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.