Calendar

Book an online date with real EKA student!

From the 17th until the 21st of January 2022, several EKA students will find time to online speed date with prospective applicants and future exchange students to share real insights, inside information and authentic experiences about studying in EKA and living in Tallinn.

Is it interesting to study at EKA? What subjects are most exciting or boring? How to impress during the admissions interview? Is it cold in Tallinn? How much does a cup of coffee cost in EKA cafeteria? Ask them anything!

One date lasts up to 15 minutes. Please let us know what date and time slot would suit you in the registration form below. You will be contacted via email to confirm the exact time for the date.

REGISTER HERE

More information:
Maarja Pabut
Marketing Specialist
maarja.pabut@artun.ee

TO THE EXHIBITION! The students of the 2nd year of the bachelor’s study in interior architecture focussed on creating inclusive exhibition spaces, tutored by architect Johanna Jõekalda. The task of the students was to design an exhibition space based on what they had learned, which would take into account visitors with different special needs to the maximum. 

During the course, students learned to understand the principles of user-oriented design and create an inclusive environment. Spatial solutions were designed with the Estonian National Museum’s exhibition “Kaasav ELU” (“Inclusive LIFE”) in mind, which brings together different gadgets and tools that support the learning and leisure activities of users with disabilities.

In developing their spatial proposals, students used VR technologies to better understand and explain different unique user experiences: VR, allowing for immersive experiences, is an excellent tool for helping to better understand different spatial experiences and designing more inclusive environments. Students’ work was based on the principle that a room that is comfortable for people with special needs is also convenient for all other users.

During the development of the projects, the students received support from the parallel course “Digital Techniques” held at the VR Lab and supervised by Johanna Jõekalda. Daniel Kotsjuba (accessibility), Kärt Ojavee (materiality), Artur Staškevitš (exhibition solutions) and Paco Ulman (digital techniques) shared their experiences of inclusive design. The studio was conducted in cooperation with the Tallinn University “Inclusive LIFE” project, led by Tiia Artla and Jana Kadastik.

See a virtual tour of the works of five interior design students.

From early November, a selection of student works completed during the course (Laura Maria Tõru, Kätlin Lond, Triin Kampus, Anni Kõrvemaa, Viktoria Ugur) is available for everyone to see at the exhibition “Inclusive LIFE” at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu. The student work is presented on a touch screen as a virtual tour, which guides the visitors of the exhibition through more exciting space solutions and shares information on the application of the principles of inclusive design in interior architecture.

The Department of Interior Architecture of EKA would like to thank all those who contributed to the supervision of students and for the exciting opportunity to cooperate with Tallinn University and the Estonian National Museum – together we took a small step towards making the environments and premises of the future friendly to all users.

The exhibition will be open until January 31, 2022, so onwards to Tartu!

The exhibition “Remake” of EKA Art Education students can be seen on the information screens of EKA from January 14 to February 4.

The works of the art education students were completed within the “Creative project” subject .

Artists: Inga Ausmeel, Liina Oja, Liina Raidoja, Marju Rajasalu, Lilli-Krõõt Repnau, Triin Resik, Tanel Roomere, Piret Suviste, Zhanna Toht, Kertu Tort, Kalev Vapper, Merle Vingerfeld, Viire Jagomägi

Supervised by Anna-Kaisa Vita

The works can be seen on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th floors of EKA and on the screen of the auditorium on the Kotzebue street side. Videos with sound on the 2nd floor screen. 

More about EKA Art Education studies

“The Science of Freedom”
Third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”
22.01—26.02.2022
Tue-Sat at 12—18 pm
Opening and curators’ tour: 21.01 at 3 pm.

Curator: Róna Kopeczky
Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “The Science of Freedom” on January 21 at 3 pm at EKA Gallery! The curator will give an exhibition tour at the event. Entrance with Covid certificate.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

18th Tallinn Print Triennial venues: KAI Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Kanuti Gildi Saal

Glass artist, Kristiina Uslar, associate professor at EKA glass department, is participating in the National Glass Center Glass Prize. 

