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Announcements and inside information from the Master of Contemporary Art (MACA) program at the Estonian Academy of Arts

MACA is a two-year international program for emerging contemporary artists of different backgrounds intended to guide them during the development of their artistic position.

06/08/2026

From 12th to 16th of August, the Estonian pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, The House of Leaking Sky by Merike Estna is hosting The School of Strange Weather. The School of Strange Weather is a series of experimental interventions by students of Contemporary Art MA from the Estonian Academy of Arts, where Estna has been a professor since August 2025.

Merike Estna offers the pavilion as an open-ended platform for the students to present their performative projects. The School of Strange Weather constitutes an important layer in the life cycle of the pavilion, which Estna is presenting as a live process. It also relates to her long-time practice of hosting a variety of artists and events in the space she creates with her paintings. During The School of Strange Weather, Estna will not be painting at the pavilion, however, the space remains open to visitors and her large-scale canvases, the tiled floor and benches can be viewed.

The young artists from the Estonian Academy of Arts choreograph works ranging from daily acts of care for one another as well as the space they have been invited to inhabit as guests to longer durational movement pieces, unfolding both inside and outside the decommissioned church, now serving as both a community centre and an art pavilion. The artists take this as an opportunity to reflect on their histories and shared environment, alongside more intimate personal stories and experiences that invite connection and reflection from the visitors attending these events. The works explore subjects ranging from anxieties surrounding art, time, industrialization, and change to the challenges and possibilities of communicating across barriers within the global context of the Venice Biennale.

Participants:
Bob Bicknell-Knight, Daria Morozova, Denis Kudrjašov, Hanna Vinter, Irmak Semiz, Kertu-Liisa Sarap, Lili Maud Dobell & Éric-Olivier Thériault, Lotta Karoliina Räsänen, Marc Léger Sauvageot, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Nora Schmelter, Ronja Aurora Siitonen, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Rover Indigo Bertels-Andréa, Sander Karjus, Suvi Päll and Yiyang Sun

Supervisors:
Merike Estna and Karel Koplimets

Supporters:
Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian

29/06/2026

Kutse Lisette Lepiku isikunäituse avamisele Artrovert Galeriis 💥💥💥
Avamine: 7.07.26 18.00

Lahustumine
7.07 – 7.08.2026

Lisette Lepiku isikunäitus „Lahustumine’’ keskendub maali kui mitteajalise meediumi ja tantsu kui ajas kulgeva meediumi vahelisele dialoogile. Näitus lähtub küsimusest: kuidas saab ajas kaduv liikumine muutuda püsivaks kujutiseks ning kas maal suudab edasi kanda liikumise kogemust?
Maalikunst meediumina on traditsiooniliselt staatiline ning tasapinnaline. Tants seevastu avaneb ajas, läbi liikumise. Kuigi need kaks meediumit suhestuvad ajaga erinevalt, kooruvad mõlemad lahti läbi žesti ja kehalise liikumise. Tantsus kogetakse liikumist selle toimumise hetkel, maal aga näib peatavat aja, salvestades lõuendile jälje liikumise protsessist.
Mõlemas protsessis esineb hetki, mil tegevus neelab kogu tähelepanu endasse, teadlikkus ümbritsevast keskkonnast kaob, piir kavatsuse ja tegevuse vahel hägustub ning keha sulandub liikumise rütmiga üheks. „Lahustumine’’ lähtub maali ja tantsu ühisest seisundist, uurides võimalusi, kuidas salvestada liikumisest tekkinud jälgi, et need püsiksid ka peale hetke möödumist.
Näitusel „Lahustumine” väljub maalikunst oma piiridest, muutudes osaks hoolikalt loodud ruumikogemusest. Heli, valgus ja näitusearhitektuur toimivad maaliseeria aktiivsetete osalistena, hägustades järk-järgult piire kujutise ja atmosfääri ning vaatlemise ja kogemusliku kohalolu vahel. Üheskoos loovad need elemendid ruumi, kus näituse keskseid küsimusi kogetakse nii vaataja liikumise ja taju kui ka maalide endi kaudu.

Curator: Nora Schmelter
Heli: Gregor Sirendi
Graafiline disain: Villem Sarapuu
Tehniline tugi: Siim Raie, Nora Schmelter, Mats Johan Soosaar

Kunstnik soovib tänada: Artrovert Galerii, Eesti Kultuurkapital, Eesti Kunstiakadeemia Uusmeedia osakond, Punch Club, Zody Burke, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Gerda Hansen, Mats Johan Soosaar

T – L 12.00 – 18.00, P – E suletud

05/06/2026

There’s a little over a week left to visit Entrance No. 4 at ARS Project Space in Tallinn, which includes a selection of work from the second year MACA/MAKK programme.

The exhibition will close with a soft finissage in the presence of some of the curators and artists on Sunday, 14th June, from 14:00 – 16:00. There will be coffee and cookies!

The exhibition transforms the space into a stage of sorts, where the audience engages with the artworks on show through a series of curtailed entranceways, examining ideas of control, illusionary realities and voyeuristic tendencies. Through actively herding and throttling the viewing experience, Entrance No. 4 demands a re-examination of how artworks are seen and engaged with, reflecting upon how images are shared and diffused within contemporary life.

Artists:
Bob Bicknell-Knight, Giulio Cusinato, Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjašov, Lisette Lepik, Fausta Noreikaitė, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Anumai Raska, Nora Schmelter

Curators:
Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen and Nora Schmelter

Opening hours:
Tue - Fri: 12:00 - 18:00
Sat - Sun: 12:00 - 16:00

Address:
ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt 154, Tallinn 11317.

