Calendar

11.07.2026–25.10.2026

From 11 July, Tartu Art Museum’s project space will present Kaisa Maasik’s solo exhibition The Lightness of Being as part of the Young Tartu exhibition series.

Kaisa Maasik’s solo exhibition The Lightness of Being focuses on ordinary yet beautiful moments that are easy to overlook. These may be a fleeting smile between two strangers, the first day after a long winter when you can finally swap your boots for sneakers, or the sound of rain tapping on a windowsill that briefly wakes you in the night before lulling you back to sleep. Maasik’s works are rooted in observation and attentiveness, bringing together collected moments and everyday observations shared by different people. Against the backdrop of rapid information flows and constant competition for our attention in digital environments, the exhibition invites visitors to slow down and notice what usually remains in the background – situations that could happen to any of us and that remind us that life is largely made up of such small, genuine moments.

The Young Tartu exhibition series was launched in 2017 with the aim of promoting and supporting the work of emerging artists connected to Tartu. Previous participants in the programme have included Sten Eltermaa, Keiu Maasik, Mirjam Hinn, Siiri Jüris, Nele Marie Tiidelepp, Tõnis Jürgens and Viktoria Berezina.

Kaisa Maasik’s exhibition will take place in the project space on the third floor of the Tartu Art Museum from 11 July to 25 October 2026.

Kaisa Maasik (b. 1994) is an artist and curator based in Tallinn. She graduated from the Contemporary Art Programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2021) and from the Photography Department (BA, 2017). In 2019, she furthered her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in the Praxis curatorial master’s programme. Collaboration plays an important role in Maasik’s practice; she works both collectively and independently on projects that often take the form of spatial artworks. She focuses on the feelings and experiences of people she encounters, seeking to convey their stories through objects and memories. Collecting is central to Maasik’s methodology, drawing primarily on everyday life. She was a member of the Umbrella Group (2016–2017) and has been involved in the organising teams of the project space Vent Space (2018–2019) and the Tallinn Photomonth Biennial (2017 and 2019). In 2020, Maasik was awarded the Wiiralt Scholarship. In spring 2021, she participated in the FAIR residency at FABRIKKEN in Copenhagen. Maasik has been a member of the Estonian Union of Photography Artists since 2021 and of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 2022.

Artist: Kaisa Maasik
Curator: Stella Mõttus
Graphic designer: Kersti Heile
Supporters: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Ledzep OÜ
Exhibition team: Indrek Grigor, Joanna Hoffmann, Rene Kriisa, Katariina Leets, Katrin Lõoke, Anti Saar, Peeter Talvistu
Video clip credits: Arvi Anderson, Jana Arendi, Katariina Aule, Andrus Avarand, Yvette Bathgate, Marleen Eino, Alexei Gordin, Yiheng Gu, Viktor Gurov, Liisa-Lota Jõeleht, Erik Jürmann, Pirke Kaljula, Piret Klea-Velleste, Karel Koplimets, Nele Kurvits, Epp Kuslap, Kadri Lind, Maria Luiga, Mariel Luuk, Heiki Maasik, Katariin Mudist, Stella Mõttus, Reigo Nahksepp, Urmet Piiling, Evelyn Raudsepp, Mari-Liis Rebane, Yiyang Sun, Maryliis Teinfeldt-Grins, Annika Toots, Tõnu Tunnel, Simona Tätte, Lotte Ugandi, Ruudu Ulas, Pille-Riin Valk, Eliisabet Valmas, Sten Vendik, Helen Västrik

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“silent resonance” is an exhibition in which ceramics and sound meet not through direct “musicality,” but through behaviour: how ceramic form, mass, surface, and emptiness affect the space we perceive. A work may function like an acoustic organism – one piece absorbing sound through matte, porous surfaces and soft edges; another reflecting it through glossy glaze, tense arches, and hard surfaces; a third dispersing it through rhythmic reliefs and fragmented geometry.

Air is an essential quality of the works: the invisible volume held inside the ceramic is like a lung or chamber, giving the object internal tension and presence. Openings, necks, edges, lids, and mouths create the impression that an object could resonate – even if it does not actually make a sound. The focus therefore shifts from sound as content – melody, recording, performance – to sound as a quality: resonance, silence, reverberation, and dampening.

Silence becomes the exhibition’s supporting material. “Silence” as a formal decision – an omitted detail, a break in a pattern – and “listening” as a way of looking. The viewer does not need to listen with their ears; it is enough for the work to make them perceive the space differently: more slowly, more closely, and more attentively.

“silent resonance” is not a conventional ceramics exhibition where visitors are expected to keep their distance from seemingly fragile works. On the contrary, visitors can physically engage with many of the pieces: approach them, view them from different angles, and discover details that only become visible up close. Several works can even be gently touched, moved, and used to produce sound. This interactivity is not a “game,” but a way of listening to the space and the work through the body: how the direction of openings, the depth of inner voids, the roughness of surfaces, or glazed areas become perceptible only through closer engagement.

A quiet resonance emerges when looking becomes a form of attention akin to listening.

Organizer: Estonian Ceramists’ Association

Curator: Cristopher Siniväli

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Bellus Furniture OÜ, Nudist Participating artists: Mari Ait, Ingrid Allik, Kaja Altvee, Merike Hallik, Kadi Hektor, Elize Hiiop, Eve Hint, Jarõna Ilo, Sergei Isupov, Kadri Jäätma, Tiina Kaljuste, Karin Kalman, Üllo Karro, Kersti Karu, Lauri Kilusk, Milvi Korela, Jaana Kormashov, Külli Kõiv, Kristel Kärdi, Triinu Maide-Safin, Margit Mald, Maia Noorväli, Ann Nurga, Aigi Orav, Clelia Piirsoo, Urmas Puhkan, Rave Puhm, Kadri Pärnamets, Anne Pärtna, Rita Randma, Ene Raud-Mägi, Sander Raudsepp, Aino Saan, Maarika Saarelaht, Kärt Seppel, Marget Tafel-Vahtra, Katri Taklaja, Ene Tapfer, Annika Teder, Margit Terasmees, Helena Tuudelepp, Triin Türnpuu, Mart Vaarpuu, Helle Videvik

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A joint exhibition by the EKA Textile Department and Kreenholm textile artists on the process of printed-fabric making

Opening at Narva Art Residency on September 5th 16:00, From Sketch to Printed Fabric brings together archival materials by Kreenholm textile artists and contemporary printed fabrics by students of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition looks at the process behind printed textiles: how a repeat is constructed, how a sketch develops into a printable fabric, and how colour separation and registration shape the final result.

The exhibition presents works and archival materials by Kreenholm textile artists from 1960–2000, including sketches, repeats, colour studies, print proofs and fabrics. Alongside them are large-scale digital prints by EKA Textile Department students, designed in relation to Kreenholm’s historical repeat dimensions of 640 and 914 mm and bringing contemporary themes and perspectives into the exhibition.

An installative printing table with technical samples introduces the screen-printing process from idea to printed fabric. Visitors can also experiment with creating their own patterns and immediately see how they work in repetition.

Opening: 5 September 2026
Exhibition: 6 September 2026–10 January 2027
Location: Narva Art Residency (NART)

Curator: Alyona Movko-Mägi
Exhibition design: Eva Reiska

Works and archival materials by Kreenholm textile artists, 1960–2000

Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Textile Design
Artists: Rosena Marju Melvin, Annabel Mustasaar, Ethel Noortoots, Karin Sarv, Hannah Parman, Katriin Tammoja, Getlin Tammoja, Eliisa Leppik, Marta Velda Loos, Freia Mugra, Lisandra Murumets, Helena-Mai Posti

Tutors: Krista Leesi and Piret Valk

Supporters and partners: Estonian Academy of Arts, EKA Textile Design, Cultural Endowment of Estonia / Eesti Kultuurkapital, Narva Art Residency (NART)

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On Friday, 11 September, at 6pm, Editorial (Latako 3, Vilnius) will open the exhibition Familiar Stranger, curated by Milda Januševičiūtė. The exhibition is part of the Vilnius Gallery Weekend programme.

Familiar Stranger brings together works by Zuza Banasińska, Loora Kaubi, Sarah Neumann and Milda Januševičiūtė, to look at memory as an unstable process through which personal and collective identities are continually reconstructed. The exhibition lingers between family histories, inherited images, bodily memory and digital archives, asking what happens when the past reaches out through fragments: a story repeated by relatives, an image whose details no longer agree, a gesture inherited without explanation, or a file stored somewhere in the clouds. Memory here is less an archive of what happened, and more an ongoing negotiation between what is remembered, forgotten, altered and passed on.

