Calendar

On 18 June at 6:30 PM, the contemporary artist Riina Varol will open her solo exhibition Overstream at the Draakon Gallery, dealing with the creative process as the formation of life.
The exhibition addresses questions of biological and non-biological self-realisation, comparing them with natural and creative processes.

The display stems from a nine-month-long pilgrimage; the space itself serving as an environment that activates perceptions, emotions and bodily experiences. The audience is presented with newly completed invisible images, small sculptures and spatial photo collages that, through their cavities and incisions, open reality as a layered experience. The exhibition space is designed as a playful and interactive sanctuary, accompanied by Helen Västrik’s atmospheric soundscape.

The rhythms of nature and creative practices that help to relate to uncertainty and existential questions play an important role in Varol’s work. In her practice, identity is seen as a fluctuating phenomenon that is formed through constant interaction with the surrounding environment. This idea is further enhanced by the materials and working methods used by the artist: plaster, layers, playing with stones, blind stamping and incision techniques.

According to Johan Huizinga, artworks belong to the sacred sphere, where play and holiness are united through rituals. In contemporary art, the esoteric dimension often reveals itself through symbols and attunement. The recurring toe motifs in Varol’s work symbolise grounding and gratitude for the Earth that carries and nourishes us. By placing them in nature and symbolically meaningful places, they might one day become archaeological finds, leading to personal mythologies. In the exhibition, the motif of the toe becomes the footprint of human experience: a sign of touch, presence and commitment.

RV: “For me, one of the main principles and qualities of creation is that I do my best to create environments which allow nature to allow ones nature to reveal in its entirety. Tactile work with materials is my way of awakening the body and the inner compass. That which seeks to eminate knows me better than i know them.”

Riina Varol is an artist and photographer based in Estonia. In her creative practice, she focuses on questions of sensorial perception and the functions of the subconscious, as well as animism and oriental philosophy. Varol’s body of work encompasses a variety of media, including site-specific multimedia installations, photography, graphics, ceramics, video, sound, tactility and smell. She studied photography at the Pallas University of Applied Sciences and the Naples Academy of Fine Arts. Varol is a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association and the Tartu Artists’ Union. She has participated in exhibitions in Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, Ukraine and Australia. Since 2017, Varol has been a guest lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts and, since 2022, also at the Pallas University of Applied Sciences.

Location: Draakon Gallery, Pikk Street 18, Tallinn
Open to visitors: 19.06.–19.07.2026, Wed, Fri–Sun 12:00–18:00, Thu 12:00–19:00

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna
Graphic design: Helmi Arrak
Sound design: Helen Västrik
Exhibition installation: Hans-Otto Ojaste
Special thanks: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists’ Association, Draakon Gallery, Mari Volens, Gunnar Kalmet, Valerio Sarnataro, Helen Tago, Caroliine Pajusaar, Lauri Kilusk, Anne Eelmere, Jaan August Viirand, Hedvig and Ian, Hubert and Hilda, Christin Taul, mother, Craftrag, Punchclub, Nudist Drinks

Opening of the exhibition “I hate violence and I see it everywhere” at 18:00 at OKAPI Gallery in Tallinn

Yeva Sihachova

Curator: Ilja Jakovlev
Graphic design: Ksenia Kvitko

I hate violence and I see it everywhere.
Not only in war or catastrophe, but in the ordinary choreography of living alongside others.
I see how it impales the body, leaving no space for resistance.
I see how, through force, it restructures culture, embedding itself across generations as trauma.
I see it in the attempt to make everything defined – what does not fit is forced to take form, yet even when fixed, it remains out of place.
I see how it alters the body until adaptation turns pain into routine.
I see how it quietly inhabits the spaces between people.

The exhibition explores the ontology of violence: where it lives, how it manifests itself, what language it speaks, where it is born, and what it eventually transforms into.

The works focus on moments in which violence has not yet become fully visible or fully named – on the normalization of discomfort, on adaptation as a survival mechanism, on repetition, pressure, fixation, and the unstable distance between bodies.

Again and again, the exhibition returns to the question of connection.
Perhaps violence begins much earlier – in the attempt to fix, define, or fully overcome distance.

Fear becomes one of the central mechanisms within the exhibition. The attempt to understand violence can become an attempt to rationalize it, to make it predictable, and therefore less threatening. As if analysis could create a certain form of control over what is feared. But the need for control itself easily begins to reproduce the logic of violence.

The works do not offer a stable definition of violence. Instead, they trace the moments in which it quietly enters everyday life – reorganizing proximity, settling into ordinary forms of coexistence, and changing the ways bodies learn to exist alongside one another.

Drinks at the opening are provided by PÕHJALA!

Exhibition dates:
11.06–19.07.2026
Wed–Fri 12:00–18:00
Sat 12:00–16:00

OKAPI gallery
Niguliste tn 2, 10146, Tallinn

We thank the exhibition supporters:
EKA Student Council, OKAPI Gallery, PÕHJALA

On 18 June at 17:00, the exhibition “Tosin” opens on the ground floor of Draakon Gallery. The exhibition brings together a selection of master’s projects completed in the glass workshop of the Estonian Academy of Arts over the past twelve years. The exhibition is open from 18 June to 19 July.

The point of departure for the exhibition is the history of glass education in Estonia. The archive collection of the Tallinn School of Arts and Crafts holds a 1936 protocol of the school council, which refers to the establishment of the crystal and glass-cutting department by a decision of the Minister of Social Affairs. This may be understood as one of the first important milestones in Estonian glass education. “Tosin” looks back at this historical point of origin from a contemporary perspective, bringing together EKA master’s projects in which glass is the primary material.

The exhibition does not present a chronological overview. Instead, it focuses on a selection of master’s projects completed during the past twelve years and considers glass as a contemporary artistic medium moving between technical skill, spatial thinking, embodied experience and conceptual research.

“Tosin” brings together master’s projects whose physical realisation is connected to the technical possibilities and know-how of the EKA glass workshop. Glass connects the authors, workshop-based knowledge, historical continuity and personal creative processes.

At the centre of the exhibition is the question: what has glass enabled EKA master’s students to explore? The selected works use glass to open questions related to the body, memory, space, working process, industrial heritage, psychological self-reflection, digital identity, material agency, and the borderlands of art and design. In the exhibition, glass may appear as a technical challenge, an embodied partner, a reflective surface, a spatial installation, an image of a psychological state, a carrier of material memory, or a trigger for the creative process.

“Tosin” brings master’s projects that have since moved into artists’ studios or private collections back into public view, creating a new dialogue between them.

The participating artists are Iohan Figueroa, Andra Jõgis, Niina-Anneli Kaarnamo, Elle Lepik, Rait Lõhmus, Maris Maasikas-Korts, Alyona Movko-Mägi and Kristiina Oppi.

Acknowledgements: Estonian Glass Artists’ Union, Estonian Academy of Arts, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Draakon Gallery

Exhibition: Tosin  

Participating artists: Iohan Figueroa, Andra Jõgis, Niina-Anneli Kaarnamo, Elle Lepik, Rait Lõhmus, Maris Maasikas-Korts, Alyona Movko-Mägi, Kristiina Oppi  

Opening: 18 June at 17:00  

Exhibition dates: 18 June – 19 July  Venue: Draakon Gallery, ground floor

April 24 – August 15, 2026
Opening April 23 at 6pm

Announcing the opening of ‘Ersatz Strata’, a joint exhibition by Zody Burke (Tallinn, NYC, EKA MACA) and Klara Zetterholm (Stockholm) at Temnikova & Kasela gallery. 

The work is an exploration of a recently discovered imagined anthropological site of questionable provenance. Through reliefs, sculptures, printed work, kinetic elements, and industrial residue, the artists present an unreliable aesthetic archaeology in the language of natural history museums.

The exhibition includes a short story written by Jaakko Pallasvuo (a.k.a. Avocado Ibuprofen) with design by Taylor Tex Tehan (EKA GDMA).

The opening will include a live performance by musician and digital-age cosmogonist 011668 (Los Angeles), whose interdisciplinary work blends spirituality, consumption, and fossil fuel mythologies. The performance will occur just before twilight.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

29.05–16.08.2026
Maria Kapajeva. I Am A Border
Curator: Siim Preiman, Exhibition designer: Anu Vahtra

Estonian artist Maria Kapajeva will open her largest solo exhibition to date at the Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion on 28 May at 6 pm. Titled I Am a Border, the exhibition brings together 16 works created between 2014 and 2026, many of them produced specifically for this show. Admission is free.