From 16 October 2021 to 13 March 2022, the Glass Prize, an exhibition organized by the International Glass Center (NGC), will take place in Sunderland, England.

The exhibition will feature 40 artists selected by a jury of Sandra Blach (Glasmuseet Ebeltoft), Reino Liefkes (Victoria and Albert Museum) ja Julia Stephenson (National Glass Center). 

NGC Glass Prize is a European glass prize delivered by the National Glass Centre which features the work of over 40 artists who work in Europe. The selected artworks on display were selected by a panel of judges including Sandra Blach, from Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Reino Liefkes, from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Julia Stephenson from National Glass Centre. Supported by the Weston Culture Fund, the exhibition includes work by artists from England, Scotland, Wales, France, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Romania, The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, Estonia and Belgium. It showcases techniques and approaches including using found and mixed media, casting, hot glass, kiln forming, engraving, neon, pâte de verre, and video. The exhibition includes artists working at all career stages from internationally acknowledged masters to relative newcomers.

NGC Glass Prize on the web

Video games museum LVLup! in Tallinn used to be the first and only one in the Baltics, but from the 15th of January until the 10th of April the cosy atmosphere of the museum will be recreated in the Narva Art Residency (NART). The project “VGA” invites guests to enjoy retro video games and reflect on the impact they’ve had on our culture through the perspective of contemporary art.

The project “VGA” (Video Games & Arts) is done in cooperation with LVLUp! museum, curator Juhan Soomets and Narva Art Residency. Johanna Rannula, the head of NART, said “In the nineties, video games were played at game rooms that were often located in the basements, so the basement of the residency was perfect for the museum. It’s also a way to bring new people to art exhibitions. Once they’ve finished playing games, the visitors go up the stairs and find themselves at an art exhibition that opens the subject from different perspectives. The two fields have not been juxtaposed in this way in Estonia before. It is unique, especially for Narva.”

In the last month, the project team has collected Soviet-era furniture across Ida-Virumaa. They needed to find 24 floor lamps, 10 sofas, 13 carpets, 4 armchairs, 5 stools, 11 TV tables, 4 curtain rods, curtains, cabinets, 2 coffee tables, many houseplants and a box of old vinyl. Now everything is ready for guests to travel back in time and spend time with friends and family playing Nintendo, Sega, Sony PlayStation, Guitar Hero and other legendary video games.

On the first floor is an exhibition of contemporary art called “Näotus” (‘Facelessness’), which makes sense of the video game collection and gives it new meanings. The exhibition is curated by Juhan Soomets and it includes works by Oleg Frolov (RU), Denisa Stefanigova (CZ), Alexei Gordin, Anna Shkodenko, Henri Hütt, Danel Kahar, Mihkel Kleis, Raul Keller, Kaspar P. Loit (EST).

The project opens on January 15 at 3 pm, admission is free. The opening day program includes curators’ tours, video game tournaments (and prizes for the winners!). The curators, DJ Nextraxx and DJ Суперюкс Лимитед, will be playing the music as well.

From January 16 to April 10, Narva Art Residency will be open as follows: the art exhibition “Näotus” is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The video game museum LVLup! WarpRoom is open Wed – Sun from 2 pm to 9 pm. Bring your slippers!

The project is being implemented in partnership with the British Council under the People to People Cultural Engagement program.

Photos

Additional information

THE WELL
Maria Metsalu (EST), Jaakko Pallasvuo (FI) & Tarvo Porroson (EST)
19.12.2021—25.05.2022
Opening: 19.12 at 5.30—7 pm
EKA Gallery Billboard, Kotzebue 1, open 24/h

Join us for the “The Well” exhibition opening at EKA Gallery Billboard on December 19 at 5.30 pm. The billboard is located on the EKA building at Kotzebue street 1. Opening is at EKA cafeteria, and the entrance is via a glass door next to the billboard.

Part of the performance “The Well” at Kanuti Gildi SAAL, three artists are exhibiting a pseudo-archaic photo series of the same name at EKA Gallery Billboard. Eighteen metal sheets etched with text and illustrations make up two books that are part of the performance. 