The exhibition is interested in the shift between embodied and externalised memory. What was once held in stories, objects and bodies increasingly also exists on corporate servers, accessible through passwords, subscriptions and infrastructures that we rarely see. Forgetting may be a basic condition of being human; data storage has made it into a service.

Rather than treating memory as reliable evidence, Familiar Stranger considers how remembering is shaped by repetition, omission, technology, and the moment from which it looks back. The familiar can return slightly changed; someone else’s memory can quietly enter our own; an inherited story can feel simultaneously intimate and strangely foreign. The exhibition does not propose the recovery of an original, intact past. Instead, it asks how to live with what remains, what has already been rewritten, and what we choose, or allow other systems, to remember for us.

The exhibition can be seen at Editorial (Latako 3, Vilnius) until 24 October.

Familiar Stranger
Artists: Zuza Banasińska, Milda Januševičiūtė, Loora Kaubi, Sarah Neumann
Curator: Milda Januševičiūtė
Architect: Ona Juciūtė
Designer: Monika Janulevičiūtė
Language Editor: Joseph Everatt

The exhibition is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture
The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events: follow us for updates at www.editorial.lt.

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On Tuesday, 22 September, an exhibition titled Loose Knots by the Estonian architecture practice LLRRLLRR opens at the architecture gallery VI PER in Prague.

Laura Linsi and Roland Reemaa (LLRRLLRR) present three projects that draw inspiration from traditional practices of reuse and adaptation, the robustness characteristic of the Baltic landscape, and collectively emerging pedagogies. The exhibition explores alternative paths to the norms established within the architectural profession. Through their projects, LLRRLLRR seek to question prevailing tastes, funding models, and established practices of architectural competitions and commissioning processes, which have become central to shaping architectural practice.

In addition to the duo’s projects, the exhibition presents the works produced during Paraply, an architecture summer workshop that Laura and Roland led in Copenhagen. The exhibition features works by Estonian textile artist Johanna Ulfsak and English-Belgian artist Chris Evans, with whom the architects collaborate closely on numerous projects.

Laura Linsi and Roland Reemaa teach diploma studios at the Estonian Academy of Arts and at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Roland is a visiting professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts, while Laura is editor-in-chief of the Estonian architecture magazine MAJA. Both practise as architects and work across the expanded field of spatial practice.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Embassy of Estonia in Prague.

Web:

https://www.vipergallery.org/en/exhibition/llrrllrr-loose-knots

https://llrrllrr.com

Instagram:

@llrrllrr_studio

@vipergallery

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On Thursday, 1 October, at 6:00 PM, the international group exhibition The Motorway is Clearly Audible Even with the Curtains Drawn will open at the FOKU Gallery, featuring artists Miklos Gaál (FI/NL), Katja Mater (BE/NL), and Mirjam Varik (EE). The curator of the exhibition is Tuukka Kaila (FI/EE).

The exhibition proposes an understanding of space as actively produced by those who experience it. Both intentionally and unconsciously, space is shaped through individual acts as well as shared patterns of behaviour. Rather than an empty container or passive stage, space is regarded here as an ever-changing social construct, a negotiation between its physical characteristics and their subjective interpretation.

The title of the show The motorway is clearly audible even with the curtains drawn quotes an Airbnb user review. On the platform, users share their experiences of the listed spaces with the purpose of helping others imagine what it’s like to spend time in them.

The exhibition will remain open at the FOKU Gallery until 28 November 2026.

FOKU Gallery is a gallery-showroom focused on contemporary lens-based art. FOKU Gallery is run by the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU).

Supporters:
Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Alfred Kordelin foundation

Partner:
Rüki galerii

Opening drinks by:
Mikkeller

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Mirjam Varik’s and Juulia Aleksandra Mikson’s exhibition focuses on a landscape familiar to both artists: Matsalu. Together, they observe the quiet movement of nature, which may, at first glance, appear to be a state of stillness. A flower grows in the garden bed, junipers spread along the edge of the meadow, a cloud lingers in the sky, and visible movement has come to a halt as the stillness of summer takes hold.