The exhibition is the culmination of more than a decade of artistic research into the border as a geographical, bodily, and emotional phenomenon.

Its point of departure is the region beyond Narva, Narvataguse – the former homeland of the artist’s paternal family, now located within the Russian border zone and inaccessible to the family today. Through photographs, video works, installations, and textiles, Kapajeva approaches borderliness not as a fixed place, but as a continuous state of transition – never fully one thing, never fully becoming the other.

The works intertwine the Narva River, the post-operative body, family archives, a disappearing language, and disrupted connections to landscape and heritage. One of the exhibition’s central works, Four Generations Later, features the artist’s relatives reading dialect texts from the Narvataguse region recorded in 1947 – a language that has become partly incomprehensible even to younger Russian-speaking generations.
The installations incorporate materials such as maps from the family archive, diary entries by Kapajeva’s father, a family tree drawn by a geneticist, and a blanket that once belonged to the artist’s grandmother. Several works also explore the fluidity of the body and identity, connecting queer perspectives with ecology and border landscapes.

“What moves me in Maria Kapajeva’s work is her ability to speak about identity without simplifying it. Her works hold vulnerability, the weight of history, and a deeply personal clarity all at once,” said the exhibition’s curator Siim Preiman. “Every day I see how nationalism is often something that divides rather than unites us.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse public programme:

• 30 May at 2 pm – curator’s tour with Siim Preiman
• 17 June at 5 pm – artist’s tour with Maria Kapajeva
• In July, Maria Kapajeva and Anton Küünal will host a joint event exploring the intersections of plants, ecology, and queer perspectives (date to be confirmed)
• 9 August – a collective textile workshop titled Queering and Sewing Together
• On the exhibition’s final day, 16 August, there will be an artist’s tour followed by a communal cooking event in the Korr-korr (Borborygmus) series, where the exhibition team and visitors will prepare and share food together.

Maria Kapajeva is an artist whose work explores questions of identity and gender, with a particular focus on in-between and transitional states. Her works are included in several museum collections, including the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tartu Art Museum. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is one of the recipients of the Estonian state artist’s salary.

Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Martina Zito
“Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

The exhibition “Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet” expands through the magical, gray areas of active incoherence, wielding gibberish as both shield and tool to explore alternative logics of language. Here, communication extends beyond words into expanded forms and hidden meanings. Gibberish, as a private space of understanding, offers a playground for hide-and-seek between language and body, humour and mystery.

Working across video, installation, sculpture, and jelly painting, the exhibition brings together artworks by Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, and Martina Zito. Here, modern-day spells take shape as rhythmical languages in translation. Alchemical transformations simmer as teeth are scratched and paws wait patiently; skin wrinkles and stretches into a sweet tension; the trapeze pendulum hangs poised, ready for a push.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

Sonya Isupova
“Water Usually in the Shape of a River. Hydroelectric Imaginaries of the Southern Ukrainian Landscape”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

“Water Usually in the Shape of a River” is the first solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist and researcher Sonya Isupova. The exhibition explores Soviet infrastructural projects and their modes of representation, focusing on the hydroelectric dams built along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, particularly the Kakhovka and Dnipro hydroelectric stations. Through film and archival research, Isupova examines how these projects reshaped both landscape and collective memory.

The exhibition forms part of her doctoral research on the effects of colonial infrastructure on the landscape. She approaches Soviet films about infrastructure as “imaginary maps” that helped construct a unified Soviet space while simultaneously preserving visual records of territories before their transformation. Through these films, it becomes possible to trace the beginnings of ruination and reconstruct fragmented memories of landscapes submerged beneath the man-made seas of the Kakhovka and Dnipro reservoirs.

Positioned between monumentality and utility, Soviet hydroelectric projects generated a distinct visual language that presented nature as transformed by political power. Through archival artefacts and speculative reconstruction, the exhibition revisits these submerged landscapes and the histories embedded within them.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

Opening on Thursday, 21 May at 6 pm in the Great Hall of the Kumu Art Museum
(Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, Tallinn).
 
Chromatic Drift creates a cohesive perceptual and spatial experience centred on colour, a defining element in the oeuvre of the Estonian painter Kristi Kongi. Works created specifically for this exhibition over the past couple of years, together with the surrounding installation-based environment, evoke both chromatic richness and a poetic mode of being in unmapped territory.
 
