Tutors: Elina Liiva, Helena Rummo, Margus Tammik, Mari Möldre, Merilin Kaup

Thank you, @pilvel6hkujad, for filling the house with warmth!

This open call focuses on the theme of “sketchy materials”, referring to the unreliable, dishonest, shady substances that make up a lot of the furniture, walls and floors around us. The growing discussion about material reuse mostly focuses on natural materials (wood, stone and metal), non-composite matter that can be relatively easily disassembled and repurposed for new needs. Recycling and repurposing becomes a lot more tricky with lesser-valued factory produced composite materials like particle boards (MDF, OSB or imitation wood). The low grade formaldehyde soaked boards with a relatively short life cycle are unvalued due to the challenges it brings with repurposing them for new needs and environments. With every IKEA cupboard left behind, every refurbished school or office, more sketchy materials are forgotten, thrown out and discarded. With the poor structural integrity goes hand in hand the debate of material value, how culturally some materials are considered good or bad, and how fast fashion furniture design ends up quickly in the gutters and landfills. The open call is to cultivate an explorative, bricoleurish mindset that always finds ways to work with any kind of materials and found objects, while avoiding mass-produced virgin materials, closing the material loop and creating behavioural change when it comes to how and what kinds of objects we surround ourselves with.

We invited cultural practitioners, architects, students, spatial artists, writers, anyone working and rethinking about the matter and spaces around us to experiment with the sketchy materials. The goal for the residents is to experiment, research, write, rebuild or destroy the reputation of unvalued, toxic, cheap materials, to find meaning in the particle board itself. In the end, the materials around us in their current state, natural or factory made, are the main building blocks for future projects.

The open call was available for both individuals and groups (max 3 people) from the Creative Europe countries to apply. The residency period is two months, 17.06.2024–15.08.2024, and it will end with a group exhibition, which will also be the kick-off event of the 2024 VARES summer school.

During this time, we collectively took on and shared tasks that focused on construction and repair, collection and reuse of old materials, and installation of functions necessary for life in the residency. With the power of group work, we managed to freshen up the lobby area, create a brand new kitchen and dining space, as well as a spa bathroom, all mostly using repurposed elements.

On Saturday, August 26th, we held an open doors day for locals and a party to celebrate with all the helpers. Altogether, over 30 volunteers came to paint, build, clean, tile, invent, discuss, cook and/or hang out. We thank them all very much!

In April, we spent a week together at the freshly accessed VARES residency building, and in May the students presented their processes and interactions in the old school house. The themes and topics dissected drying and dying, time, fragility, frustration, forgetting, concentration, comas, moments.

Students/first residents: Marleen Armulik, Katarina Ild, Laura Movits, Getter Pihlak, Elle Marie Randoja, Jaan Repnikov, Sven Christian Arthur Samyn, Mirjam Vaht. Supervisors: Ulla Alla, Merilin Kaup, Mari Möldre, Margus Tammik, Malle Jürgenson. Guest critics: Gregor Taul, Alina Nurmist.

In addition to 15 wood-fired stoves, the house has two floors, 14 rooms, 4 cubbyholes, a cellar and an attic. Log walls behind brick walls painted dark red, stone foundations and a dark puddle under the concrete vaults in the basement.

Over time, the initial elements have been lined with layers. The original timber floor topped with fiberboard and linoleum. A number of covered-up doors revealed within the walls. Nine layers of paint. And much more. A house like mille-feuille.

We are announcing the open call for 2024 residents in fall 2023. Residents will be welcome from February 2024. The length of the residency period is regularly around one month. We are also able to offer a small stipend to each resident. The residency period should involve or culminate with a public event of some kind: exhibition, lecture, open studio, opening of an installation or something similar.

Residents are encouraged to use the building of VARES as a research object and environment to develop during the residency, but also to engage with the urban and rural spaces and communities in and around Valga.

In short, we welcome:
→ both practitioners and theorists
→ people working both individually as well as collectively
→ especially people from the Baltic and Nordic regions, but also elsewhere in the world
→ also professional collectives who wish to use the space for a conference or workshop of their own

In addition to the regular residency programme, which will involve a number of public events, VARES will be hosting winter and summer schools and university courses for spatial design students.

In 2024, we will also organise a thematic intensive residency entitled “Sketchy materials wasteland” for a group of different residents. A separate open call is organised for this.

Information about all open calls and public events will be available on our Instagram, Facebook and newsletter.

VARES is part of the main programme of Tartu 2024 “Arts of Survival” European Capital of Culture.

Q: What are the accommodation and living conditions at VARES like?

A: VARES has a functioning kitchen and washing facilities, one properly furnished bedroom and resources for a larger number of sleeping places, including for babies and children.

The residency is located at Uus 35 in Valga. There are many shops and food establishments nearby. The building is 5 minutes by foot from the Valga town centre. The residency offers a couple of bikes as means of transport around the town and additional engine assistance can be arranged (vans, cars etc.).

The building has two floors with seven rooms on each of them. The whole house is heated with stoves, which is something the resident will have to engage with also themself (at least partly). During colder seasons, the house is going to shrink, meaning we will only use the rooms which we can keep warm.

There is no one permanently staying at VARES, and we also don’t have a specialised house manager. Anyone staying at VARES should allocate at least an hour of their day to care for the household, since domesticating it is the collective handwork of all of us.

Q: Why make an architecture residency in Valga? How do I get there?

A: A part of our team was co-organising the large international alternative architecture education summer school EASA Apathy in 2020. In 2023, thanks to the Valga municipality’s architect Jiri Tintera and the South Estonian programme of Tartu 2024 Capital of Culture, we got the opportunity to establish a spatial arts residency into an old schoolhouse previously inhabited by Valga Distance Learning High School.

Valga is the southernmost town of Estonia with 12 000 inhabitants, located on the border – just 400 meters from VARES, you can step into the Latvian town of Valka and wander around the exciting contemporary twin city urban space created in the past few years. On the one hand, Valga is a typical Eastern European industrial town with a decreasing population, where many abandoned and decaying structures are awaiting their fate. On the other hand, the multinational, human-scale, self-initiated atmosphere of Valga makes for an inspiring context to experiment with the urgent topics of today – degrowth, recycling and survival skills.

You can get to Valga with a train or a bus from:
→ Tallinn (~4h) (Elron / Tpilet)
→ Tartu (~1h) (Elron / Tpilet)
→ Riga (~3h) (Lux Express / Pasažieru Vilciens)

Nearest international airports to Valga:
→ Tallinn Lennart Meri Airport
→ Riga Airport
→ Helsinki Airport (you could take a ferry to Tallinn)

ULLA ALLA

Founder of VARES

Ulla is an architect and spatial artist working in Estonia and Georgia. She is one of the founder of the GRBGKDS (Garbage Kids) collective in Tbilisi, that focuses on carpentry, collectable furniture and restoration. She has been a freelance lecturer and tutor since 2018 at EKA and runs workshops both in Estonia and abroad. Her current creative work concentrates on handy activities and material experimentation, playing with dust, wood and other leftover materials.

MERILIN KAUP

Founder of VARES

MARI MÖLDRE

Founder of VARES

TRIIN REIDLA

Founder of VARES

MARIA MUUK

Graphic designer of VARES

Maria is a freelance graphic designer who mainly practices in the Estonian cultural sphere and researches local print design histories. In creating visual materials for VARES, she investigates methods of using non-digital graphic design tools, heritage technologies and available physical materials for contemporary visual communication outputs.

Website programmed by Patrick Zavadskis
Typeface: Katlamaja by Aimur Takk (Tüpokompanii)