Both Varik and Mikson work with the medium of screen printing. They depict nature as a marker of time and space, weaving the local heritage of the Matsalu region through generations. The environment from which we have come and into which we disappear is only like this for a moment, until a ray of sunlight flashes from beyond the clouds and the Earth is once again different. The relief-like images, both in clay and on paper, refer to forms characteristic of Matsalu: clayey soil and the wind-exposed landscape, where views of the clouds are in constant flux. On the one hand, the surroundings are in perpetual transformation; on the other, they may seem uneventful to the human observer. In such a place, adaptation begins only when the viewer merges with the environment and learns to sense its natural rhythm.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Mirjam Varik (1990) studied photography at the Tartu Art College (2014) and as an exchange student at the University of Arts Linz. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in Graphic Design (2021), followed by a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art (2024). Since 2023, she has worked with screen-printing in the Department of Printmaking.

In her artistic practice, Varik articulates seemingly insignificant moments that have a lasting impact on the formation of a person. Through photography, video and installation, she explores childhood experiences and identity in a narrative manner, focusing on memories, places and phenomena.

Juulia Aleksandra Mikson (1998) studied Textile Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2022). She has also furthered her studies in fashion and styling in Cyprus and at a plant-dyeing laboratory in Italy. She completed her Master’s degree in Craft Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2025). Since 2022, she has worked as a screen-printing studio technician in the Department of Textile Design.

Juulia Aleksandra Mikson is a textile artist who explores the boundaries between materials. Her working process stems from the properties of the material, allowing the material itself to become a guide that shapes the dynamics of creation. In her liminal practice, she has combined textiles with clay as well as metal with textiles, discovering new layers in the relationships between materials. For Mikson, themes concerning the relationships between humans, the Earth and nature are of particular importance.

Graphic design: Martin Pedanik

With thanks to: EKA Department of Textile Design, EKA Department of Printmaking, Craftrag, Martin Mikson

Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Põhjala Brewery

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EKKM’s new exhibition explores the poetic and personal as a counterforce to political reality. 

On 9 October at 7 pm, the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) will open the group exhibition We Have a Land of Words [1]. Making a long-distance call to Southwest Asia, the exhibition approaches a complex subject by moving from generalised media narratives and ideological frameworks to the stories and lived experiences of individuals. Curator Evelyn Raudsepp shaped the exhibition through video interviews with Palestinian curators, drawing on the observations, experiences and reflections that emerge through personal conversations.

The exhibition brings together works by several internationally acclaimed artists whose relationships to the region are inseparable from their artistic practices. In Mona Hatoum’s work, intimate correspondence with her mother reveals how political conflict permeates even the most private domestic spheres of everyday life. Larissa Sansour’s film, which shows her family gathered around the dinner table, demonstrates just how short the distance from soup to politics can be.

Writing, storytelling, singing, and cooking can become everyday practices of resistance, sustaining connections with a land torn apart. In the hypnotic video installation by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, songs and dances carry intergenerational memory while offering ways of coping, both mentally and physically, with colonial violence. Jumana Manna’s quilted and embroidered flags weave together different forms of collective resistance, holding within it the Palestinian spirit of defiance.

Across the exhibition, words also bring lost places back into view. Forensic Architecture uses digital 3D modelling and architectural analysis to reconstruct a Palestinian historian’s home village, destroyed in 1948, from his memories and testimony. Dahaleez Collective’s sound work reimagines a street in Gaza through field recordings and local descriptions, tracing a place that has been transformed beyond recognition, both visually and sonically.

Stories from the Southwest Asia reach Estonia largely through mediated forms: conflicting news reports, statistics, and a relentless audiovisual stream of violence. The exhibition seeks to interrupt this distance by foregrounding human experience and creating possibilities for more direct forms of contact. Through the intimate act of shaping clay, a connection is forged between two artists separated by distance – one in Gaza, the other in Tallinn. Due to restrictions on the movement of both materials and people, Yasmeen Al Daya’s sculpture has been recreated in local clay by Keithy Kuuspu, in close collaboration with the artist.

New works by Estonian artists draw connections with their earlier encounters with the region. Laura Põld brings together experiences from artist residencies in Iran with discoveries from her family archive. Dénes Farkas presents photographs taken before he became an artist, including images of places in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that are now inaccessible, alongside more recent works that have circulated internationally. The exhibition’s archival layer traces the fragmented history of knowledge and perceptions of Palestine in Estonia, asking what has shaped them at different times.

The exhibition design by artist Anu Vahtra works with the historical layers embedded in EKKM’s spaces, continuing, in the museum’s anniversary year, to foreground its raw and flexible backbone – a space willing to engage with society’s uncomfortable pressure points.

We Have a Land of Words is grounded in the idea that when political reality reaches an impasse, collective imagination can act as a poetic counterforce and an active process through which we can envision both the past and the future differently – rewriting historical narratives, preserving cultural memory, and means of imagining social relationships beyond the limits imposed by political reality. If we have the possibility to create a land out of words, what kind of world do we want to build together?

Opening night programme on 9 October

18:00 Exhibition opens
18:00–20:00 Music selected by the curator
19:00 Opening remarks and an introduction to the exhibition by the curator
20:00–22:00 DJ Shah Rud b2b Dharma Doom (Shelter)

Artists: Basel Abbas ja Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Dahaleez Collective, Dénes Farkas, Forensic Architecture, Jumana Manna, Keithy Kuuspu, Larissa Sansour, Laura Põld, Mona Hatoum, Yasmeen Al Daya

Curator: Evelyn Raudsepp

Consultants: Ahmad Alaqra, Amer Shomaly, Lara Khaldi, Noor Abed, Yasmin Huleileh, Yazan Khalili,

Exhibition designer: Anu Vahtra

Public programme curators: Anita Kodanik, Sanna Kartau and Evelyn Raudsepp
Curated book corner in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts Library.
Special thanks to: Ahmad Hussein, Aline Khoury, Daniel Vaarik, Linda Kaljundi, Maria-Kristiina Soomre, OTO Museum, Paul O’Neill, Meelis Oidsalu, Sif Lindblad and others
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture, City of Tallinn

[1] The title is taken from the Estonian-language poetry collection of the same name by Mahmoud Darwish, one of Palestine’s best-known poets. It is also the only book by a Palestinian author published in Estonian. Compiled and translated by Amar Annus; published by the Estonian Language Foundation / EKSA, 2011.

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Group exhibition “Light Chimes at the Edge of Time” open in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House.

What if science fiction no longer imagines the future, but reveals a present we do not yet understand?

The exhibition brings together seven artists whose work engages with science fiction in one way or another and explores the possibilities of science fiction within the exhibition format, asking whether sci-fi has become a nostalgic image of futures that never came to pass, whether it remains a genre oriented towards and preoccupied with the future, or whether it has become something else entirely.

Since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, modern science fiction – or simply sci-fi – has stimulated the human imagination by envisioning what does not yet exist. Philosophically, science fiction is one of the most sustained experiments of the past few centuries. It connects imagination with knowledge, speculation with materiality, and asks what the world might be like if we were to alter some of its underlying assumptions. It has produced images of other planets, technologies, societies and futures. In its classic conception, science fiction is located somewhere ahead of us: in a place where reality might theoretically arrive one day. But, increasingly, it seems that the future is no longer there, ahead of us; it may be a condition we already inhabit, already projected into our present.

“What happens when a system can no longer describe reality, yet continues to produce an endless stream of descriptions? It seems that contemporary science fiction occupies precisely this point of contact, where our descriptions meet reality, spill over into it, and reality continues on. In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway wrote that the boundary between science fiction and social reality is merely an optical illusion. “Light Chimes at the Edge of Time” examines this boundary and its immediate surroundings as a place where something is taking shape, making itself visible, audible, perceptible, comprehensible or simply known,” the artists explain.

The exhibition has no single curator; its final form has emerged through a shared process of discussion and creative practice among the artists, in which the symbiosis between works creates opportunities for new worlds and new encounters.

Artists: Katrin Enni, Sandra Ernits, Marten Esko, Mihkel Ilus, Olev Kuma, Holger Loodus and Solveig Lill

Graphic design by: Tüpokompanii

Thanks: Alejandro Montes de Oca, Claudia Schnugg, Eesti kunstiakadeemia, Elena Pietrini, perekond Ernits, Hans Lillemets, Jan Schacher, Julius Thomas, Katariina Tamm, Margus Elizarov, Mihkel Raev, Mihkel Tomberg, RepliFate võrgustik, Silpa-Mary Johnson, Taavi Teevet, Tanel Paliale, Virginia Pasti

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

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“Sild/Silta”
Kuva/Tila, Helsinki, Finland
23.10.–15.11.2026
Open Tue–Sun 11–18, free entry
Opening: Thu, 22.10. at 5 pm

The exhibition, “Sild/Silta” (Bridge), brings together twenty two students from the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) and Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts (KuvA), creating connections between artistic practices and learning environments across the Gulf of Finland.