Photography by:

13/05/2026

𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐍𝐎. 𝟒
 23.05.26.-14.06.26  Join us for the opening on Friday, 22.05.26 at 18:00! There will be a performance by Anumai Raska .raska starting at 19:00.  Entrance No. 4 transforms the ARS Project Space into a stage of sorts, where the audience engages with the artworks on show through a series of curtailed entranceways, examining ideas of control, illusionary realities and voyeuristic tendencies. Through actively herding and throttling the viewing experience, Entrance No. 4 demands a re-examination of how artworks are seen and engaged with, reflecting upon how images are shared and diffused within contemporary life.

When navigating the purposefully oblique space one will have the opportunity to encounter work from 11 artists currently undergoing a Masters in Contemporary Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Artworks on show range from painting and sculpture to video and installation, engaging with ideas associated with the home, climate collapse and our collectively fraught relationship with the body and physical spaces.
 Artists: Bob Bicknell-Knight, Giulio Cusinato, Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjašov, Lisette Lepik, Fausta Noreikaitė, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Anumai Raska, Nora Schmelter  Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen and Nora Schmelter

Graphic Design: Chloé Gourvennec, Ethan Anthony Read  Opening hours:
Tue–Fri: 12:00–18:00
Sat, Sun: 12:00–16:00

ARS Project Space, Pärnu mnt 154, Tallinn 11317

The exhibition is supported by ARS Kunstilinnak, Estonian Acadamy of Art, Estonian Artists’ Association, Nudist, Põhjala Brewery, Tuletorn

07/05/2026

Welcome to an open lecture by ⛺️

In the lecture, Tiwari will introduce TENT: A School of Performative Practices — not as a proposal, but as an intervention. TENT is a nomadic, collective, and deliberately unfinished institution that refuses permanence, refuses neutrality, and refuses to wait for permission. Emerging from lived experience and structural exclusion, TENT is built from the ground up: without fixed walls, without inherited authority, and without the illusion that change can happen from within the same frameworks that produced the problem.
“Contemporary art institutions speak the language of inclusion, while their structures remain largely unchanged,” says Tiwari. “This is not a conversation about reform. It is an attempt at construction.”
The lecture moves between dream and reality, critique and action, asking a simple but urgent question: if institutions cannot change, what does it take to build new ones — and who gets to build them?

MAKK&MACA students are participating in Pankaj’ TENT plaform with their programme TENTative Practices which unfolds across several days within and around the tent. Students: , Sarah Riley, , .plof , , — events by them in Kumu courtyard on 11 May and 13 May.

See you in EKA and ⛺️

01/05/2026

Our second year students , , .noreika and are opening a group exhibition:
'SITE & SELF: Fragments of Spaces Inhabited.' tonight at gallery.

The exhibition will run until 16 May.

Place: (Raja tn 11a, 12616 Tallinn, Estonia)
Opening event: 1st of May / 18:00 -
Opening hours: Friday to Sunday, 16:00–20:00;
Monday to Thursday by appointment only.

11/03/2026

On Friday March 13th at 16:00, we’re launching the publication ‘For Crunch to be released, Compression must be added’ written by MACA students, during the Writing Practice course with Lieven Lahaye. This publication gathers together announcements, divinations, exercises, game rules, instructions, preparations, recipes, reports and transcriptions by Ronja Siitonen, Yiyang Sun, Eddie Allport, Sarah Riley, Éric-Olivier Thériault, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Po4(sh)taljon and Rover Indigo Bertels-Andréa. It was designed by Natália Morová and Selena Repanis

16:00 Launch event in the Balti Jaam pedestrian tunnel

Afterwards, the publication will also be available outside the opening of the spring exhibitions at Hobusepea Gallery (at 17:00), Vabaduse Gallery (at 18:00) and Lasnamäe pavilion (at 19:00).

04/02/2026

Tomorrow at 7pm opens the solo show of our 2nd year student Lisette Lepik at Haapsalu City Gallery💥💥💥

Firm & soft. Soft & firm

Inspired by autobiographical material the exhibition deals with themes of gender roles in intimate relationships. Visitors will see emotionally charged paintings accompanied by a soundscape created for the exhibition, representing Lepik's personal reflections and conversations with her mother and grandmother about their experiences within relationships and general family life.

The paintings are supported floor to ceiling by iron chains handcrafted by Lepik, representing the strongly held cultural and social baggage passed down between generations. The artworks within the exhibition act as a time machine through which one can observe the atmosphere of a 1990s city home in Mustamäe district or perhaps smell freshly cut grass from a recently mowed 1970s lawn in Rapla city.

Lisette Lepik: “I explore changes in gender roles and power dynamics through personal stories and photos of my family. Throughout the exhibition process I was inspired by B**M communities. They provide an opportunity to reverse the roles and rethink expectations on different genders. Within this context power relations happen by mutual agreement. Roles — dominant or submissive, firm or soft — are chosen consciously and voluntarily, with prior communication regarding boundaries and desires being the norm. Power, control and submission does not mean oppression here, but rather trust.”

The exhibition team

Location: Haapsalu City Gallery, Posti street 3
Opening: 5.02.2026 at 7pm
Open: 6.02.2026–01.03.2026, Wed-Sun 12am–6pm
Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna
Soundscape for the exhibition: Rene Manivald Tamm
Graphic design: Cristopher Siniväli
Tech support: Agur Kruusing, Mattias Veller
Special thanks to: Virve Lepik, Liana Lepik, Nora Schmelter, Gerda Hansen, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Estonian Academy of Arts metalworking shop, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Põhjala Brewery, Nudist Drinks

Address

Põhja Pst 7
Tallinn
10412

Website

https://www.artun.ee/maca

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