VARES is an international interdisciplinary residency for spatial practice, whose main task is to seek, find and create alternative spatial practices that are not based on market logic, but rather on the desire to create spaces and places that enrich everyday life, empower the local community and town of Valga.
We are interested in finding ways to practice slow architecture, critically rethinking the discipline of architecture, learning and resurrecting vernacular and traditional crafts, gathering old and used materials and creating a place for lifelong learning for architects and spatial artists.
VARES is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme.
Margus, Merilin, Mari and Ulla (and occasionally Nika). We have been working together for several years, evolving from our shared years of studying into a group that has taken on various configurations and roles—curators, spatial artists, tutors, lecturers, project managers, logisticians, etc. Together, we’ve been trying to create architecture and make it meaningful for both ourselves and others. This year, our self-initiated collective effort came together under the name of VARES.
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
Merilin is a freelance architect-artist working in Estonia. She graduated in 2022 from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Through her master’s thesis and other creative works and activities, Merilin has made a significant contribution to the understanding of architecture and its broader role, introducing several new ideas and topics to the architectural field here. Her master’s thesis, “Practical Utopias,” created at the Estonian Academy of Arts, won first place in the BAUA (Baltic Association of Architects) student awards competition in October 2022. Merilin’s most significant recognition to date is being named a finalist in the Young Talent category of the Mies van der Rohe Award 2023, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of architecture. This level of recognition is unprecedented in Estonian architectural history.
MARI MÖLDRE
Founder of VARES
Mari is an architect working in Estonia. She graduated in 2021 from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Since 2016, Mari has been collaborating with b210 architects. She mainly focuses on various exhibitions, working as a curator, spatial designer, and creator of artworks both locally and internationally. Mari was one of the curators for the Irish-Estonian wood-themed exhibition project “There is a forest in my backyard but my house is built from trees grown far away” and the Estonian pavilion “Home Stage” at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. Currently, among other interests, she is fascinated by mosaic and masonry work, appropriately embracing “Mördi Elmar”—the anagram of her name which translates as something like Mortar Joe.
MARGUS TAMMIK
Founder of VARES
Margus is a freelance architect based in Estonia. He graduated from the department of architecture and urban planning at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) in 2021, experimenting with spatial education for middle, high and university students throughout the years. Most of his projects are also involved with educational and creative spaces, either as an artist or curator at various biennials or through the self-initiated garage gallery Garaaž49. As a spatial creator, Margus is passionate about everything we create with our hands, sense with our bodies and experience through events, practising it under the initiative Hands Doing Things.
TRIIN REIDLA
Founder of VARES
Triin Reidla is a cultural heritage specialist, editor, and architectural historian currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She is a lecturer and the head of the architecture conservation module at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her research focuses on Estonian architecture in the 1980s. She is interested in topics related to heritage conservation, sustainability, and the circular economy. Triin has contributed to the creation of VARES, but currently does not actively participate in its activities.
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)
ESTONIAN SOCIETY FOR YOUNG ARCHITECTURE
VARES leading organization
The society’s goals are to give an input to the quality of Estonian architecture, spatial culture and education. We aim to give additional value and involve various disciplines to the educational landscape of architecture. We take part in discussions regarding our surroundings and we try to build a network to bring different discplines more together. To achieve these goals, we have initiated an architecture oriented residency building in Valga, Estonia.
Q: What is the residency programme of VARES going to look like? Who should apply?
A: The aim of Valga Architecture Residency or VARES is to host residents, seminars and workshops dealing with spatial practices. The two storey residency building will slowly be transformed into a house museum, a collection of experiments, spatial interventions and ideas left behind by the residents living there.
We welcome international and interdisciplinary residents and guests who wish to experiment with circular materials and handicraft methods, engage with the unique geopolitical position of Valga, do some thematic mental exercises and contribute to creating inspiring alternative spatial experiences for oneself as well as the community.
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.
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.
VARES architecture residency is located in a school house built in 1936, which has been used as a boarding school for girls and, lately, an adult distance learning high school.
The residency now has comfortable corners for living, yet the building itself is left raw and open for the residing artists to work on and in.
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.
VARES invites architects and spatial practitioners living, studying, or working in the Nordic and Baltic countries to participate in a winter school on the theme of darkness, taking place in Valga from December 4 to 8.Application deadline November 1st.
As the long, dark nights increasingly replace the bright stretched-out days, it’s a good time to ponder our regional characteristics as well as historical and contemporary responses to darkness.
Over five days and nights, we will do more and probably less than as follows:
reflect on architecture and urban tendencies to push away darkness with artificial light
stare directly into the abyss of pitch blackness
debate whether Valga is the town of light or the land of darkness, and map out which places in the urban space have been deemed necessary to illuminate and why
look at satellite images where islands of darkness are increasingly flooded by oceans of light
have a nap
consider darkness as an endangered species in need of protection and advocacy
attend lectures
watch an unjustly lesser-known Estonian political thriller in which a city gets unplugged
read horror stories
take turns on night watch to observe and narrate what happens while others sleep
contemplate which is safer: being invisible or illuminated in darkness
reflect on ecosystems that have adapted to natural light rhythms over time and are now perplexed
About us
The winter school is organised by VARES, Valga’s architecture residency. Our initiative aims to seek and create alternative spatial practices that are not based on market logic but rather on the desire to create spaces that enrich everyday life, empower the local community and town of Valga.
The workshop will be led by Pablo Encinas Alonso, an architect, spatial and performance artist living in Gothenburg. The lecture will be given by Eik Hermann, an Estonian philosopher, lecturer, and editor of the magazine “Ehituskunst.” The next issue of “Ehituskunst” will be dedicated to the darkish conditions of the local winters and architecture’s relationship to them.
The winter school is supported by Nordplus Horizontal, Nordic Culture Point and the Estonian Ministry of Culture. VARES is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu2024 main programme.
How to apply
If you wish to participate in the winter school, please send us:
Your CV and a brief description as a spatial practitioner (portfolio is optional)
Your expression of interest as a motivation letter (max 400 words), a short video (max 3 minutes), or any other creative format
Please send your application by November 1, 2024, to info@vares.space with the subject line “Hello darkness *your name*“
The 10 participants for the winter school will be selected from among the applicants by VARES curators (Ulla Alla, Merilin Kaup, Mari Möldre, Margus Tammik) by November 8, 2024.
Participation in the winter school is free for selected participants, and VARES will provide shared accommodation, meals, and travel support.
During September, construction began on the swimming spot at the Pedeli Peninsula in Valga, designed by young Estonian architects Mia Martina Peil, Katariina Mustasaar, Eneli Kleemann, Lill Volmer, Marie Anette Veesaar, Anna Riin Velner, and Saskia Epp Lõhmus (stuudio kollektiiv).
Stuudio kollektiiv is a group of young architects interested in sustainable construction. Their priorities are collaboration and sensitivity to local conditions, with the goal of reducing construction waste. They have tested these principles in previous urban projects such as “Living Room Street” and the “Straw Chapel.” At the VARES residency, they continued their research into construction waste, focusing on applying reuse and recycling methods in architecture. From their findings, they crafted urban furniture for public use.
“In the middle of the city, amidst the Pedeli reservoir, lies a river bend. This year’s September air is humid and warm, and occasionally, one can spot people quickly getting dressed after slipping out of the water on the opposite shore. It’s quite a nice place to be.”
Throughout September, they roamed waste stations, demolition sites, and the Estonian-Latvian border areas to collect abandoned materials, which they used to create something both delightful and practical on the banks of the Pedeli reservoir. They invited bricklayers from Valga Vocational Center to help with the masonry, and together they built unconventional brick structures. The swimming area will be fully completed by spring, when the final landscaping will be done and sand will be added to make getting into the water more comfortable.
“No need to get dressed so quickly anymore, as the residency has resulted in Brickster – a slightly tilted but charming place for dressing or just hanging out. We invite you to get acquainted with it on October 19th at 2:00 PM. If you wish, bring your swimwear and a towel!”
Mia Martina Peil, Katariina Mustasaar, Eneli Kleemann, Lill Volmer, Marie Anette Veesaar, Anna Riin Velner, Saskia Epp Lõhmus together are Stuudio kollektiiv.
Stuudio kollektiiv is a collective of young architects with a strong interest in sustainable building. Our designs prioritise collaboration and sensitivity to the local conditions, with an aim of reducing the amount of construction waste. In our previous works such as „Living Room Street“ and „Straw Chapel“, we have explored those ideas in an urban context.
During our residency we will continue research on construction waste, exploring methods for reusing and recycling in architecture. The process will involve mapping, sourcing used materials from various sites and establishing a material catalogue. The results will be integrated into the design and construction of a public installation in Valga. By combining theoretical research with practical experiments, challenging conventional design processes and inviting the local community to experience the results firsthand, we hope to impact how reused materials are perceived. Providing architects with practical tools and strategies, we hope to inspire designers to rethink material use as a part of their designs.
The opening of Stuudio kollektiiv’s installation will take place on October 19th on the shore of Lake Pedeli in Valga.
During her stay in Valga, Estonian artist Katariin Mudist collected local waste bricks, photographed houses and explored the potential of abandoned spaces. As a result, a “Red Carpet” was laid of bricks on the outdoor staircase of the building located at Vabaduse 3 in the city center, which is currently mostly empty, inviting the eyes of all passers-by to take a closer look at the remarkable building.
In addition, Katariin created a series of photographs. Being interested in both well-maintained and abandoned houses, she photographed local windows of residential houses veiled with curtains, intending to later print them in life size and paste them onto the closed openings of abandoned houses where no life remains. At times, the prints appear so realistic that, at first glance, they may not reveal their superficiality when glued to the boards, and may indeed create the impression of life on the other side of the glass. The walk led by Katariin invited participants to reflect on the history of urban spaces, reuse, and art in public spaces. Hopefully, the owners of both the collected bricks and the photographed windows will find it exciting to see their belongings in a new context.
At the end of September, another urban installation was completed in Valga’s town square. “Kreisi Building Nursery” is a bioactive art installation that embodies the creative principles of the collective Space Nursing.
Throughout September, Vilnius-based architect Augustas Lapinskas and New York-based artist Ditiya Ferdous (Space Nursing) collected lichens from Valga and its surroundings, resulting in an artwork on the crumbling wall of the abandoned old district building (Kreisihoone), depicting four swallows. Each bird represents a community of lichens found in the local urban environment: lichens living on trees, edible “reindeer moss” (which, despite its name, is also a lichen), mainly ground-dwelling “dog-lichen”, and lichens that live exclusively in urban settings. This site-specific installation challenges preconceived notions of wastelands and abandoned buildings as something desolate, highlighting the rich ecosystems thriving there as well as their symbiotic interactions with the surroundings. Lichens, which are sensitive to air pollution, also serve as a natural air quality indicator for the town of Valga.
Additionally, on the day of the opening, Augustas and Ditiya took visitors on a walk with microscopes to explore the city’s invisible inhabitants and hosted a flower arrangement workshop
September brings to VARES: dozen residents, dowsing rods and pendulums, microscopes, plant nurseries, self-made terrazzo, bricklaying and as always – lots of material hunting, strolling and swimming.
Join us on September 26 for a day full of activities. At 3PM, Katariin will take us around the town to explore brick sculptures, at 4PM, under the guidance of Augustas and Ditiya, there will be a walk revealing Valga’s microscopic inhabitants, and at 7PM, Paula and Diana will givea magical performance. All events start and end in the VARES garden. See the posts below for more details.
Join Augustas Lapinskas and Ditiya Ferdous (Space Nursing) for a walkshop exploring Valga’s abandoned buildings and urban wastelands on September 26th.
Space Nursing is a communal art practice which combines artistic research, spatial activism, and experimental architecture to reframe urban wastelands as sites of rich ecological and symbolic spatial potential. In this walkshop, participants will get a chance to observe Valga’s microscopic inhabitants through portable microscopes that reveal the vibrant ecologies and biodiversity that exists in “waste-spaces”. We will see Augusts’ and Ditiya’s interventions–site specific bio-active “nurseries” on Valga’s derelict buildings. The workshop will conclude with a waste foliage floral arrangement workshop. Participants get to build their own floral sculpture turning unruly plant material into unique arrangements.
Katariin Mudist invites you to an exhibition of sculptures and spatial interventions made from leftover bricks, taking place throughout the town of Valga.
During the walk, we will move from one installation to another, exploring how these abandoned and historic bricks have been given new life in the urban space. The project highlights the unique potential of materials from Valga’s wastelands and leftover spaces, combining them with the town’s architectural heritage and contemporary eco-friendly thinking. Each brick carries traces of the past, and Katariin has experimented with these materials in ways that reveal new meanings—bricks have been engraved, ground into dust, and placed in new contexts. The walk invites participants to reflect on the history of urban spaces, reuse, and public art.
The walk will take place on September 26, starting at 3:00 PM from the VARES garden.
Diāna Mikāne and Paula Veidenbauma (gel) invite everyone interested in speculative building practices and the interaction between humans and materials to participate in their events.
September 12th at 4pm Workshop Raising Energies. Dowsing for Beginners
Diāna Mikāne and Paula Veidenbauma will lead a public workshop on dowsing rituals and tools. Together, participants will craft dowsing rods and pendulums before mapping the VARES house and garden.
September 26th at 7pm Performance Trembling ground
The ground trembles. VARES space transforms into a metaphysical landscape. The territory embodies a state of magical thinking, resonating deeply with times of uncertainty. A performance emerges from mapping energy points and underground waters through dowsing practices around the borderlands of Valga and Valka. During their residency, an artistic duo ‘gel’ aims to explore energetic undertones and cleanse/inhibit the water-powered crossroads through rites and tools of dowsing, embodied reconnection, and somatic movement.
Our practice, called Space Nursing, involves the creation of Nurseries, or public spaces which recognize urban wastelands as ecologically rich environments.
Through reconceptualizing derelict spaces and taking care of the Nurseries, we facilitate the potential for urban human life to develop mutualistic relationships with stigmatised urban ecologies. Space Nursing argues for a more nuanced discourse regarding redevelopment of abandoned space, opposing oversimplification and stigmatisation of marginalised ecosystems.
Augustas Lapinskas is an architect from Vilnius, Lithuania, having a background in literature, music, and performative arts; lately been drawn to artistic research and interdisciplinary collaborations. Augustas is a co-creator of the micro-empathy arts collective, a part of Kaunas 3022 collective and Neofuturistic Walks movement;. Augustass has participated in Architecture Fund’s Experiments Platform, EIT Climate-KIC Hub, Tech Arts Incubator, Kuriu Vilnių program, Venice Biennial and Ars Electronica Founding Lab.
Ditiya Ferdous is an artist and filmmaker from Queens, New York. They are pursuing their Masters in analog animation at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Their current work investigates fairytale, standpoint theory and the production of racialized subjectivity in anthropomorphic animated characters. As a Bangladeshi American person of diaspora, Ditiya is interested in exploring memory, belonging, and production of identity in urban and abandoned spaces.
During the course of the residency, we would like to experiment with new recipes for bio-active paint, using lichens, mosses and fungi to produce site-specific installations. Alongside slow-growth Nurseries, we would also like to experiment with waste foliage arrangement. By foraging what is otherwise regarded as unruly or overgrown foliage, we would like to develop the vernacular art of waste floral bouquets.
Katariin Mudist explores the preservation of the past and evolving materiality, delving into humanity’s manifestation in social practices. Her works spotlight the cleaner’s social position, question productivity origins, and map diverse beliefs.
Her practice embraces unexpected, humorous perspectives on the familiar, revealing motifs that mirror humanity, employing a multidisciplinary approach from animation to sculpture. Since 2023, she studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Craft Studies Department, following a 2022 Master’s degree from the Contemporary Art Department and a 2018 degree from the Tartu Higher Art School. She expanded her studies at KASK University in Ghent (2020-2021) and the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest (2018-2019). Since 2022 she has been a member of the Association of Estonian Printmakers and Estonian Association of Young Contemporary Artists.
During my residency at Vares, I plan to study and work with leftover materials/ residue bricks, which are partly from wastelands or wastespaces. This is a project that will not only highlight the potential of wastelands and their role in art and environmental thinking, but will also explore the unique potential of residue bricks as both a material and an artistic expression. I am going to use the found building materials to create sculptures and spatial interventions in the local environment. I am fascinated by the potential of looking at used bricks as a material that has stored the past and the different stories reflected in their old and worn surfaces. This project gives me the opportunity not only to salvage these material remains, but to give them new life and meaning.
The opening of Katariin’s installation takes places on the 19th of October. More on that soon!
Diāna and Paula form the artistic research collective gel, whose research inquiries gravitate around nuances of everyday aesthetics and the examination of postcolonial practices in the context of a modern Post-Soviet space.
Diāna Mikāne is an artistic researcher, currently working between Riga (LV) and Nida (LT). Interested in interdisciplinary approaches and merging artistic and academic practices, Diana is transitioning between various art-related roles, ranging from exhibition production to field and theoretical research, creative writing, and art criticism.
Paula Veidenbauma is an urbanist, sometimes a performer, sometimes a writer. Living and working between Riga (LV), Tallinn (EE) and Vienna (AT). Interested in the overlap between Baltic State’s transition into a market economy and the following private-public segregation, she explores the spatial turn towards a neoliberal condition where her own body is a material for explorative praxis.
“Bad energy. Good energy. We are wondering about dowsing, a practice to locate groundwater ultimately mapping fire and water energetical points. The practice usually uses a dowsing rod where a dowser connects to fragile trembling vibrations from the ground. In Baltics, dowsing holds a status of a beloved pseudo-science that is connected to pagan knowledge. It is a common practice to invite a dowsing practitioner before building a house or deciding to demolish it. In this residency, taking on Valga/Valka as exploration grounds, we aim to explore the energetic undertones through somatic movement, embodied reconnection, and human and material interaction.
How does speculative building practice in the Baltic region build up on new spiritual energy cleansing myths and what kinds of ghosts are they trying to catch? How is the state of magical thinking connected to times of uncertainty, and how materials can be released from the heavy burden of <heavy energies> without us fleeing away?”
The first VARES summer school will be held on August 16-23, focusing on the theme of spatial activism. There will be 3 workshops for registered participants and several public lectures and discussions that are open to everyone. All events take place in the installation space set up for the summer school on the central square of Valga and are held in English.
18.08 at 19:30 Public lecture by Secretary (Helen Rix Runting and Rutger Sjögrim). Another world is possible: spatial activism and architecture.
What does it mean, to be engaged in “spatial activism” as an architect? From the playfully useless relational aesthetics of “the long 1990s” to the post-political participatory promises of the 2010s to the postcolonial turn in architecture in the 2020s, a series of critiques thread together the fragmented and complex history of spatial activism, as practitioners have fought for autonomy in the face of capitalism, patriarchy, modernity, empire, and irrelevance. This talk by the Stockholm-based architecture practice Secretary seeks to think through the “spatial activism” term in an architectural theory/history context, through personal anecdotes of disappointment and hope, theoretical sources, and examples from contemporary practice. Nothing, it turns out, is ever new. And maybe that’s OK.
Secretary is an office for architecture run by architectural theorist and urban planner Dr. Helen Rix Runting and architect Rutger Sjögrim. Publishing books, designing buildings, and doing art and research, Secretary explores the possibilities of life in the late welfare state.
19.08 at 19:30 Public discussion: alternative urban planning. Moderators: Siiri Hänninen and Cecilia Aintila
How to participate in urban planning processes which are highly professionalized and bureaucratic? How to use professional specific knowledge and experience to give voice to local needs and resist top-down planning decisions? How to be in contact with politicians and affect decision-making? You Tell Me Collective members Cecilia and Siiri will host a discussion on alternative city planning and its possibilities, challenges and ways to implement it to a spatial practitioner’s work.
Siiri Hänninen is working postdisiplinary between art, activism and architecture. Siiri dreams about a city which would be creatively used and cared for by its human and more-than-human citizens. As an artist Siiri’s works have been exhibited eg. in Mänttä Art Festival and Amos Rex. As an activist Siiri has been working in the Extinction Rebellion of Finland and combined her activist work in architecture in alternative urban planning. Siiri has been teaching in Estonian Academy of Arts and is organizing and teaching in an Architecture and Activism masters studio course in Aalto University in the fall of 2024. Siiri is working as the creative director of Soiva Metsä Festival taking place in Northern Kainuu, Finland, in the summer of 2025.
Cecilia Aintila (they/she) is an architect and builder (currently in carpenter school). After spending a year and a half working in the urban planning departments of two different cities, Cecilia has been reflecting on how to use architecture tools within activism. In the spring of 2024, as part of a working group within the You Tell Me collective, Cecilia contributed to developing an alternative urban plan to save the Stansvik forest area.
21.08 at 19:30 Public lecture by Gustavs Grasis. Fibreglass optimism at the end of the soviet union. The design legacy of Aivars Bērziņš (1936-2016).
Three artefacts from 1980s Rīga – chairs for waiting, telephone booths for talking and kiosks for consuming. What does it mean to understand and to learn from these objects? An inquiry in the recent history of design, an investigation of relationships, a meandering journey through Latvia’s interiors, race tracks and bodies of water.
Gustavs Grasis is a practitioner, photographer and researcher of architecture. With roots in the Latvian countryside and a penchant for expeditions into the unknown, Gustavs finds that the seemingly peripheral can be full of surprising insights and believes in nurturing relationships with overlooked spatial heritage. Gustavs is a member of Baltic Lines artistic research network, to which he is currently contributing an exploration of interconnectedness between fibreglass design and environmental/megaproject entanglement in 1980s Latvia. Using photography as a tool of illumination and inquiry, Gustavs has participated in solo and group shows in Rīga, exploring themes ranging from hometown anthropocene to the heritage of postmodern architecture.
23.08 at 15:30 Public presentations of summer school workshops
Tutors and participants will be sharing the explorations and results of the three workshops.
Our co-organisers include Finnish art and architecture collectives Art for All and You Tell Me Collective, as well as Latvian artistic research group gel and Estonian art group Kunstiryhmitus(Art Gr0up)
On August 16 at 15.00, Yuriko Yagi and Kazumasa Takada (PAN-PROJECTS) will open their end show at Riia 5, Valga.
The exhibition opening hours are: 17 August 12-6pm 18-22 August 3-6pm
The exhibition delves into the hidden potential of textile offcuts sourced from a local clothing factory Aclima in Valga, Estonia. By reshaping the offcuts into entangled forms, the artists transformed them into the primal and universally accessible object: ropes. The exhibition showcases these ropes in various forms, reclaiming one of the oldest creations produced by mankind as a conceivable answer to modern issues. Created through a simple twisting method, these artistic yet practical entwined objects invite visitors to acknowledge the existence of unconsciously ignored matters of our world. Along with ropes of all kinds, the self-built machines used to produce them can be seen in action as well.
On August 10, we will summarize the two-month group residency dealing with the “sketchy” materials such as particle boards by exploring the possibilites to reuse those materials or looking into the societal backwaters of their production. The event is held in VARES building (Uus 35) and will start at 13.00, opening up four projects one after another:
Aistė Gaidilionytė and Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė: ‘Sketchy catalogue: pretending wood‘ Glued wood leftovers encountered in Vares lead us to a journey of investigating different types of this sketchy material. By getting to know what it is composed of in particle level, we started shifting the gaze and imagining different ways of working with it as well as organizing it – creating a sort of visual catalogue – that invites to interact slowly and mindfully with these materials, getting to know them more deeply.
Sandra Mirka: ‘Leftovers‘ Sandra combines her skills as a chef and interior designer and invites everyone to a feast around the objects she has built. Modifying textures and structures to form new ones is what makes cooking and furniture building exciting. Along this residency scraps, one sketchier than the other, have been collected to build a surface where prepping food and dining can take place. There is something satisfying about cooking to avoid waste and building stuff from what others consider as waste. Welcome to the spontaneous touches of leftovers.
Emel Tuupainen: ‘Post-growth prosperity: from the history of economic injustice to the future visions of ecological transition and prosperity in shrinking regions.‘ During the residency, Emel’s focus has been on understanding the local context of Valga regarding the future and ecological transition and drawing connections to the international systems. The essay claims that the problem of increasing quantity of sketchy materials stem from the unsustainable and unjust global economic system. To reach something better and more sustainable, we must understand global economic history and problems of economic injustice to ecological transition. The essay gives a short introduction to the wicked problem of economics and justice in ecological transition and describes with different systemic levels how post-growth approaches could be beneficial to increasing regional justice in ecological transition and spatial planning. A shrinking town struggling with economic obstacles for faster development, the town of Valga, is seen as an example, where post-growth approaches and ideas could be a political asset for increasing prosperity and wellbeing in the future.
Jakob D’herde: ‘Sketchy spatial poetics‘ After eight weeks of intuitive and improvised building of scenographic elements, Jakob D’herde has discovered a profound spatial poetics in his ‘Sketchy Constructions’. His objects, despite being made from a mixture scraps and discarded sketchy materials, convey a sense of meaning and care. They are not beautiful as objects, but rather as a representation of bringing forth the truth of realised potential in spite of their sketchy qualities. His reflection of this spatial poetics will take shape in a methodological note and reflective booklet.
PAN- PROJECTS is a London-based architectural design practice co-founded by Japanese architect duo Yuriko Yagi and Kazumasa Takada.
The studio conceives architecture as an art of fabrication, creating architecture holistically, carefully combining elements we believe should be viewed as works of art in their own right. This is achieved through genuine collaboration with multidisciplinary creators and clients from various backgrounds, recognising the distinct value they bring to each project. Since early 2019, the studio has engaged in an experimental research project entitled ‘Architecture of By-products’ which explores urban wastes as potential architectural materials and urban storytellers.
PAN- PROJECTS continues an ongoing research project, Architecture of By-products during the stay at VARES. The project explores the potential of urban by-products, also known as waste, to be used as a resource for architectural materials. They conceive by-products as urban storytellers that allow us to observe and relate architectural projects directly with their community. By the end of the project, they will produce a series of Architectural Fragments, to be presented at the public exhibition alongside the selected by-product. As they curate their work in the exhibition, the by-products unveil the unseen story of the town.
Before the month is over it is time to share the results of Päär Keedus’ and Karolin Kull’s time in the VARES residency.
With small interventions around the residency building to their final installation ‘Kändlik’, using only materials that were discarded, thrown out or forgotten, combining them into a whole again. Their installation, erected on a gigantic poplar tree stump on Piiri street will hopefully bring back some life that before tree’s shadow used to offer.
More than 100 applications were received for this year’s public call for VARES summer school and we are grateful to everyone who showed interest. We are happy to welcome 13 participants, they are:
Anna Kobierska, Dariia Ruda, Elene Pichkhadze, Ellen Vene, Han Le Han, Indré Butkuté, Iona Ascherson, Jacob Lambrecht, Laura-Maria Vahimets, Lilla Lukàcs, Madli Kaljuste, Michal Romaniuk, Reinis Salins
We will send an email to all participants with more detailed information about the program and the practicalities.
Yet another residency has come to a beautiful finish. All objects, carefully repaired by jinseok choi during his open repair workshop were exhibited at the Valga train station.
In late May, the artist and professional carpenter jinseok choi held a repair workshop at the VARES residency, focusing mainly on repairing furniture, textiles, and clothing. Chairs, tables, stools and other objects were brought in and revitalized during the month. On the exhibition day, they were returned to their owners. The doors of the workshop were also open to those who wished to be part of the repairing process, to experiment and learn new techniques. Big thanks to all the helpers, especially Daria, Polina and Elina from Valga-Valka art school, who spent many days with jinseok in the repair shop and contributed with their creativity.
→ Application deadline: July 15, 2024 → Summer School period: August 16-23, 2024 → VARES provides shared accommodation, meals and travel support for 10 selected participants.
The inaugural VARES Summer School will delve into the multifaceted topic of spatial activism. We will explore theoretical perspectives on the definition of spatial activism and the various forms it can take. Additionally, we will engage in practical discussions and share knowledge on what can be achieved through spatial activism, including how communities can be empowered to shape their own environments and how bureaucratic systems can either support or hinder such efforts in both urban and rural settings.
Moreover, we will look into activism on behalf of other species, addressing the challenges faced by non-human entities that cannot advocate for themselves within legal systems. This will involve exploring concepts of more-than-human agency and multispecies assemblages. The program will also feature hands-on activities, including space-making initiatives and participatory performative acts of spatial activism.
Programme
During the week, there will be two workshops aimed at registered participants, as well as a public programme with lectures and seminars open to everyone. A more detailed programme and guest lecturers will be announced here soon.
Installation: Traveling Fabric Tutors: Matti Jänkälä, Anna-Liisa Harju, Michael Panula-Ontto, Pragati Singhal (AFA) As part of its program Art For All will produce an artistic intervention in the city of Valga. The community’s nomadic platform ‘The Traveling Fabric’ invites the participants of the summer school as well as the residents of Valga to reflect methods of occupying urban space. The Traveling Fabric delves into questions of ephemerality, nomadism and continuous collective artistic work. The platform is, as its name suggests, a textile installation that can be moved and adapted to various locations. The summer school participants and residents of Valga will meet each other at the platform taking part in knowledge sharing and artistic programme.
Workshop: Multispecies Valga Tutor: Ella Prokkola (You Tell Me Collective) The sensibilities of spatial practitioners can also be used for advocating the lives of non-human citizens. Multispecies Valga is a one-day workshop dedicated for noticing and representing the non-human agencies that compose and cohabit the town of Valga. Who are the non-human residents of Valga? How do we cohabit together? What are the non-human lives that make life in the town possible? How could Valga be space of multispecies flourishing? The workshop consists of a theoretical intro, a collective mapping exercise and a discussion.
Workshop: Urban Activism Tutors: Kunstiryhmitus Kunstiryhmitus will conduct a series of conceptual performative acts in the town of Valga that will be created together with the participants.
Discussion: Alternative city planning Hosts: Siiri Hänninen, Cecilia Aintila How to participate in urban planning processes which are highly professionalized and bureaucratic? How to use professional specific knowledge and experience to give voice to local needs and resist top-down planning decisions? How to be in contact with politicians and affect decision-making? You Tell Me Collective members Cecilia and Siiri will host a discussion on alternative city planning and its possibilities, challenges and ways to implement it to a spatial practitioner’s work.
How to apply
→ We invite both established professionals, amateurs, students, architects, artists, writers and thinkers who are interested in the theme of the summer school. → The summer school is free of charge for 10 selected participants. VARES provides shared accommodation, meals and travel support. → To apply, send us an e-mail (info@vares.space) by July 15 consisting of your CV/bio and a short motivation letter. → The choice of participants will be made by the organisers and results will be sent via email by 19th July.
Meet your organisers, tutors and lecturers
The summer school is organised by VARESin collaboration with the Finnish artists’ and architects’ communities Art for Alland You Tell Me Collective, the Latvian artistic research network gel and the Estonian art collective Kunstiryhmitus.
VARESValga Architecture Residency(EE), the host organisation of the summer school, is a self-initiated interdisciplinary residency for spatial practice. The focus is on slow architecture practice, material repurposing, spatial experimentation and research. This year, the residency hosts 50 architects, artists and researchers from all over the world. Situated on the border of Estonia and Latvia, the residency has made its nest in an old school from the 1930s, a two storey building that will slowly be transformed into a house museum, a collection of experiments, spatial interventions and ideas left behind by the residents living there. VARES is a part of the Tartu 2024 Culture Capital of Europe “Arts of Survival” main programme.
Art for All(FI) is a community supporting artists in the beginning of their careers. The association’s mission is to promote cross artistic collaboration and accessibility of art and culture. The association works towards an art and culture field that is more inclusive, where new artistic voices can emerge and those who are not high consumers of culture would find their way to experience it.
You Tell Me Collective (FI) is a collective of young architects whose goal is to promote a paradigm change in thinking within the construction sector through peer-to-peer learning and sharing information, and by expanding the discussion on architecture beyond professionals in the field. The collective has been working with eg. Museum of Finnish Architecture, Archinfo Finland, ACAN, Ministry of Environment of Finland and an artist collective Porinkulttuurisäätö.
gel (LV) is an artistic research collective of Diāna Mikāne and Paula Veidenbauma whose research inquiries gravitate around nuances of everyday aesthetics and the examination of postcolonial practices in the context of a modern Post-Soviet space. Their latest project, Baltic Lines, explores the Rail Baltica railway infrastructure megaproject, which aims to integrate the Baltic States into the European rail network. The project involves eleven artists–researchers from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden, who will focus on themes such as the concept of the Baltic region, archiving as a political practice, and documenting megaprojects.
Art group Kunstiryhmitus is a creative collective of young artists and architects dedicated to performance art that came together in the fall of 2022. Their performance practice deals with the surrounding environment and urban space on a daily basis. They have performed multiple acts in public spaces that comment the urban status quo or imagine an alternative for it such as “I live in Tallinn”, “Last Supper”, “Picnic” and “Mattress”.
Ella Prokkola is a landscape architect based in Helsinki. After studies in Aalto University and ENSP Versailles she continued working as a researcher and educator in Aalto. Ella’s professional curiosity revolves around questions emerging from the climate & biodiversity crisis. How is the posthuman paradigm affecting landscape architecture? How to apply multispecies thinking in our construction culture? As a founding member of You Tell Me Collective, she has organized and participated in several discussions and events regarding architects’ role in the era of the climate and biodiversity crisis. Her current research project, carried out in collaboration with KONE Foundation’s Saari Residence, examines speculative cartography and architectural graphics as devices of multispecies storytelling. As a long time member of EASA (European Architecture Students’ Assembly) she has held architecture workshops in UK, Switzerland, Estonia and Finland.
Siiri Hänninen is working postdisiplinary between art, activism and architecture. Siiri dreams about a city which would be creatively used and cared for by its human and more-than-human citizens. As an artist Siiri’s works have been exhibited eg. in Mänttä Art Festival and Amos Rex. As an activist Siiri has been working in the Extinction Rebellion of Finland and combined her activist work in architecture in alternative urban planning. Siiri has been teaching in Estonian Academy of Arts and is organizing and teaching in an Architecture and Activism masters studio course in Aalto University in the fall of 2024. Siiri is working as the creative director of Soiva Metsä Festival taking place in Northern Kainuu, Finland, in the summer of 2025.
Karolin Kull and Päär Keedus are interior architects from Aalto University and the Estonian Academy of Arts. They find value in locality, materiality, slow-tech, and self-architecture, enabled by material contact in their working methods.
Päär Keedus and Karolin Kull are in VARES to experiment.
Is it possible to make sense of the city as a space, and of space as a theoretical and empirical sense of the environment, through a sense of the non-space? To create an informal space, a thing?
Each thing would symbolize a homage to site-specificity.
They will excavate the city. How do materials meet each other? They want to promote slow architecture and slow living. To challenge conventional standards of spatial beauty in their work. Does beauty also lie in pragmatism and functionality? They don’t want to over-romanticise the self-architecture of poverty and lack of resources, but to see beauty in this ultimate pragmatism. Is the lack of means the seed of ingenuity? Why do we build anything at all?
To imagine a reality where self-architecture is embedded in every structure.
The opening of their installation KÄNDLIK takes place on July 15th at 8 pm in Valga.
During the VARES summer we have a two month long material focused group residency called Sketchy Materials Wasteland (SMW), where five creatives will dwell deep into the composite materials surrounding us (OSB, MDF, glulam etc), looking into their societal background, affordability, uniqueness and repurposing value. One of the SMW residents is Sandra Mirka – a curious multi-disciplinary creator, who is trained as an interior architect and in addition has years of experience working with food.
She is particularly interested in diverse matters – from contributions to bettering social justice, gender equality to documenting poetic details in built environments or mundane moments.
For two months Sandra Mirka will be working within a community and seek ways to add value to the foodspaces of the domain by cooking, organising and (re)building needed functions. After graduating with a master’s degree in interior architecture, her master thesis was a research on the topic of domestic kitchens.
She feels as if kitchen design nowadays can be often predicted and less spontaneous. Particleboards like MDF and OSB are ruling the scene, which can look bland as a frozen pizza from the supermarket. There are connections between spatial design and the ways we cook and deal with food. Sandra is in the residency to explore and play with the connections by using as little new resources as possible.
Sandra collects the thoughts she has developed during her residency on her website, check it out.
The group residency is part of the Culture Moves Europe and is funded by the European Union.
During the VARES summer we have a two month long material focused group residency called Sketchy Materials Wasteland (SMW), where five creatives will dwell deep into the composite materials surrounding us (OSB, MDF, glulam etc), looking into their societal background, affordability, uniqueness and repurposing value. One of the SMW residents is Emel Tuupainen, a researcher, architect, artist and activist from Finland.
They are currently working on their doctoral dissertation in Tampere university, but they are based in Helsinki. Their research concentrates on planning situations in ecological transition that get stuck because of cultural and ideological economic norms. Next to their academic efforts they are dedicated crochet, repair and DIY enthusiast and degrowth lifestyle beginner, aiming to emphasize collaboration, peer learning and community. Emel is an active member in You Tell Me -collective.
During the residency period, Emel Tuupainen will be concentrating on understanding the history and development strategies of Valga county and understanding local experiences regarding the future and ecological transition. They will write an essay about the connection of the local to the international systems through the theme of material and energy circulation.
The group residency is part of the Culture Moves Europe and is funded by the European Union.
During the VARES summer we have a two month long material focused group residency called Sketchy Materials Wasteland (SMW), where five creatives will dwell deep into the composite materials surrounding us (OSB, MDF, glulam etc), looking into their societal background, affordability, uniqueness and repurposing value. SMW research is joined by the creative duo Aistė Gaidilionytė ja Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė.
They are interested in assembling collections, noticing and cherishing invisible layers of fragility, care, and secrecy intertwining with spatial context. In the past few years, they have been exploring various forms and platforms to alternatively practice architecture. In 2023, the duo curated an annual architecture students workshop SIKON in Kintai, Lithuania digging into exploited landscapes of Aukštumala swamp, draining of which was started in soviet times and is continuing today. Most recent research is with Baltic Lines, where the duo is focusing on Vilnius, exploring the nearby railway district of Naujininkai, which is facing the railway station renewal project. They are patiently assembling accumulated layers of old buildings in the district and giving them a new meaning.
The duo is deeply curious about circularity and reuse. While these topics are reoccurring more often in practical form, they choose to approach them in a rather poetical way, looking softly and with tender care into material’s surfaces, layers as if into personas, trying to read the stories behind or creating them. Their amazement lies in the cracks, the impurities, worn-off parts of the surfaces. They are also wondering about life cycles of materials, the composition – smallest particles, the invisible but crucial layer. The direction they plan to take is shifting the gaze – what if we start seeing and treating relatively cheap mass-manufactured used furniture plates as individual and unique, minding too the sketchy parts of their composition?
This group residency is part of the Culture Moves Europe programme and is funded by the European Union.
During the VARES summer we have a two month long material focused group residency called Sketchy Materials Wasteland (SMW), where five creatives will dwell deep into the composite materials surrounding us (OSB, MDF, glulam etc), looking into their societal background, affordability, uniqueness and repurposing value. One of the SMW residents is Jakob D’herde, an architect and designer based in Brussels, Belgium.
He has recently succesfully defended his PhD Dissertation called ‘Living (at) Home. On Older People’s Making of Home and Dignity’. In this research, he critically investigated the intersections of ageing, home, dwelling, and dignity.
During his time in Valga, Jakob will shift more towards artistic research, scenography in particular. He is looking for ignored potential across the built environment. How do we interact with space and how does that space in turn react to us? Through research and artistic-performative practice Jakob attempts to answer this question during the period in VARES.
The group residency is part of the Culture Moves Europe programme and is funded by the European Union.
From June 3 to 9, eleven participants of the Baltic Lines project will meet in Valga to work on research and art projects at the VARES architecture residency. We rail-biked on an abandoned railway in Valka, visited museums and had a good time. In collaboration with VARES, Baltic Lines organised a series of public events took place as part of the Baltic Lines residency in Valga.
On Wednesday, June 5, Maria Kapajeva shared her artistic practices under the title Filming, Screaming, Stitching, Writing, and Dancing: The Artistic Journey. Maria Kapajeva is an artist who works between London (UK) and Estonia. Her work often highlights peripheral histories and unspoken stories, focusing on the border identities within a feminist point of view. During the talk, Kapajeva focused on the methodology of her practice and presented her recent works. Kapajeva’s practice-based research focuses on autoethnographical and feminist methods of artistic practice.
On Friday, June 7, we watched Hanna Samoson’s film Trail Baltic: A Trip to the Green (2023). The documentary follows the journey of one woman along the future route corridor of the Rail Baltic railway. While trying to broadcast live from the 213 km long route, the artist Hanna Samoson meets people on her way whose lives will be inextricably linked with the future railway. Through hopes, humour and the pain of loss, the documentary shows how the people affected by the big project feel. The film’s backdrop is an unbroken landscape that, by all indications, is destined to change soon.
On Saturday, June 8 we read together Maria Kapayeva’s book A Year-Long Scream (2024) in English, Russian and Estonian. Maria Kapajeva started writing the book on February 24, 2022 – the day the full-scale war in Ukraine began. The book deals with themes of identity, collective and individual responsibility and guilt, language and belonging, feminism.
The week-long Baltic Lines artists residency at VARES concluded with public presentations on Sunday, June 9, where project participants shared insights into their individual project ideas and creative methodologies.
All events were held in English at the WabaWangla installation space in Valga.
Project was initiated by Diāna Mikāne, Paula Veidenbauma
From June 3 to 9, eleven artists of the Baltic Lines project will meet in Valga to work on research and art projects.
Baltic Lines: Reflections on Urban Transformation and Connectivity along Rail Baltica’s Passage is an artistic research network reflecting on the Rail Baltica railway infrastructure megaproject, which aims to integrate Baltic countries into the European railway network. The project involves eleven artists–researchers from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden, who follow the creation of Rail Baltica and study topics such as the concept of the Baltic region, archiving as a political practice, and documenting megaprojects. In October, the project exhibition will open at the IN THE CLOSET gallery in Vilnius.
Project was initiated by Diāna Mikāne, Paula Veidenbauma Baltic Lines artists researchers: Mattias Malk (EE), Eglė Šimėnaitė (LT), Valtteri Alanen (FI), Sofie Lucia Maria Carlson (SWE), Katariin Mudist (EE), Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė (LT), Aistė Gaidilionytė (LT), Gustavs Grasis (LV), Diāna Mikāne (LV), Paula Veidenbauma (LV), Danute Līva (LV)
From May 20th to 26th, Jinseok Choi will open a creative repair workshop at the VARES residency building. The doors are open every day at 4-6 pm. Primarily focusing on wooden and textile items, the repair workshop operates free of charge and is open to everyone!
Pieces in need of repair can be left with Jinseok for fixing, or you can work on your own projects alongside him. The nature and approach of the repair or intervention will be determined through conversation with the owner. Rather than just offering a service, Jinseok hopes to share his skills and learn from guests.
On June 15th at 5 pm, we will celebrate the end of Jinseok Choi’s residency with an exhibition and tea party at Valga train station.
In late May, the artist and professional carpenter Jinseok Choi held a repair workshop at the VARES residency, focusing mainly on repairing furniture, textiles, and clothing. Chairs, tables, stools, and other objects were brought in and revitalized during the month. On the exhibition day, they will be returned to their owners. Both the owners of the items and anyone interested in repair culture are welcome!
Jinseok Choi is an interdisciplinary artist who investigates our current cultural moment by researching historical and cultural contexts and weaving together seemingly unrelated issues via sculpture, installation, performance, and video. He was born and raised in Seoul, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His recent works have been shown at various art venues in South Korea and the U.S. For the VARES residency, he opened an open repair shop for Valga people. This project aims to leverage his skills as an artist, professional woodworker, and amateur seamster to benefit the Valga community.
The event takes place at the Valga train station (Jaama puiestee 12) and is free for everyone.
Jinseok Choiis an interdisciplinary artist who investigates our current cultural moment by researching historical and cultural contexts and weaving together seemingly unrelated issues via sculpture, installation, performance, and video.
He was born and raised in Seoul, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His recent works have been shown at various art venues in South Korea and the U.S. For the VARES residency, he proposes to open a repair workshop aimed at local people. This endeavour aims to leverage his skills as an artist, professional woodworker, and amateur seamster to benefit the Valga community.
Come and see the renewed objects at the exhibition on June 15 at the Valga train station.
Liis Vares is an Estonian choreographer and artist. She was born in a black box (theatre), has been flirting with the white cube (gallery), and is yearning for the gray zone (?). Treating the body as a material rather than a tool, she observes the boundaries between physical and mental, visible and invisible, personal and social, imaginary and real.
“I am interested in what spaces unfold when we let go of functionality, aesthetic sense, and learned norms (let’s imagine it is possible). We may not be able to peer into another person’s being, but can we create a space that evokes the sensation of being inside someone else’s body? What role does physical space play in an increasingly virtual world and vice versa?
In 2020, life took me to Rakvere, an empty apartment in a small town in Estonia. I didn’t choose that place; it was a free space outside my home to go and be alone during the lockdowns. I started to visit the apartment and observe myself and the traces I left there. I followed what was already there and asked myself what I needed and for what. From where comes the wish to change something, why what I already have is not enough? Through this way of being, I created three online pieces. In 2022, the apartment was open for people to visit on the spot and online during the international performing arts festival Baltoscandal under the title ‘Where Are You?’.
That’s how I enter Valga and VARES—like going in front of the mirror and asking, ‘Where am I?’ Or like placing a piece of material, a human body, in an environment and observing how it reacts. I’ll take notes and recordings, I let my attention lead and will be sharing my practice, found paths and spaces with you on the 11th of May.”
At the end of April we held the VARES spring exhibition, where Ola Lewczyk, Ben Weir and the artist duo DE JENZ showcased their work done during the residency. Here are some snippets of DE JENZ‘s installation:
When DE JENZ (Vibeke Jensen & Santiago De Waele) arrived in Valga they knew they wanted to work with the local youth and community to create an informal meeting place. The abandoned Kreisi jail in the centre of town caught their attention. Contact was established with the municipality who gave them a green light, and Valga Gymnasium whose students expressed the wish for a place to see movies. During their first visit to the space students came up with the name WABA WANGLA, and immediately started visualising an unconventional response to stimulate free thinking.
DE JENZ harvested used and leftover materials at the closed-down kindergarten and bankrupt furniture factory, and many kind people donated unused mirrors so the project could engage Valga’s youth in taking over the old jail and making it their hangout.
WABA WANGLA features a cleaned up yard where flowers and edibles are planted and events can take place. The entrance is expanded to welcome people in through the hallway where students have made a graffiti wall. Inside, an organically shaped tunnel introduces a different modus operandi and a possible escape from society’s expectations through a periscope. Three platforms provide informal seating on different levels for movie screenings or other events. Inside the space you have a good view of the yard through a strategically placed mirror so you can see who’s coming and what’s going on outside.
The project is supported by the Nordic Culture Point Residency fund.
At the end of April we held the VARES spring exhibition, where Ola Lewczyk, Ben Weir and the artist duo DE JENZ showcased their work done during the residency. Here are some snippets of Ben’s inventions:
Ben Weir arrived at VARES at the beginning of April. In Irish myth these are the Laethantha na Bó Riabhaí, the couple of days in which March, ever the cunning month, decides to borrow from its neighbour April. The brindled cow (the bó riabhach) thinks she has made it through the worst of the winter weather, and she begins to brag. She claims that she’s tough enough for anything, having made it through March and into the blossoming spring of April. But March, set on teaching the brindled cow a lesson, extends its harshness into the first few days of April, and whips up some freezing bitter winds to finally kill her off.
Ben made some things to keep us warm. Companions to our wood-burning stoves, but unfixed, let loose. Objects free to move, to take alongside, to keep you company. To bring with you, in flux and in comfort.
Objects that have been sourced, altered, assembled. Made from things found and things easily obtained. They find expression in the ‘off-the-shelf’ as much as the ‘as-found.’ Old scrapyard junk meets combinations of quotidian hardware. There has been an obsession with steel tubes. Not necessarily as vessels or conduits, but as objects in their own right.
These objects take us on a kind of daily camping, where objects become significant for survival. They help us stave off the cold. Just for a little while, until we make it through once more.
At the end of April we held the VARES spring exhibition, where Ola Lewczyk, Ben Weir and the artist duo DE JENZ showcased their work done during the residency. Here are some snippets of Ola’s installation:
found clay, sand construction debris, sawdust, human hair and straw water from the unnamed stream mixed by feet and thrown by hands into wooden moulds gave 148 bricks
They are to be fired with wood in a clamp kiln built from themselves, stacked raw bricks, fire lit beneath. Raw brick kiln to fire the raw bricks, self supportive transformative space. A living, breathing earth and waste entity from underneath our feet, a temporary structure no1.
The fired bricks bound by an earth mortar will be used to build a table in one of the rooms of the Riia 5 building, resulting in a structure no2.
148 bricks uses the process of making and firing bricks from scratch as a way to engage with our surroundings and traditional craft practices. Thinking about the materials’ past and future, it uses found materials and urban waste to experiment with a clay recipe and the means of firing. The two structures test the possibilities of the clay mix and investigate the amount of labour that goes into manual manufacturing processes.
sore muscles, gritty eyes, a good night sleep. each step informing the next, 148 bricks table made from what there already is.
On May 11 a performative showing by Liis Vares will take place. She will share her practice, found paths and spaces. The event begins at 13:13 and culminates in a curated walk through the town of Valga, during which you may experience the familiar urban space with fresh pair of eyes.
On April, we held a competition to collect ideas for the daylighting the Valga’s Pepper stream. The competition received 14 submissions. Take a look at all of them on TANDEEMS online competition platform. Thank you to all the participants! The three awarded winners are:
Potamobios – Pipraoja ava(sta)mine by Elina Mikker and Grete Veskiväli Veed ja V-d by Iris Epp Sildnik Stream Route by Pia Fattor
On the 27th and 28th of April we will open the VARES spring exhibition, where Ola Lewczyk, Ben Weir and the artist duo DE JENS showcase their work done during the residency. The works are material, sensuous and community focused interventions that are shown in VARES house and around the town of Valga.
Programme:
Saturday, April 27 13:00 Brick-making workshop in VARES’ garden 15:00 Furniture walk from VARES -> town square (Riia 5) 16:00 Installation opening on the town square (Riia 5)
Sunday, April 28: 14:00-19:00 open doors at Riia 5 and courtyard
Ola’s brick-making workshop is open to anyone interested and includes working with clay with both hands and feet, please dress accordingly.
Ola Lewczyk’s installation CLAY concentrates on the humble clay brick, mixed with domestic and day-to-day waste. She rethinks what local material production might look like, docusing on the kiln used for ceramic work, building it up from raw clay bricks to produce unique pieces inspired by the Valga context.
Ben Weir’s installation HEAT researches the ways heated furniture could look like. He will construct small scale pieces inside the VARES building with its fluctuating temperatures that are unplugged from the traditional fixed heating structures of houses (radiators, furnaces and boilers). During the spring exhibition, Ben will organize a furniture procession, taking the warm pieces into the town of Valga.
DE JENZ duos COMMUNITY intervention is a collaborative installation that researches the unique historic and contemporary context of Valga and Valka. They will search for unused spaces with hidden potential where together with the local youth they will construct an informal gathering space that will be left for the local community to use and care for.
Ben Weir is an architect from Northern Ireland, Belfast. He works within the discipline of architecture, denouncing the notion of the architect as a neutral service provider. He draws, writes, researches and builds to uncover hidden spatial and material potentials.
His projects are generated through the survey of existing conditions, a process that invents as much as records. Favouring dynamism, the unfinished, the open-to-change, he reject demolition and tabula rasa. He dissects, re-presents and interrogates existing urban artefacts, seeking to express their current condition, situation, or relationship to us. Inserting new objects into this milieu, Ben is always seeking a positive contribution to a diverse, equitable and complex environment.
