectural researcher dr Ines Moreira and the media scholar dr Nico Carpentier.

Both of their artistic research travels to sites, which are related to non-beloved industrial heritage and memorialisation, feeding into the complex, sensitive and divisive debate with creative means.

The event is organised by the Design Faculty of the Estonian Academy of Arts and the museology working group of the Estonian National Museum. It is part of our collaboration over the sites in the European geographical fringes at COST Action EFAP working group 1 “Contexts”.

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Iconoclastic controversies: Arts-based research on the memorialization of the Cyprus Problem 

Nico Carpentier

The Cyprus Problem is a term that refers to a chain of armed conflicts, starting with the decolonial struggle of EOKA against the British, followed by the ethnonationalist violence after independence, then leading to the Turkish 1974 invasion and the division of the island. The cultural trauma that came out of these conflicts also had a very tangible translation through the production of a multitude of memorials and commemoration sites, on both sides of the divide. Using arts-based research, this nomadic research project offers a visual, theoretically-supported analysis of these memorials, how they often connect to (and strengthen) antagonistic nationalism, but also how—in rare cases—they offer counter-hegemonic possibilities by articulating a peace discourse. The analysis also juxtaposes the memorials from north and south, showing the uncanny similarities in how they both represent the Self and the Enemy-Other.

Nico Carpentier is Extraordinary Professor at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic), Chief Research Fellow at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Lithuania) and President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (2020-2024). His theoretical focus is on discourse theory, his research is situated in the relationship between communication, politics and culture, especially towards social domains as war & conflict, ideology, participation and democracy. His latest monographs are The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation (2017, Peter Lang, New York) and Iconoclastic Controversies: A Photographic Inquiry into Antagonistic Nationalism (2021, Intellect, Bristol).

http://nicocarpentier.net/

Foto siin: http://www.nicocarpentier.net/temp/Nico.tif

Fieldwork in/on/through Non-beloved Heritage – curator’s notes from eastern and western European fringes

Inês Moreira (Lab2PT-UMinho, Portugal)

The year 2022 has been a period of rising tension and awareness on war, conflict and its consequences in Europe, and elsewhere. The sociopolitical and cultural situation has led us to look upon past events and to non-beloved legacies of conflict from the last century.

For some years I have been doing research and curatorial projects around postindustrial sites in Eastern and Western Europe, from Gdańsk to Ave Valley. Some sites embody the material and symbolic legacy of eastern political past, some encapsulate military and security secrecy – industry and the military systems have close articulation.

This talk shares field notes and some theoretical references collected in the last couple of years, which were devoted to fieldwork inquiry and to nomadic research around (what we perceive as) sites in the European geographical fringes. Focusing on ecologies, settlements, memorials and other symbolic and artistic legacies of military and post-socialist past, it is a modest visual and urban cultures contribution to address and relate to non-beloved heritage.

Bio:

Inês Moreira is a Principal Researcher in Visual Arts at Lab2PT-University of Minho, Portugal. She completed a Postdoctoral project at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2016-2022) and created the research cluster Curating the Contemporary: on Architectures, Territories and Networks (2018-21). PhD in Curatorial/Knowledge (University of London), Master in Urban Culture (Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya/CCCB) and Architect (FAUP).

She is an active member of cultural and academic European projects, such as European Forum for Advanced Practices, and Press Here, a Living Archive of European Industry.

inesmoreira.org

Exhibition of the fall semester’s one-week workshop “Clog—wooden soled sandals” by the Department of Accessory and Bookbinding, Estonian Academy of Arts. The students made their unique footwear out of recycled textiles and industrial leftovers or scrap materials.

Participants:
Angela Aavik, Helina Raud, Hanna Eliise Lahe, Jürgen Sinnep, Katarina Nemcova, Liis Tisler, Marie Willfort, Natalia Wojewnik

Tutor: Kristiina Nurk

Technician: Sirle Rohusaar

Exhibition is open every day from 12-18 in
Estonian Design House +, 0. Floor, Suur-Karja 14, Tallinn

‘It’s Lonely in the Metaverse’
Egle Ehtjen, Kelli Gedvil, Kristen Rästas, Sten Saarits
11.11.–11.12.2022
Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art 

Four artists will create an audiovisual participatory exhibition in the hall of the Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art, exploring the soul of the ‘metaverse’, a recently popular medium that uses various spatial and virtual reality technologies. Platforms for virtual worlds are a hot topic both in the crypto world and, increasingly, in the ‘normal world’, through ‘fear-of-missing-out’ advertising campaigns promising new social, investment and entertainment environments on the internet. Behind the exaggerated promises of the future, however, today’s meta-worlds besides their edgy commercial undertones are lonely, not that interactive, and full of digital gambling and collective tokens. ‘It’s Lonely in the Metaverse’ is the interpretation by the four artists of the significant contrast between the advertising hurricane and the virtual landscapes that fall into its shadow.

Graphic design: Henri Kutsar

The artists would like to thank: Markus Tiitus, Alexei Gordin, Ian-Simon Märjama, Hendo Kidron, Leegi Kiis, Marek Gedvil, Tiina Vändre, Laura Suur, Anna-Liisa Männik, Ingrid Algma, Ingrid Kääramees, Linda Zupping, Jüri Ruut, Mirko Känd, Erko Ever, Kristjan Koskor, Anni Koskor, Katarina Koskor, Ander Koskor, Kennet Lekko, Estonian Academy of Arts

The exhibition remains open until 11th of December, Tue–Sun 3–6pm.

This exhibition is funded by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Location: Rapla County Centre for Contemporary Art. Tallinna st 3b (3rd floor of Espak building), Rapla

“It’s like the earth it is our body it is our bed”

Sara Blosseville

We are very excited to announce our next exhibition: a solo presentation by artist Sara Blosseville.

Sara Blosseville is a French artist living in the woods of Vantaa. She works mainly with images, sculpture and publishing. She graduated from University of the Arts Helsinki in 2021.

This solo exhibition features works part of her ongoing sculpture project « Children of Compost », which is an exploration of the material world as a fecund humus at different states of growth and decomposition, where all the bodies and objects are considered as holders of life energy. The aim is to use only material that she makes, grows, finds, that’s recycled or second-hand, and the starting point for has been giving a new life to beautiful objects crafted by her farmer elders.

The show will run Nov 17 – 22 14.00-18.00, with an opening reception at 6pm on Thursday, November 17.