In “The Well” the preconceived notions regarding the structure and meaning of the protagonist’s reality have disappeared into the abyss and the anxiety in which she has become aware of her finitude, an ontological insecurity has taken effect. She has no family, no friends, no connections. The world has become overwhelming in its complexity so she is being lowered into the well by her four psychoanalysts – AJ, Brian, Kevin and Nick. Her job while lying on her leather couch in the bottom of the well is to write and give the world a structure. She is a composer. She is a magician and an alchemist.

Metsalu and Pallasvuo have been having writing sessions from the beginning of 2021 and have created the text in the project. With the help of the blacksmith Tarvo Porroson, a selection of these texts has found their place on different objects of which two books form this exhibition.

“The psychoanalysts send down a notebook and tell me it would be good for me to keep a journal. I draw flowers in the notebook. I draw horses. I draw medieval weapons. I draw pictures of what I think the psychoanalysts look like. I draw their humors: blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile. All of my psychoanalysts fall in love with me. I send my notebook back to them, the one with all the drawings, and they fight over the book, they tear pages out and hang them on the walls of the cottages where they’ve settled. They have to live here, in isolation with me, until the treatment is complete. They love me so much, and they don’t want to let me go. I sleep in the well. I wake up in the middle of the night and the psychoanalysts are gone, they are inside the house, maybe sleeping, maybe fucking each other.”

Thanks to: Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Taavi Teevet, Paul Klooren, Robin Siimann, Pire Sova
Supported by Kanuti Gildi SAAL

On 19 June at 6 pm, Estonian Academy of Arts will open the graduation show TASE for the first time as an online exhibition.  The opening will be broadcast on ERR Cultural News portal, on EKA TV at live.artun.ee as well as Facebook Live channel.  Instead of a regular gallery space, the works of the fresh graduating architects, artists, designers, and researchers will be exhibited online at tase.artun.ee

Live TV show will begin here June 19 at 6PM

“The decision to hold the exhibition online stemmed from the special situation of the coronavirus.  The graduates had to adjust to the changes quickly and in many cases rethink their physical works or ideas,” explains the head organiser, gallery manager Pire Sova and adds:

“In a normal situation, most of the fine arts and many graduation works from other specialties are created considering the meeting of the audience and the work in a physical space.  In this case, they have tried to solve the task of how to relay their ideas with immediacy and optimally in the internet space.  Exhibiting works online brings many new questions: what type of documentation media to use, how to combine and support them with text etc?”

TASE’20 online exhibition will show more than two hundred graduation works from the graduates of the architecture, design, fine arts, and art culture faculties.  The exhibition gives a complete overview of master’s theses from all EKA specialties as well as most of the bachelor graduation works and portfolios.

According to the Dean of Fine Arts, Kirke Kangro, the isolation period was an especially big challenge for the graduating young artists:
“There was no access to studios and workshops, the works had to be completed in hallways and kitchens.  I am certain that this year’s graduates carry the footprint of the global moment more than ever before – either knowingly or through the creative process itself.  The audience, who otherwise was able to attend the defences in a physically limited space, are able to hear the young artists via their theses defences through an internet link.

The topics of the 46 diploma works are broad and as custom to artists, both empathetic and critical.  Introspection and the yearning for forest, the connection between local and expat Estonians with Australia – or even Siberia, the reflections of the world of justice, questions of the body and status,” says Kangro.

The largest faculty of EKA, the Design Faculty will bring 87 student works to the TASE web exhibition.

“We are proud of our graduates who despite the difficult situation were able to complete their Bachelor and Master’s works.  The projects in all our specialties are dense, the topics immensely wide: from clay musical instruments to the innovation of structural building, from board games to theoretical research that questions the core principles of design,” rejoices the Dean of Design, Kristjan Mändmaa.

The Faculty of Architecture is represented by 43 architecture Master’s and interior architecture Bachelor students.  The young architects engaged in the most serious and painful aspects of society: the space around the deathbed, prison, rehabilitation for juvenile delinquents, a more effective educational space for high school and so on.

In previous TASE exhibitions, the Art Culture master theses have remained a bit hidden among the creative objects, but the Dean Lilian Hansar hopes that the web exhibition will give a wonderful opportunity to find out more about the written theoretical works from art history, heritage and conservation, as well as art education.  44 graduates present their works at the show.

In August, 45 more graduation works will be added to the exhibition and on 17 August the regular TASE show will open in the EKA gallery and other spaces, but the online TASE will remain open as long as the internet lasts.

This year’s graduates have the advantage, compared to all previous years, to show and share their creations regardless of physical distances – to their relatives in the countryside or outside of the capital city, to the families of international graduates and potential colleagues at the other side of the world.

Come see TASE’20 on tase.artun.ee and join the opening ceremony on 19 June at 6 pm at live.artun.ee !

TASE Team
Head Organiser: Pire Sova
Communications: Solveig Jahnke, Mart Vainre
Graphic Design: Robin Siimann, Elisabeth Juusu, Kersti Heile; adviser Associate Professor Indrek Sirkel
TASE.artun.ee Web: WWW Stuudio

TASE is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia

Students, academics, curriculum leaders, study support specialists and management are welcome to join the Feedback Seminar of EKA graduates (2019–2021) on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 from 1 to 3 pm in room A501.

What does the EAA graduates say in the feedback? What is valued and how can we get better? How and what do our current students want to say about this?

What to learn from it? How to?

Register (required for snack planning) by ​​January 21st.

Current solo exhibition “Of Becoming a Land(Scape)” serves as the third part of Britta Benno’s artistic research in the doctoral school at the Estonian Academy of Arts with the working title “Thinking in Layers, Imagining in Layers: Posthumanist Landscapes in the Extended Field of Drawing and Printmaking”.
Pre-reviewing of the exhibition will take place on 12.02.2022.

The protagonist in Benno’s last project in the series of personal exhibitions of the doctoral programme is landscape that formerly has appeared in a background role in Benno’s artwork. Image is becoming abstract and architecture is backing away from the stage. A layered landscape comes forth, the rocks in earth’s crust reveal themselves underneath the soil. At the same time, the crystallization of posthumanist philosophy in Britta Benno’s artistic (self)definition reveals itself through the agency of minerals. University of Tartu Natural History Museum with its collection of minerals is situated in the close proximity to Tartu Art House. Museum-like expositions, striped textures of fossils and conversations with geologists place the exhibition both to local time-space and the timeless spirit of art and science.

Tectonic layers are alive, moving and breathing, forming mountains and flooding continents. The layers arise from above while shaking and cracking holes and fissures to the earth’s crust. Similarly to the sunrise on the horizon, layers of gas and oil in the depths of earth emerge towards the surface and slowly transform the earth’s landscape. At the same time, somewhere another soil goes down in the depths of earth. In order to imagine the future, one has to look at the past to form a better understanding about the present.

Britta Benno comments on her artistic method: „While imagining the earth’s layers I am working with the means of art in layers. In a way, working in layers can be also called a method of piling up.  Materials, tracks and images cover each other just like the layers of Earth form a huge globe. How should one call the large-format artwork made of canvas, frame, coat, prints, watercolour, coal, acrylic paints, ink and plexiglass? Modelling paste, fabric and other (found) materials in combination with metamorphic rocks in litosphere, in the depths of earth, create new conceptual landscapes. Poetically flowing mountains can be also discovered while observing the heap of blanket on my bed, on a topographic map or in atlas of imaginary beings.”

Collaborational input to the exhibition works: Ragnar Neljandi (cameraman, animator, post-production), Kassandra Laur, Iti Oja, Kristiina Tali (installation), Juhan Vihterpal (composer).

The artist expresses her gratitude to: Laine Groeneweg (Smokestack Studio Hamilton), Pudy Tong (Open Studio Toronto),  Robert Zeigler (Cotton Factory Hamilton), Madis Kaasik (Prototyping Lab manager at the Estonian Academy of Arts), Mare Isakar, Juho Kirs (holder of geology collections at the University of Tartu, consultant), printmaking workshop of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Katrin Piile, Elnara Taidre.

Supporters: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts, Nukufilm OÜ.

Students of the Design and Technology Futures curriculum of EKA and TalTech will present the 3,000 utopias created during the autumn semester of Paide Theater on the “Shadow Council Committee Day” starting on Sunday, January 23 at 10.00 am. Guest of the day is Kersti Kaljulaid.

Utopias were designed with locals and people from Paide using a variety of co-design methods. In shaping the future, the problems were approached from different possibilities and four different scenarios were created:
1) how we eat in the future
2) how we plan the city and the community together with the vision
3) how we learn and
4) how we perceive time.

SCHEDULE:

10–11.30 – TalTech and EKA Design and Technology Futures students present the utopia of a small town they have created
11.30-11.45 break
11.45–12.45 Kersti Kaljulaid talks about her experiences with local governments
12.45-13.30 noon
13.30–16 Discussion rounds “Five actions that bring us closer to the utopia of a small town, but which do not require an additional 10 million in the city budget, but the joint contribution of the community”

The course is supervised by Martin Pärn, Francesco Martinez and Ruth-Helene Melioranski.

“Shadow Council Committee Day” is a discussion day on Sunday dedicated to the meeting, during which the shadow commissioners discuss all the topics that reach the city council in Paide. Each committee meeting will be opened by one expert’s insight, followed by a public hearing open to all those present.

More information on Facebook

Team AEGLA

Leaving calendars and rushing behind, we make room for action and different time rhythms. A system that takes into account and combines different tempos supports an environment where time is a value and its enjoyment is essential.

Team VISIONARY

A concept created to intensify the visions of Paide through interactive experiences

Team PARENG

The method of acquiring knowledge for a practical future

What would happen if the traditional upper secondary school system no longer existed and young people could build their own curriculum based on individual characteristics? “Pareng” introduces a vision of the future of the method of acquiring knowledge, in the development of which the young people of Paide participated.

EKA Interaction Design MA programme invites prospective Master’s students to join the online info session on Monday, January 24, 2022 at 17:00 (Tallinn time, GMT+2).

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 the Interaction Design MA (IxD.ma) programme:

• https://www.ixd.ma
• https://www.artun.ee/ixd
• https://www.facebook.com/IxD.ma
• Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/977797089758108

Admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2022 and application deadline is 1st of March 2022.

https://artun.ee/admissions

Lisette Lepik’s exhibition ‘’Garden of Eve’’ will be opened at the Uus Rada Gallery on Friday, January 28th at 6 pm.

Using the motif of the flower the exhibition presents an ongoing series of oil paintings by Lisette reflecting on the experience of the menstrual cycle; menstrual pains and the choices women make regarding their own birth control choices. The exhibition space is transformed into a womb holding a series of paintings within its walls. Through expressive use of colour and gestural mark each painting speaks to totally different experiences within the monthly cycle.

Everything began from there: the land, the world, the air, the sky, the soil, the water, the fire, the land. Me and you, you and me, us and we. Everything begins from there. I took a picture of my sister’s hand, which was holding a rose. This beautiful, pulsing, throbbing, bloody, thorny, sad, fertile rose reminded me of a vulva. Some ancient, primal, feminine impulse fired at me. It told me to give more attention to this flower. I didn’t explain it to myself. I just started painting and gradually deciphering this phenomenon. – Lisette Lepik

The exhibition will be open until the 3rd of February. After the opening of the exhibition it can be visited by arrangement by writing an email to lisette.lepik@gmail.com or calling +372 53313428. 

Uus Rada is a community art space run collaboratively by the second year Masters of Contemporary Arts Students in the former Raja gallery space.

Curatorial assistance for the exhibition from Sophie Durand.

Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli

The artist thanks: Elisa Margot Winters, Olivia Soans

Facebook event

On Saturday, 22 January Kelli Gedvil’s  solo exhibition “Purifying Your Skin” will open in the small gallery of the Tartu Art House. The exhibition is curated by Hanna-Liisa Lavonen.

