OPEN LECTURE: footwear designer Aki Choklat

EKA Accessory and Bookbinding Department is inviting all the footwear design lovers to an open lecture “The Aki Method: Surviving as a Designer in Today’s World” on Thursday, 3rd of March at 4-5 p.m. to EKA, room A-101.

The lecture is about how to live a successful design life in a world full of challenges through Aki Choklat’s prism. He will share his history, philosophy and experience in the design industries including education. 

Aki Choklat is a fashion and footwear design professional with experience in all levels of the industry, from design to production. He is a Royal College of Art graduate, and the Founding Chair of Fashion Design Department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. He has held numerous positions with top-tier, international fashion labels, such as designing a capsule footwear collection for London-based menswear Diverso and consulted with numerous brands, such as Finnish footwear heritage brand Lahtiset. In addition, he directs his own London-based label of shoes, handbags and accessories. He helped establish and lead the footwear and accessories master program at Polimoda, Italy’s leading fashion school with Ferruccio Ferragamo at the helm, and has taught at the London College of Fashion and De Montfort University. Choklat is also a celebrated author of many design books, one of which – “Footwear Design” – is considered the authority on shoe design.

Aki Choklat’ veeb

Aki Choklat Instagram

CCS Fashiondesign Instagram

College for Creative Studies

This lecture is part of the EKA Accessories and Bookbinding Department jubilee exhibition and other event series.

Exhibition “Perspectives” is open from 6- 31st of March at Põhjala tehas Sepikoja gallery (Marati 5, Tallinn). Information about rest of the events will be updated in web and social media continuously: 

EKA aksessuaar 105

EKA aksessuaaridisain Instagram

The lecture is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment and the Baltic-American Freedom Foundation (BAFF).

Open lecture will be held in English without translation. 

The lecture will be recorded and it will be rerun on EKA TV.

Matthias Sildnik „Development Fever”
04—26.03
Opening: 04.03 at 5 pm

 Join us for the opening of „Development Fever“ by Matthias Sildnik on March 4, at 5 pm at EKA Gallery! The exhibition is part of the Art and Design PhD curriculum studies and runs until March 26. 

Our research results indicate that human consciousness is dysfunctional. Memory, perception and attention are setting limitations not only to the volume but also to the functions that the information contains. In addition, an even more troubling problem has emerged. A spectre of nationalism is lurking in the subconscious sections of the human psyche. Human consciousness is critical and paranoid. It doesn’t draw conclusions only from the proven facts. Speculation and critical analysis have become dangerous in the era of post-truth. We can only draw one conclusion if we take these threats seriously.

The evolutionary conditioned human mind has become a limiting factor for economic and political developments. Only radical innovation and revolutionary technology can tame the dangers of the human mind. If we could only bypass the consciousness, and feed relevant information directly to the executive parts of the brain. Disconnecting the psyche from executive autonomy is the utmost challenge. The consciousness would be isolated and will remain in the state of a passive observer. From there, it’s just a matter of fine-tuning and tying together the occasional loose ends. Do we identify parts in the brain from which the consciousness emerges and remove them? Or we could feed the consciousness with randomized noise such as entertainment, local newsfeed or audiobooks by Michel Foucault. Then they have time to think about “How to explain human nature to Foucault?”.”

But let us not get carried away by the future prospects. Neither technology nor political economy is advanced enough to achieve this during the next five years. At the time being our main strategy is to subvert and erode the evolutionary stratum of consciousness. We must use state of the art technologies, namely AI and social media to be successful at this. In addition, we need to mobilize the mass of young and underdeveloped individuals who possess incredible techno-revolutionary potential. This mass shall be empowered and organized by the neuro-pioneers movement. Neuropioneers are the developers of mind whose slogan shall be ”Deautonomize! Deorganize! Dementalize!”. Our main function during this period is the coordination and deployment of information and psychological operations. But we must not forget that only youth can accomplish the final denazification of the human mind.

PS

This cyber-bolshevist brainstorm belongs to the authors’ ongoing PhD artistic research project that probes similarities between technological capitalism and Leninism. Usually, digital developments are analyzed within the framework of criticism of capitalism. Nevertheless ideas such as digital Maoism (Jaron Lanier), Google Marxism (George Gilder), digital Gulag/Google archipelago, corporate socialism (Michael Rectenwald) and woke capitalism (Ross Douthat), describe tendencies within technological developments that are closer to socialist totalitarianism than to free-market economies. This exhibition consists of forms that emerge when these two opposing currents crossbreed and give life to an entirely new existence.

Matthias Sildnik (b. 1987) has graduated from the Installation and Sculpture department BA (2010) and MA (2014) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. His work has been exhibited in Estonia and abroad in solo and group shows. Sildnik studies the impact of high technology on daily life. He uses mediums such as digital graphics, statistical analysis and installation as dissociative synthesis environment. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Participate in the ongoing authors’ research and fill in the Working Environment Development form here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewxCqDpGXswDpm0CEPBpeywQiMlBceBKFq05Ry4MXXxwwFmg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0

Previous projects and methodological overview can be further explored here: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/721404/800739

Matthias Sildnik „Development Fever”
04—26.03
Opening: 04.03 at 5 pm
EKA Gallery, Kotzebue 1, Tue-Sat 12—6 pm

Join us for the opening of „Development Fever“ by Matthias Sildnik on March 4, at 5 pm at EKA Gallery! The exhibition is part of the Art and Design PhD curriculum studies and runs until March 26. 

The feeling like you’re downloading a new app. Anticipation, tension, satisfaction. The new information is without taste, smell and brightly coloured. Sometimes causing anxiety, sometimes joy, surprise or anger. Consuming digital information has become as natural as eating. Forgetting to eat results in hunger. Information hunger causes anxiety.
Human consciousness as a knowledge-consuming system is limited. Memory, sense and attention are setting limitations not only to the volume but also to the functions of the information. Human consciousness is critical and paranoid, it doesn’t draw conclusions only from facts. Speculation and critical analysis have become dangerous in the era of post-truth. We can only draw one conclusion if we take these threats seriously.
Having evolved through evolution, human consciousness now limits social and economic development. Only radical innovation and revolutionary technology can tame its dangers. If we could send the truth pass the consciousness directly to executive parts, we could call off the news channels. Disconnecting consciousness from executive autonomy is the hardest part. It would be separate, just an observer, without its harmfulness. From here, it’s just a matter of carrying it out. Do we identify parts in the brain causing consciousness to remove them? Or we could channel randomised noise, old news or audiobooks by Foucault straight to the consciousness. Then they have time to think “How to explain human nature to Foucault?”.

PS
This cyber-bolshevist brainstorm belongs to the artistic research project that probes similarities between technological capitalism and Leninism. Usually, digital developments are analyzed within the framework of criticism of capitalism. Nevertheless ideas such as digital Maoism (Jaron Lanier), Google Marxism (George Gilder), digital Gulag/Google archipelago, corporate socialism (Michael Rectenwald) and woke capitalism (Ross Douthat), describe tendencies within technological developments that are closer to socialist totalitarianism than to free-market economies. This exhibition consists of forms that emerge when these two opposing currents crossbreed and give life to entirely new existence.

Matthias Sildnik (b. 1987) has graduated from the Installation and Sculpture department BA (2010) and MA (2014) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. His work has been exhibited in Estonia and abroad in solo and group shows. Sildnik studies the impact of high technology on daily life. He uses mediums such as digital graphics, statistical analysis and installation as dissociative synthesis environment. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Art and Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Between 28.02–6.3 an international master class “Expedition to Narva” will take place under the leadership of Ene-Liis Semper, Professor of Scenography at EKA, which will end with a pop-up exhibition on March 4.

The workshop will take place in cooperation with the good partners of EKA: Paris ENSAD, Helsinki Uniarts and Vilnius Academy of Arts. In addition to Ene-Liis Semper, the course will be supervised by Patrick Laffont de Lojo from ENSAD, in addition, the workshop will also be assisted by Maria Hansar, PhD students at EKA and Madlen Hirtentreu.

Ene-Liis Semper has commented the upcoming workshop as follows: “Narva is a town with a strange time shift. We are going to Narva, we are researching local conditions, we are working on site-specific installations or videos, we are making summaries and a pop-up exhibition at the Narva Estonian House.

The exhibition “Open Windows” will reopen on the windows of the Library of EKA on February 21, at 4 pm.

Through the exhibition of EKA windows, different specialities of EKA introduce their most outstanding projects and the latest creations of students. The exhibition can be viewed on the windows of the EKA Library on Põhja pst and Kotzebue streets and will remain open until March 14.

Specialities represented: Installation and Sculpture, Room Design, Product and Environmental design, Visual Communication, Photography, Jewellery and Blacksmithing, Scenography, Fashion Design, Textile Design, Accessory Design, Graphics, Graphic Design, Animation, Ceramics, Industrial and Digital Product Design, Glass, Architecture, Interior Design, Painting, Art and Visual Culture, Cultural Heritage and Conservation

The exhibition of open windows of EKA made its debut in 2021 and received a warm welcome from those interested in art and art education. The Estonian Academy of Arts, located on the edge of Kalamaja, will once again enliven the city’s cultural landscape at street level. Get with it! 

The series of open architecture lectures will take place this spring under the title “Close enough” and will bring architects from Latvia and Lithuania to the stage in Tallinn. We will examine how our neighbours operate topics arising from similar built environments and history. The lectures are intended for students and professionals from any and all disciplines – not just in the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English and free of charge.

On March 31, the Latvian architectural collective ĒTER, led by Kārlis Bērziņš, Dagnija Smilga and Niklāvs Paegle, will arrive in Tallinn. ĒTER is an architectural practice founded in 2018 in Riga, focusing on space inspired by nature, technology and modern culture. When looking at the city, culture and living patterns, they preferably move in uncharted areas. As a natural part of the architectural firm, they see strategic and conceptual thinking, inventing their own tasks and involving international experts. ETER are architects, researchers and teachers whose fields range from the Baltic coast to the Alps.

Why are the Baltics our focus for this spring? Read lecture series’ curator Johan Tali’s short interview to find out.

The series of open architecture lectures will take place this spring under the title “Close enough” and will bring architects from Latvia and Lithuania to the stage in Tallinn. We will examine how our neighbours operate topics arising from similar built environments and history. The lectures are intended for students and professionals from any and all disciplines – not just in the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English and free of charge.

The first lecture in the lecture series will be on March 3 at 6 pm by Petras Išora and Ona Lozuraitytė, who launched Isora x Lozuraityte Studio for Architecture in Vilnius in 2014. Creative duo exercise a cooperative practice, linking the spheres of architecture, public infrastructure, art, ecology, landscape. The two designers have been engaged in a number of interdisciplinary collaborations at a variety of scales, both nationally and internationally. The studio is characterised by cooperation and collaboration with other practises or subjects in art and architectural fields, is focused on urban narratives, public spaces, landscape projects, public infrastructure, social and cultural projects, experiments with the matter in exhibition, interior design, exterior and architecture of the wider environment.

NB! This lecture is part of the EAA Open Day program, the rest of the program can be found here.

The rest of this Spring’s architecture lecture programme can be found here.

“Slow Manoeuvres”
The Youth Exhibition of 18th Tallinn Print Triennial

On Friday 25th of February at 18.00 The Youth Exhibition of 18th Tallinn Print Triennial “Slow Manoeuvres” will be opened on the first floor of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM). The exhibition will remain open until 11th of March.

The Youth Exhibition is the satellite event of Tallinn Print Triennial traditionally curated and organised by young artists. In this edition the main focus of the exhibition is on artists that use printmaking but alongside them also artists whose practice varies from textile to text.

The current exhibition concentrates on those young artists who, in their work, deal with slow and sustainable practices or with sustaining identity and humanic values in a world with rising levels of anxiety. Thoughts about coping with the present and questioning the possibility of the future are apparent in their work through the contacts they have with themselves and their surroundings.

“Slow Manoeuvres” are slow and thoughtful movements – takeoff with a notion of the importance of the journey. Artists are keeping their focus close to them. They create from and recreate what already exists and, through fragility, small narratives and insignificant techniques seek ways to move on.

Curators: Riin Maide (EKA Contemporary Art, MA) and Brit Kikas (EKA Contemporary Art, MA)

Artists: EKA Master’s students in Contemporary Art Sophie Durand, Lily Marleen Bloodshed, Maria Izabella Lehtsaar, Rodion Furs; Master of Contemporary Art Jose Aldemar Muños; Master of Textiles Ingrid Helena Pajo; EKA Graphics’ students Ella-Mai Matsina, Merilyn Lempu; and Saara Liis Jõerand

The author of the graphic design is Cristopher Siniväli and the text editor is Kristiine Kikas.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Fine Arts department and the Graphic arts department of Estonian Academy of Arts, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia.

We would really like to thank Artsmart, Cristo Madissoo, Dana Loren Vares, Eve Kask,  Jaanus Odras, Jamie Avis, Kelly Kütt, Kirke Kangro, Liina Siib, Ligia Fernandes, Maria Erikson, Maris Paal, Paul Rannik, Sveta bar, Tallinn Print Triennial, VAAT brewery.

The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme. 

Curatorial tours:
02.03.2022 at 6 pm in Estonian

09.03.2022 at 6 pm in English

On Friday, 4th of March 2022 at 4pm a screen printing workshop will be held where participants have a possibility to try out silkscreen printing with natural or homemade inks. 

The exhibition and public programme is free for everyone. Due to the limited number of places for the workshop, we ask you to register in advance on the FOLLOWING LINK

We can only welcome visitors who present a proof of being vaccinated against or recovered from Covid-19.

Wearing a mask is mandatory!

EKKM, Kursi 5, Tallinn.

The exhibition is open:
26.02.–11.03.2022
Tue–Fri  2 pm–7 pm
Sat–Sun 12 am–7 pm

______

riin.maide@artun.ee
brit.kikas@artun.ee +372 5343 7533

On Tuesday, February 22, at 6 pm, Adrià Carbonell will give a public lecture “Contra Naturam: The Emergence of Modern Urbanism in Barcelona” in the hall of EKA (A-101)

Adrià Carbonell is an architect and urbanist. He is a lecturer in architecture at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and has previously lectured at KU Leuven, Tallinn University of Technology, Umeå Universitet, and the American University of Sharjah. He is co-founder of the research collaborative Aside, where he writes on the interplay between architecture, territory, politics and the environment. He has co-edited the book Infrastructural Love: Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems (Birkhäuser, 2022). His writings have been published in PLAN, ACE: Architecture, City and Environment, ZARCH Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, San Rocco, MONU, Cartha, among others. His current research addresses two guiding questions in innovative urbanism: how to reframe cosmopolitical spatial practices and how to challenge existing urban inequalities through processes of territorial redistribution.

Lecture is in English and open to the public.

The lecture will also be broadcast on EKA TV

The lecture is organized by the Faculty of Architecture of EKA together with the Estonian Association of Architects.

The lecture is supported by European Regional Development Fund.

Julius Pristauz’ Open Lecture “What is a performer without a stage? ” on February 17, 2 pm in room C201.

The spectrum of Julius Pristauz‘ work spans artistic and curatorial activities, all connected through an active interest for the construction and gender aspect of identities.  

For this guest lecture, Pristauz will give an introduction into his own artistic practice and talk about selected exhibition projects and recent collaborations. Addressing issues of representation and visibility, he will consider different modes of exhibiting. Hybridity and sharing are key strategies in Pristauz’ work. Therefore the talk should lead into an open discussion in which we can reflect on the state of young contemporary art together.