At the opening, the launch of the book accompanying the exhibition will also take place.
 
The opening will take place in Kumu’s courtyard, weather permitting.
 
Opening programme on Saturday, 23 May:

Exhibition tours with curator Ann Mirjam Vaikla and artist Kristi Kongi: 12 noon (in English) and 2 pm (in Estonian)
Artist talk with Kristi Kongi at 3:30 pm

The exhibition will remain open until 11 October 2026.

Curator: Ann Mirjam Vaikla
Exhibition design: Mari Hunt, Grete Daut (MARIHUNT architects)
Graphic design: Brit Pavelson
Exhibition installation manager: Tõnis Medri
Coordinator: Anastassia Langinen

Lisette Lepik’s solo exhibition Flow State will open on 7th of July at 18:00 at Artovert Gallery.

7.07 – 7.08.2026

Tue – Sat 12:00 – 18:00, Sun – Mon closed
Exhibition opening on Tuesday 7th of July at 18:00.

Artrovert Gallery, Ristiku tn 10, 10612 Tallinn

Lisette Lepik’s solo exhibition Flow State focuses on the dialogue between painting as a non-linear medium and dance as a medium unfolding in time. The exhibition is guided by the question: how can movement that disappears in time be transformed into an image, and can painting convey the experience of movement?

Painting has traditionally been understood as a static, two-dimensional medium. Dance, by contrast, emerges through movement and duration. While the two mediums engage with time in different ways, both are shaped by gesture and bodily action. Movement in dance is experienced through time, whereas painting appears to suspend time, preserving traces of a process that has already passed.

Within both processes, there are moments when attention becomes fully absorbed in the act itself. As movement unfolds, awareness of the surrounding environment fades and the distinction between intention and action becomes less pronounced. Flow State draws on this shared condition, exploring how the fleeting presence of movement can leave traces that persist beyond the moment of its occurrence.

Flow State extends beyond the boundaries of painting into a carefully constructed spatial environment. Sound, light, and exhibition architecture become active participants in the work, gradually dissolving distinctions between image and atmosphere, observation and immersion. Together, these elements create a space where the exhibition’s central questions are experienced as much through the viewer’s movement and perception as through the paintings themselves.

Lisette Lepik (b. 1999, Tallinn, EE) is an artist working primarily with painting and installation. Her practice examines the body as a site where intimacy, memory, family structures, and social roles intersect. 

Lepik is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Painting in 2022, and studied installation and sculpture at the Iceland University of the Arts in 2019. She has exhibited in Estonia, Iceland, Austria, and Lithuania, including duo exhibitions with Brenda Purtsak at Tartu Art House and Hobusepea Gallery (2024), and a collaborative exhibition with Kristina Kuzemko at Club Virgin, a strip club in Tallinn (2025). Her most recent solo exhibition took place at Haapsalu City Gallery (2025). She received the Estonian Academy of Arts’ “Õpi ja sära” scholarship in 2024 and the Helju Rossmann Scholarship in 2025.

Open: 7.07 – 7.08.2026

Tue – Sat 12:00 – 18:00, Sun – Mon closed

Artrovert Gallery, Ristiku tn 10, 10612 Tallinn

Curator: Nora Schmelter

Sound: Gregor Sirendi

Graphic Design: Villem Sarapuu

Technical Support: Siim Raie, Nora Schmelter, Mats Johan Soosaar

Special Thanks: Artrovert Gallery, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Academy of Arts Department of New Media, Punch Club, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Gerda Hansen, Mats Johan Soosaar

Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Martina Zito
“Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

The exhibition “Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet” expands through the magical, gray areas of active incoherence, wielding gibberish as both shield and tool to explore alternative logics of language. Here, communication extends beyond words into expanded forms and hidden meanings. Gibberish, as a private space of understanding, offers a playground for hide-and-seek between language and body, humour and mystery.

Working across video, installation, sculpture, and jelly painting, the exhibition brings together artworks by Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, and Martina Zito. Here, modern-day spells take shape as rhythmical languages in translation. Alchemical transformations simmer as teeth are scratched and paws wait patiently; skin wrinkles and stretches into a sweet tension; the trapeze pendulum hangs poised, ready for a push.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

Sonya Isupova
“Water Usually in the Shape of a River. Hydroelectric Imaginaries of the Southern Ukrainian Landscape”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

“Water Usually in the Shape of a River” is the first solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist and researcher Sonya Isupova. The exhibition explores Soviet infrastructural projects and their modes of representation, focusing on the hydroelectric dams built along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, particularly the Kakhovka and Dnipro hydroelectric stations. Through film and archival research, Isupova examines how these projects reshaped both landscape and collective memory.

