The Hermen Rode altarpiece research and conservation project once more receives a prestigious international award

The opened retable at Niguliste Museum. Photo by Villu Plink

On 11 September, the joint team from the Estonian Academy of Arts and Art Museum of Estonia won the International Institute for Conservation’s Keck Award for the research and conservation of the Rode altarpiece, as well as the accompanying educational activity.

Congratulations to the project team!

Coordinator: Hilkka Hiiop

Working group: Hedi Kard, Merike Kurisoo, Grete Nilp, Kaisa-Piia Pedajas and Tarmo Saaret

Research group: Alar Läänelaid, Hembo Pagi, Riin Rebane, Andres Uueni and Signe Vahur

Designer: Villu Plink

EKA long-time teaching staff member Heikki Zoova won the Design Education Award at the Estonian Design Awards

Kristjan Mändmaa, Dean of the Faculty of Design, is clearly very satisfied with the jury’s choice

Heikki Zoova has been teaching design for four decades. In 1978, Bruno Tomberg invited him to set up a photography and screen print lab at the Estonian State Art Institute, as EKA was then called. During his career, Heikki has worked as a Technician, Associate Professor, Professor and Head of the Department of Product Design.

According to the jury, Heikki Zoova deserves the acknowledgement as one of the founders of Estonian design education, who as a very modest person has received too little recognition thus far. As a spokesperson for design, his approach to design has always been brisk and interdisciplinary.

Congratulations!

Fresh fonts from the SUVA Type Foundry

The SUVA Type Foundry web platform introduces fonts made by EKA GD students, alumni and teaching staff members from 2010 to 2018, typographic experiments and archival materials. The fonts are available for easy downloading. The environment is a work in progress and new materials will be added in time.

Are you hungry for fonts?

Click now and in the future: https://www.suvatypefoundry.ee

Open lectures and seminars

The architecture open lectures series to launch its autumn season

This academic year, the EKA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, within the framework of the open lecture series, will again bring to Tallinn a number of exciting architects and urban designers – both theoreticians and practitioners – from all over the world. The lecture series will host, among the more renowned names, Enrique Sobejano, architect of the new Arvo Pärt Centre, and Patrik Schumacher, head of Zaha Hadid Architects, one of the most well-known architecture firms in the world.

All lectures will take place in the great hall of the new EKA building and start at 18:00. This year will see a change in the curatorial team – Sille Pihlak will be joined by architect Johan Tali.

The open lectures are always free and given in English.

The Faculty of Architecture’s open lecture #1 of the autumn season: Enrique Sobejano

Arvo Pärt Centre’s new building in Laulasmaa, designed by the Nieto Sobejano architecture firm. Photo by Roland Halbe

On Thursday 20 September at 18:00, Spanish architect Enrique Sobejano will give an open lecture in the EKA great hall.

Enrique Sobejano is the founder and partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, which won the architecture competition for the new building of the Arvo Pärt Centre. The extraordinary building will be opened under the pines of Laulasmaa in mid-October.

An open lecture by Malcolm Barnard: “Fashion, Messages and Communication”

On Thursday 20 September at 17:30 in room A501.

In his lecture, Dr Malcolm Barnard will outline the main features of the sender/receiver model of communication as it applies to fashion. He argues that messages are not sent or received but rather that meanings are constructed.

The lecture is organised by the EKA Department of Textile Design.

Exhibition

Abstraction as an Open Experiment at Tallinn Art Hall

Sirje Runge (Lapin). Proposals for Designing the Milieu of Tallinn City Centre (diploma work, panel no. 7), 1975. Gouache on cardboard. 100 × 100 cm. From the collection of the Museum of Estonian Architecture, photo by Teet Veermäe.

Abstraction as an Open Experimentis curated, based on her extensive research, by Mari Laanemets, senior researcher at EKA, and dedicated to radically simplified forms and the generalising thought systematically applied by artists. The exhibition aims to show how artistic practices that are based on formal experimentation can lead to a connection with social space, individuals and the surrounding environment.

Participating artists: Sirje Runge (EE), Zofia Kulik (PL), Dóra Maurer (HU) and Falke Pisano (NL) along with Jüri Okas (EE), Benoît Maire (FR) and Przemysław Kwiek (PL).

Drained Net, an exhibition by Carl-Robert Kagge at the TTK University of Applied Sciences

The lobby of the TTK University of Applied Sciences will start hosting exhibitions that feature young Estonian art. Carl-Robert Kagge, master’s student at the EKA Chair of Painting, was chosen as the first to exhibit his works there. Drained Netis on view during weekdays at 7:00–19:00 and will run until 17 November.

EKA Library launched a new exhibition series

The new EKA Library has a dedicated space for exhibitions! Photo by Mart Vainre

The EKA Library launched a new exhibition series that introduces rare publications from its collections that are not always readily accessible in the reading room.

The first exhibition will display a selection of books designed by graphic art students from 1945 to 1993.

The exhibition will run until 8 October.

Monument Valley (May Contain Artefacts), an exhibition by Anna Mari Liivrand at Showcase Gallery

Anna Mari Liivrand’s exhibition depicts a disproportionate, distorted view into a room similar to a garden that has been caught inside a glass chamber. The stained glass is composed out of memory shards through which a valley of frozen curiosities reveals itself. It is an ephemeral walk in the form of glass pillars, residue, lucky charms and vessels.

The exhibition can be viewed at all times and will run until 14 October.

Publications

EKA Press to publish a new book, Vorm ja konstruktsioon sisearhitektuuris, to be launched on 20 September

On Thursday, 20 September at 17:30, a new book from the Basics of Interior Architecture series will be launched on the 4th floor of the new EKA building. Vorm ja konstruktsioon sisearhitektuuris (Form and Structure in Interior Architecture) by Graeme Brooker and Sally Stone explores how the structure of the building affects the interior design. The book delves into physical factors such as light and orientation, the building’s context and sustainability.

It was translated into Estonian by Katrin Kask and published by EKA Press.

Everybody is welcome! At the launch, books from this series are available at a special price.

Want to work at EKA?

Estonian Academy of Arts is looking to fill the following vacancies: