Ongoing Research Projects

The keywords that link the research directions and grants related to the Estonian Academy of Arts are practice, technology, theory, society and culture. In addition to the high-ranking research projects in traditional humanities – in art history, visual culture and Soviet Studies – the Academy has set its priority to be artistic (practice-based) research. At the Academy artistic research can connote different means of knowledge production, depending on the specific field of study: artistic research in contemporary art, design research, design practice research in architecture and urban design, practice-based research in conservation and cultural heritage. Artistic research is experimental, cross-disciplinary and process-oriented. Its criteria are applicability, innovativeness, level to which the creative activity communicates with and/or engages the public. Among other things, artistic research deals with research into the relationships between art and contemporary society, including the possibilities of contemporary art to participate in societal processes or to support the processes using creation of specific knowledge.

“Art Historical Contact Zones” (EKA Research Grant, 2023–2024)

The project “Art Historical Contact Zones: Popular and Fictional Mediations of Art History in Estonia” explores the relationship between art history and the public sphere – the non-academic forms that art writing can take: various fiction and ...

ACuTe – Cultural testbeds for performing arts and new technology

ACuTe, a pioneering digital theatre project across Europe, has EKA as one of its partner organizations. Project aims to transform the way theatre and performing arts are created and presented using emerging ...

Developing self and relational awareness through multi-sensorial textile artifacts that invite movement

Moving Aware-ables looks for methods for designing multi-sensory textile objects that would invite for contemplative movement. Contemplative movement for developing self and relational awareness has great potential for caring for one’s ...

Project WOODMEADOWLIFE

The Estonian-Latvian joint LIFE project (LIFE20 NAT/EE/000074) “Restoring and promoting a long-term sustainable management of Fennoscandian wooded meadows in Estonia and Latvia” focuses on the restoration of wooded meadows in ...

LIFE IP BuildEST

In view of Estonia's climate goals, the Estonian Academy of Arts participates in the international project Life IP BUILDEST (2021 - 2028), the task of which is to show direction and give impetus to the complete renovation of private houses built ...

Maroš Krivý awarded a MSCA fellowship to research history of contemporary urbanism at the CCA

Professor Maroš Krivý (Urban Studies, Faculty of Architecture) has started a three-year research project, funded through a Marie Curie-Skłodowska fellowship (project acronym URBENV), on the history of ...

FAST45 – Futures Art School Trends 2045

In 2045 the world as we know it will look very different. Although we cannot predict the future, we can shape it. FAST45 (Futures Art School Trends 2045) recognises the potential of the creativity and imaginative ...

Transform4Europe presents: Animation Online Course by EKA Summer Academy

Dates: 11–17 August 2021 Duration: 5 days Closing date for application: 1 August 2021

Transform4Europe – T4EU

Transform4Europe (The European University for Knowledge Entrepreneurs) is an ...

“Forecast and Fantasy in Late Soviet Architecture” (PUT, 2020–2023)

The research project “Forecast and Fantasy in Late Soviet Architecture” proposes to write a history of fantasy in Late-Soviet architecture, focusing on its mediating role in the transformative effects of postwar modernisation. From the 1960s ...

“Patterns of Development in Estonian Culture of the Transition Period (1986–1998)” (PUT 2020–2024)

The research project “Patterns of Development in Estonian Culture of the Transition Period (1986–1998)” sets out to investigate the cultural processes at work in Estonia between 1986 and 1998, a time-frame known as the transition period, ...

Publishing the ‘History of Estonian Art’ (1999–2024)

Publishing the multi-volume History of Estonian Art was initiated in 1999. It ...

“Image or Sign: A Phenomenological Study of Pictorial Representation” (MOBJD, 2017–2020)

The aim of my project is to defend the originality of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological account of pictorial representation and to ...

Readdressing Practices and Theories of Experimentation in the 20th- and 21st-Century Estonian Visual and Spatial Culture

The main aim of this project is to analyze experiment in Estonian visual and spatial culture, and to investigate its role in official economic and ...

“Remembering Difficult Knowledge in the Baltic Visual Culture” (MOBJD, 2019–2021)

This research program focuses on how difficult knowledge has been transmitted in the visual culture of the Baltic States, in works of visual art, documentary films and exhibitions about the Second World War and its aftermath. The analysis ...

Fashion SEEDS – Fashion Societal, Economic & Environmental Design-led Sustainability

Fashion SEEDS is a project led by world leading institutions in Fashion Education spanning over the course of three years. It seeks to develop a Design-led Framework for ...

Bernt Notke: The Research and Conservation of the Retable of the Church of the Holy Spirit

The late medieval retable of the High Altar of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn, is an outstanding masterpiece of woodcarving and painting of international renown, completed in 1483 in the workshop of Bernt Notke, a prominent master of ...

Tallinn Old Town: Sustainable Management and Presentation

The aim of the research is to analyse the impact of increasing tourism on cultural heritage and to find solutions to promote Tallinn Old Town as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, while preserving its dignity and values. The main goal of the project ...

Algorithmic Processes in Wood in Architecture and Design

Research staff: Sille Pihlak, Siim Tuksam Duration: 2016–2020 Financed by Estonian Academy of Arts

Unfinished City

Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture alongside Kapitel (former E.L.L Real Estate) are initiating a research program entitled the Unfinished City. Invited researchers and specialists alongside faculty members, researcher fellows and ...

Compiling and Publishing of a Glossary of Architecture

The aim of the project is to compile and publish an illustrated comprehensive glossary of architectural terms to have a reliable source and manual for engineers, architects, art historians, conservators and others. The glossary would ...

Estonian Churches: Development, Improvement and Completion of the Construction History, Conservation and Research Database (phase 2)

The aim of creating the Estonian churches’ database was to provide an internet environment accessible to the scholars, conservators and the broader public and brings together all information on the ...

Development of the Discipline of Technical Art History for the Analysis of Cultural Heritage in Estonia

Technical art history is an interdisciplinary field of heritage studies combining methods from arts and sciences and uses contemporary information and communication technology (ICT) for acquiring, processing, archiving, contextualising and ...

Studies of the Estonian 20th-Century Built Environment

This project contains two main focuses: the study of the 20th-century construction history, construction materials and their preservation on the one hand, and the analysis of the heritage aspects in the planning policies ...