The exhibition forms part of her doctoral research on the effects of colonial infrastructure on the landscape. She approaches Soviet films about infrastructure as “imaginary maps” that helped construct a unified Soviet space while simultaneously preserving visual records of territories before their transformation. Through these films, it becomes possible to trace the beginnings of ruination and reconstruct fragmented memories of landscapes submerged beneath the man-made seas of the Kakhovka and Dnipro reservoirs.

Positioned between monumentality and utility, Soviet hydroelectric projects generated a distinct visual language that presented nature as transformed by political power. Through archival artefacts and speculative reconstruction, the exhibition revisits these submerged landscapes and the histories embedded within them.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

At the seminar, we will introduce Met(s)aRING, a joint research and development project by EKA PAKK (Estonian Academy of Arts) and RMK (State Forest Management Centre), which aims to develop a circular and modular construction system for RMK’s visitor infrastructure, including small-scale structures and cabins.

The project explores how infrastructure can be designed to be adaptable, upgradable, and reusable over time. The focus is on recurring standardized timber components, the use of production residues, and solutions that reduce material consumption, simplify maintenance, and extend the lifespan of structures.

The aim of the seminar is to gather practical feedback from builders and manufacturers on the applicability of the system currently under development. We will discuss how standardized or flexible a construction system should be, the opportunities for using reclaimed or lower-grade timber, and how procurement models and collaboration frameworks influence the implementation of sustainable solutions.

You can register for the event HERE!

PROGRAMME

27 August 2026, 9:30–12:30
EKA White Building (Kotzebue 10, Tallinn)

9:30 Introduction to the ongoing research project, RMK’s long-term goals and ambitions (RMK)

9:45 Eight Design Principles for Visitor Infrastructure Design (EKA)

10:00 Introduction to the Construction System (EKA)

10:15 The Use of Underutilized and Lower-Value Timber in Construction (TalTech)

10:30 Coffee Break and Introduction to the Construction System Prototype

11:00–12:30 Workshop

Research at EKA PAKK is co-funded by the European Union and the Estonian Research Council through the project “PUUSTER: Development of Methods for Valorising Underutilized Timber and Wood Materials in Construction” (TEM-TA80).

This event is part of the Adapter Network Collaboration Club Series, a platform where researchers, companies, and representatives of the public and private sectors come together to engage in meaningful discussions and explore opportunities for collaboration. You can find all Adapter Collaboration Clubs here.

EKA Arh Conference 2026 is titled To Be Continued….From Scattered Facts to Shared Concerns, and takes place as Day 1 of the two-day Tallinn Architecture Biennial TAB Symposium.

Tickets for the EKA Architecture Conference and the entire TAB Symposium — available at an early-bird price until 31 July — can be purchased on Fienta.

The 2026 EKA Arh Conference focuses on one of the central questions facing architecture and urban development today: how do we move forward when starting from scratch is no longer a viable option? While knowledge about climate transition, resource limits, and the built environment is abundant, translating that knowledge into collective action remains a challenge. Rather than asking only what comes next, the conference asks what can and should continue.

Across urban, building, and material scales, international speakers and researchers explore adaptation, reuse, and transformation in the built environment. The programme brings together perspectives from architecture, planning, construction, and research to discuss how existing places, buildings, and resources can support meaningful change, and how scattered knowledge can become shared concerns capable of shaping long-term action.

Programme

09:30–09:45
Opening Words

09:45–10:30
Transformation Keynote
Aleksi Neuvonen (Demos Helsinki, Finland)
Finnish futures thinker and co-founder of Demos Helsinki, whose work explores societal transformation, post-growth futures, and new models of collective action.

10:30–10:45
Coffee Break

10:45–12:15 | Parallel Sessions

Main Hall – Session I: Spatial and Architectural Transformation

This session explores processes of spatial transformation across urban and architectural scales, examining how cities, landscapes, and built environments adapt to changing social, ecological, and cultural conditions. Contributions address themes such as urban restructuring, adaptive reuse, spatial continuity, and the relationship between territorial systems, public space, and architectural intervention.