The exhibition explores the idea of a bridge as both a physical structure and a metaphor for encounter. Through shared exhibition-making, students build relationships between two neighbouring countries and two academies. The process encourages dialogue, mutual learning, and an exchange of experiences that extend beyond individual artworks. By learning how another academy presents and discusses contemporary art, students gain insight into the wider cultural contexts that shape artistic production and public engagement.

In October 2026, students from both academies come together at Kuva/Tila to present the first half of a collaboration in a shared exhibition space. The collaboration will continue in January 2027, when the same group of students presents a second exhibition at the EKA Gallery in Tallinn. Together, these two exhibitions form a living bridge (Silta, Sild) between Finland and Estonia, allowing artistic ideas, working methods, and cultural experiences to travel in both directions.

Participating artists: Eeva-Liisa Anttila, Cecilia Ebbe Belinskij, Vita Edvards, Denis Kudrjašov, ,Anetta Lukjanova, Sandra Marins, Daniel Niittymäki, Liisa Nurklik, Anna Ovtšinnikova, Jaakko Pennanen, Viljamaria Raittila, Ella Rahkonen, Paul Rannik, Kertu Rannula, Mahmood Salim, Kertu-Liisa Sarap, Marc Léger Sauvageot, Nora Schmelter, Kati Silo, Yiyang Sun, Hanna Vinter, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen
Curators: Merike Estna, Kristi Kongi, Kaisa Maasik, Päivi Takala, Salla Tykkä, Laura Wesamaa

The exhibition is supported by the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki and Nordplus.

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On 23 October at 16:00, the first public seminar of the EKA research grant “Art and Politics: Tracing the Evolution of Estonian Transition Culture” will take place in room A403.

Neeme Lopp, a researcher involved in the project, will give a presentation titled “The Question of Aesthetic Democracy.”

Over the past few years, research projects affiliated with the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) and other Estonian universities have introduced and developed the concept of aesthetic democracy. This concept has been particularly useful in analysing Estonian culture during the transition period (1986–1998), and for good reasons. In his presentation, Neeme Lopp will explore the scope and philosophical foundations of aesthetic democracy as a conceptual tool, asking how it might also be applied to other historical periods.

Everyone is warmly welcome!

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“Beyond the Veil”
EKA Billboard Gallery 24.10.–24.12.2026
Open 24/7, free admission
Opening: Friday, October 23 at 6 pm

Who is haunting the school walls, lurking beyond the veil? Hidden in the basement of the EKA library lies an archive of ghosts and restless spirits who are asking to be released. Using the archive as a starting point, the graphic design students have developed an exhibition for the EKA Billboard Gallery, which also became a publication and, finally, an exorcism. This, of course, meant that all working materials were haunted: everything was spooky.

Andrew Kuus-Hill, the curator of the exhibition, described the process: “We have enchanted 250 A3-sized prints, pasted them on the billboard, and with the phantoms by our side, performed an exorcism to set them free. Sorcerer hats will be provided on site.”

Supervisors: Andrew Kuus-Hill, Ethan Anthony Read
Workshop participants (Bachelor’s students of the Graphic Design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts): Saskia Algma, Helen Forsel, Art Kruus, Stella Maris Liiva, Deisi Anelle Poska, Anna Elisabeth Remmelg, Ann Aotäht Sarv, Ariana Sigin, Eva Ševtšenko
Graphic design: Andrew Kuus-Hill, Ethan Anthony Read

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Tallinn City.
Opening drinks provided by Põhjala Brewery.

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“A chair, a door, a rose, a spoon”
EKA Gallery 27.10.–22.11.2026
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm, free entry
Opening: Thu, 29.10. at 6 pm
Curatorial tours: Fri 30.10. at 6.30 pm (in Estonian) and 7.15 pm (in English)

The group exhibition “A chair, a door, a rose, a spoon”, curated by Kati Saarits and Hannah Segerkrantz, stems from their shared interest in practices that move between craft, applied arts and design. Gathering works from artists, designers and makers based in the Baltics and Finland, the exhibition places contemporary pieces in relationships with selected objects from local museum collections.