The exhibition focuses on the methods by which virtual and physical tools change the look and texture of human skin as a material. The modified skin on advertisements looks soft, smooth and flawless. The dissonance between the real and the manipulated makes us crave for the artificial beauty standards and the advertised products seem like otherworldly magical potions. This, however, results in a frustrating cycle when one product, which was advertised as omnipotent, is followed by another, that is equally as ineffective.

By removing the physical and virtual manipulations from the skin, we notice its diverse and hidden ecosystem. This protective, elastic material reveals pores, pimples, wrinkles, sebum, and the creatures that help with its functioning. The present exhibition shows how our obsessive desire to improve our skin based on false visuals can make us forget about the real and natural dermal texture and its individual characteristics.

Kelli Gedvil (b 1994) has graduated from the Department of Painting (BA) and the Department of Contemporary Art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has also studied as an exchange student at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and the Valand Academy in Sweden. Besides Estonia, she has participated in exhibitions in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Hungary and Poland. Gedvil is the co-founder of the artist group Robin Ellis Meta and the gallerist and web developer at the online gallery post-gallery.online. This is her first solo exhibition in Tartu.

The exhibition is accompanied by a sound design by Natalia Anna Wójcik.

The technical support of the exhibition was provided by Ian-Simon Märjama.

Artist thanks: Egle Ehtjen, Kaupo Haukanõmm, Anti Kidron, Leegi Kiis, Madli Lippur, Kristen Rästas, Sten Saarits, Liina Siib.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and open until 20 February.

www.kunstimaja.ee

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26, Tartu, Estonia) Wed–Mon 12–18. Exhibitions are free of charge.

The exhibitions of the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu Town Government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

“The Science of Freedom”
Third act of the 18th Tallinn Print Triennial main exhibition “Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts”
22.01—26.02.2022
Tue-Sat at 12—18 pm
Opening and curators’ tour: 21.01 at 3 pm.

Curator: Róna Kopeczky
Artists: Olson Lamaj, Igor Eškinja, Flo Kasearu, Nada Prlja, Katja Novitskova and Bojan Stojčić

Join us for the opening of the exhibition “The Science of Freedom” on January 21 at 3 pm at EKA Gallery! The curator will give an exhibition tour at the event. Entrance with Covid certificate.

“Warm. Checking Temperature in Three Acts” is a multi-part exhibition that primarily gives thought to the radical political, cultural and social turns that affect Central and Eastern Europe, and it also inscribes these changes in a global perspective through the lens of universal absurdity. The project gives voice to contemporary artists based in or originating from the Central and Eastern European region who reflect boldly and critically on burning issues such as the rise of far-right politics, globally misplaced priorities, the collapse of democracies, the shrinking of freedom – in both life and art – and the general sense of conditioned fear and hostility prevailing today.

Inviting artists from the regional contemporary art scene with existing works and new commissions, Warm comprises three intertwined cycles entitled The Nation Loves It, Pickle Politics and The Science of Freedom. The imaginary, conceptual theatre play that embraces these three acts is conceived as dramatic and intensifying narration. It articulates around the spectacles of absurdity with the intention to dissect, appropriate and distort them, but also to playfully propose humour and derision as an intellectual antidote or an imagined alternative that builds on visionary defiance and poetic escapism.

The third act entitled “The Science of Freedom” presents a variety of proposals to counteract the oppressing situations of present times by referring loosely to natural sciences, biological and mathematical systems that, sublimed by imagination and given unknown forms, allow to visualise alternative ways to exist, perceive and behave. Humour, poetics and absurdity are the main conceptual pillars of this section and are employed to playfully divert or lyrically distort reality through the gentle negation of fixed roles or functions. In this newly created situation, instincts prevail over order and discipline, and make space for rethinking the unquestionable rules of our existence, imagining and demanding the impossible, and ultimately freeing ourselves from existing and imposed frames.

18th Tallinn Print Triennial venues: KAI Art Center | Temnikova & Kasela Gallery | Põhjala Brewery and Tap Room | EKA Gallery | Liszt Institute Tallinn | Flo Kasearu House Museum | Kanuti Gildi Saal