Monumental studio – Session I: Prefabrication, Retrofit, and Adaptive Reuse

This session examines prefabricated and industrialized approaches to the transformation of existing buildings and urban fabric. Contributions explore themes such as adaptive reuse, modular retrofit systems, circular renovation strategies, and the extension of building lifecycles, addressing how contemporary construction methods can support more sustainable and resource-conscious forms of spatial transformation.

12:15–13:15
Lunch

13:15–14:00
Adaptation Keynote
Hiroto Kobayashi (Keio University, Tokyo, Japan)

Japanese architect, professor at Keio University, and founder of Kobayashi Maki Design Workshop, known for his work on adaptive reuse, post-disaster reconstruction, and resource-conscious architecture.

14:00–14:15
Coffee Break

14:15–15:45 | Parallel Sessions

Main Hall – Session II: Material Systems and Circular Construction

This session focuses on material systems, construction processes, and circular approaches to the built environment. Contributions examine themes such as material reuse, prefabrication, tectonics, fabrication methods, and resource-aware design strategies, addressing how construction systems can support more adaptive and sustainable spatial practices.

Monumental studio – Parallel Session II: Participatory Planning and Urban Transformation

This session explores participatory approaches to urban transformation through digital mapping, GIS-based spatial analysis, and collaborative planning tools. Contributions address themes such as tactical urban interventions, community engagement, and urban greening strategies, examining how localized actions and participatory processes can inform broader spatial and policy frameworks and vice versa.

15:45–16:00
Coffee Break

16:00–16:45
Panel Discussion

16:45–17:00
Closing Words

The EKA Institute of Art History and Visual Culture is part of the Visual Arts in Europe: An Open History (EVA) project that brings together more than 150 art and heritage historians representing the 46 member countries of the Council of Europe. The project is led by an Editorial Board, composed of six European specialists, and supported by the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). Its scientific and operational coordination is provided by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) in Paris.

Launched in 2019, this scientific and editorial project results in the publication of a digital platform, documenting the history of the visual arts on the European continent, from prehistory to the present day. This platform will be structured around a collection of 475 objects and images, selected in consultation with all of its institutional partners. It is developed within the framework of an international dialogue, remaining attentive to the plurality and richness of scholarly traditions, accessible to all audiences, and providing an account of current research in the discipline of art history.

This seminar will examine the principles that inspired the launch of this project, the methodology used both for the selection of objects and the attribution of associated texts, as well as the challenges encountered during the development of the digital platform. The presentation of the project and platform prototype will be followed by an open discussion with colleagues from the EKA Institute of Art History and Visual Culture, host of this seminar and Estonian project partner. With INHA director Anne-Solène Rolland and project coordinator Margot Sanitas present, the seminar will be an opportunity for all the Estonian representatives to share their reflections on the selection of objects and how the project contributes to reshaping our common history of European visual culture.

When you think of the Nordic and Baltic regions, your first associations might be trolls and Vikings, the midnight sun and polar nights, saunas and ice swimming, hygge and fika, Nokia and IKEA. Maybe you have also heard about their excellent school systems and strong social welfare models. But what is behind these myths? 16 comic artists from across the Nordics and Baltics created works that reflect their unique perspectives on life in the region.

Participating artists: Akvile Magicdusté (Lithuania), Cecilia Vårhed (Sweden), Clara Jetsmark (Denmark), Disa Wallander (Sweden), Elín Elísabet (Iceland), Emmi Valve (Finland), Ida Neverdahl (Norway), Joonas Sildre (Estonia), Jurijs Tatarkins (Latvia), Laura Ķeniņš (Canada), Liisa Kruusmägi (Estonia), Mari Ahokoivu (Finland), Ona Kvašytė (Lithuania), Søren Glosimodt Mosdal (Denmark), Tim Ng Tvedt (Norway), Tommi Musturi (Finland). Curator: David Schilter.

Along with the exhibition comes the publication Baltic Comics Magazine š! #57 ”Mythbústers,” which collects these stories and gets distributed worldwide.

Organized by Kuš! in collaboration with Nordic Council of Minister’s Offices in Latvia and Estonia.

Supported by Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation, Nordic Council of Minister’s Offices in Latvia and Estonia, Danish Cultural Institute and Embassy of Sweden in Riga.