Functional objects tend to need bodies around them. A chair expects weight, a door ought to be opened, a rose longs for a vase, a spoon needs a hand. These things have been made to be used, looked at, lived with, inherited, displayed, collected, owned. Their functions accumulate and recede. And sometimes use remains only as a memory of use, or as a possibility.

Decorative objects have historically existed to attract, to impress, to seduce, be adorned, touched and possessed. Their beauty has never been supplementary to function, sometimes beauty was the function. Such objects were made by hands that also thought of them as pictures. Objects that served a purpose and, at the same time, refused to be reduced to it.

The exhibition “A chair, a door, a rose, a spoon” begins somewhere inside these distinctions focusing on applied arts, as if application were a compromise rather than a form of thought. These are not contradictions to be resolved, they are how the objects argue their existence. Rather than approaching craft through heritage or technique alone, this exhibition brings together designers, artists and makers whose works exist in the overlap of these practices, carrying both use-value and decorative autonomy, and asking to be read on both terms simultaneously.

A chair is hung on the peg rail, a door is opened, roses are brought inside, a spoon is placed on the table.

Participating artists and designers: Anna Larionova, Aleš Rezler, Brit Pavelson, Bruno Tomberg Studio, Carlo Raymann, Carmen Kremm, Claudia Lepik, Darja Popolitova, Garbage Kids, Hannah Segerkrantz, Helena Keskküla, Heli Juuti, Helle Gans, Hertta Kiiski & Janne Punkari, Johanna Adojaan, Juss Heinsalu, Katahana, Kati Saarits, Katrin Kask, Kay Shek, Kirsikka Tuuli, Kärt Ojavee, Maarja Mäemets, Maile Grünberg, Mariam Mestvirishvili, Marite Kuus-Hill, Mona Sofia Tahk, Muusa Stuudio, Paul Flanders, Rait Lõhmus, Rita Vaali, Santeri Mortti, Tatu Laakso, Tea Tammelaan, Teresa RA, Veera Gontsugova, Viieline, Vilius Dringelis, Ville Aakula and Yrjö Kukkapuro (Artek 2nd Cycle)
Curators: Kati Saarits, Hannah Segerkrantz
Exhibition design: Kadri Villand
Technical support: Ats Kruusing, Asmus Soodla
Graphic design: Simon Janson
Exhibition team: Kaisa Maasik-Koplimets, Aleksander Metsamärt, Valve Saarma, Marily Simenson-Plasko, Andreas Vrettos, Hanna Õunapuu

Thanks to: Estonian Museum of Architecture, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, EKA Museum
The exhibition is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Embassy of Finland, Tallinn City and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.

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EKA is celebrating its 112th birthday on Friday, 30 October with an auction, an alumni reunion and a party. All former and current members of the EKA community are warmly invited to join the celebrations!

• 17.00 We will open the “60 Years of Design Education” exhibition.
• 18.00 A ceremony will be held to honour this year’s EKA honorary members and Alumni of the Year.
• 19.00 Tours at the exhibitions „A chair, a door, a rose, a spoon“ at the EKA Gallery and “60 Years of Design Education” in the lobby and library.
• 20.00 Led by Siim Raie, our now-traditional charity auction will feature works by EKA alumni, staff and students. In a nod to the number 112, this year’s auction is titled “Art to the Rescue!” Half of the proceeds will go towards scholarships for EKA students, while the other half will go to the artist. Find the artworks here.

And of course, no birthday party would be complete without good food and drinks, birthday cake, live music and the legendary Helina Risti karaoke.

Throughout the evening, several departments across the EKA building will open their doors to alumni.

A pop-up shop selling EKA merchandise and books from EKA Press will also be open. Alumni will also have the opportunity to order their EKA graduation ring at the party.

More additions to the programme are on the way, with the full schedule to be announced soon!

See you at EKA’s 112th birthday party!

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EKA Urban Studies MSc programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Tuesday, January 12, 2027 at 17:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This online info session will be a good opportunity to hear more about the curriculum, and to meet and ask questions directly from people behind the Urban Studies programme. The info session will be hosted online over Zoom.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

REGISTER HERE

More information about Urban Studies MSc programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/urban-studies
• https://www.facebook.com/urbantallinn
• https://www.instagram.com/ekaurbanstudies

Next admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2026 and application deadline is 2nd of March 2026 at 3pm EET (local Estonian time).

Admissions information here

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