In the course of the residency, Ben will design and fabricate a set of heated furniture pieces. Movable objects that can be used as chairs, stools, benches or tables, whilst also incorporating heating elements such as electric radiators. Drawing inspiration from the contemporary condition of artists as transient beings, endlessly in flux, travelling for residencies and projects, on limited visas, and being forced to move out of (already insufficient) studio spaces. Heating elements are usually seen as ‘fixtures and fittings,’ permanent elements, plumbed-in to a boiler, unmovable. He wishes to free the heating element so that it can become unfixed, nomadic, a mirror to the artist themselves. A kind of daily camping, where objects are significant for survival.
Come and see what Ben is doing in Valga on April 27 and 28.
Ola Lewczyk is a maker who’s practice focuses on craft, material research and locality. She works primarily with clay, beeswax and collected natural materials. She works and understands things through touch, being drawn to slow, repetitive processes. Influenced by slavic folklore and fluidity of things, she continuously moves between the grounding and the intangible.
Found clay, sand and urban wastes; construction debris, pavement dust, coffee grounds from a local cafe, hair from the hairdresser mixed by feet and thrown by hands into wooden moulds. Ola will experiment with brick-making, using urban materials in different ratios to test brick recipes. Part of the endeavor is building a kiln, from raw bricks to fire them and as a same time treating the kiln as a temporary architectural structure of its own. The project uses making bricks as a way to re-think local manufacturing and connection to our surroundings. It’s a research into ways of retaining craft based practices while thinking about the materials past and future.
Come and see what Ola is doing in Valga on April 27 and 28.
On April 15-22, we will hold a competition to collect ideas for daylighting the Valga’s Pepper stream. Read the brief and submit your ideas on a competition platform TANDEEMS, The three awarded works will be determined as a result of public and jury voting.
In the wake of modern times, many progressive cities buried the streams and rivers that witnessed their birth. Today, forward looking municipalities are opening the once culverted waterways, bringing them back to life. With this idea competition, we invite (landscape) architects, ecologists, urbanists and artists to imagine the possibilities of unearthed urban streams.
Valga, located on the border of southern Estonia, is a small town full of streams and springs, where the murmur of water can be heard in several places. But like in many other cities, several creeks and streams have been channelled into underground pipes in the last century which is why they have lost a large part of their variety of life. The municipality has now taken the direction of opening city streams and restoring them as ecologically abundant habitats.
The competition seeks to collect spatial visions for daylighting the Pepper stream (Pipraoja), which runs through the centre of Valga, with the aim of emphasising its presence in the cityscape, making it an attractive recreation area for people and enhancing the variety of life found there. Participants are expected to propose a landscape concept and trajectory for the stream and/or small-scale architectural interventions which would create meeting points for humans and various other life forms to be found near the streams.
→The competition period is April 15-22. → Submit 3 images (illustration, plans, schemes, etc) and a text. → Three winners will receive monetary prizes 3×500€.
The competition is part of the ‘Flock of Ideas’ series of idea competitions. The competition is organised by Valga Architecture Residency VARES in cooperation with the Latvian idea competition platform TANDEEMS, Valga municipality and Valga Vesi.
Soft creatures’ series started from a desire for a more exciting form of softness in everyday space. The idea was born from the fabric surplus of the furniture industry, which was looking for a new use.
The space around us is often preplanned down to the size of the wardrobe and the location of the sofa. The mass-produced furniture itself tends to be just as traditional. Soft creatures are an attempt to experiment with the nature of furniture, objects are created that adapt to each body and inspire unusual ways of use. The project was lead with environmentally sustainable principles in mind, using furniture fabric offcuts, by giving it a new life. The soft creatures evoke a variety of bodily sensations, be it embrace of the soft object, warmth or heaviness creatin a feeling of safety.
The artist duo DE JENZ is based on a remote island with 10 inhabitants, situated among the western-most archipelago on the Norwegian coast. There they explore critical interfaces with the coastal environment and engage in collaborations between the local community and international artist that reflect the potential of not making a distinction between culture and nature – to create a more symbiotic, rather than exploitative, way of understanding the world around us.
After decades of traveling the world and living in big cities like Rome, New York, London and Berlin (Vibeke), and the medieval city of Brugge (Santiago), we have joined up and live and work in a 99 year old schoolhouse next to a stone jetty. Their moving from metropolises to a small island and the shift in perspective accompanying the way of life in harsh coastal landscapes has created a new way of awareness, attention and togetherness with nature – AKWANAUTØYNA – in which landscape, life and art merge into one.
During the residency they want to discover what is specific and unique about the twin cities of Valga and Valka from different perspectives, historic as well as contemporary. They are looking to find the special things in the place’s history, situation and context, current challenges and textures that can be brought out and manifested through a spatial intervention. De Jenz wishes to connect with local schools, art organisations, craft workshops, older people and others with local knowledge. They hope to engage with local youth and people with different perspectives to discover unused potentials, transform potent spaces into informal gathering places for unprogrammed thoughts and actions, and engage in performative actions that generate new memories and connections.
Come and see what De Jenz is doing in Valga on April 27 and 28.
VARES opened its doors on Saturday, March 30, and invites everyone to participate in the diverse programme.
Schedule: 14:00 Opening of Laura Pint’s exhibition 15:00 Presentation of Anni Saviaro’s research on shrinking cities 16:00 Opinion journey on climate-sustainable construction and urban planning
Laura Pint arrived at VARES in the beginning of March. Besides her main work in an architectural office, she likes to work with her hands and experiment with different media. Be it building furniture, sewing or leather work. Laura will present her soft inventions at 14:00.
Laura’s goal during the residency is to delve into unconventional furniture design and explore alternative spatial configurations, blurring boundaries and redefining the relationship between the space and its users. She is inspired by the idea of finding ways to make everyday standardized space more interesting, exciting and flexible. During the work, she plans to experiment with different forms, materials and construction methods. The goal is to use material waste and offcuts from furniture production and through it advocating for more sustainable ways of production. The final result of the residency is a piece of furniture based on the month-long study. Laura aims for the piece to not only reflect the results of her research, but also to be a practical example of how architecture and furniture design can jointly contribute to an environmentally friendly and creatively thinking future.
Anni Saviaro is a Finnish architect who came to VARES to work on her PhD dissertation. Her research focuses on urban planning in a shrinking context, its justification, and its connection to growth. Anni will hold a presentation about the planning of shrinking cities at 15:00.
Anni’s interest and focus in her research lies in urban planning in a shrinking context, its justification, and its connection to growth. The purpose of her research is to increase understanding of urban planning in a shrinking context, through which it is possible to make planning processes more democratic and to create tools for finding appropriate planning goals and approaches in a shrinking context. The research emphasizes the need for urban planning that considers different growth contexts, where different starting points of cities and municipalities are identified. Valga is an interesting case study for her research.
At 16–18, we will be conducting an open-for-all “opinion journey” on the topic of environmentally friendly building and urban planning. Join us in the envisioning and discussing – your ideas will influence the state’s development strategies, the coming climate law, and the state budget.
We will collectively brainstorm solutions for how the state, locan governments and communities might best help in the renovating Estonian buildings and boosting the circular and ecological use of building materials. Think about what kind of house you live in right now; how has it been built and out of what; what kind of house would you ideally like to live in? If you needed to renovate, whose help and for what would you need? Do you know of any good examples from other countries on how people were encouraged to renovate their houses?
The “opinion journey” is an inclusion format and open call initiated by the Ministry of Climate and the State of Estonia Government Office. It invites people to speak up on topics and offer proposals in areas that the coming climate law might influence. The results of the discussion will be taken into account in creating and reinforcing the climate law and state development strategies. The discussion will be moderated by Maria Muuk; the currently planned language is Estonian, but we will be flexible to host the discussion in English if necessary.
The three winning works of the Linnahall idea competition have been selected!
From February 19 to 26, a 7-day international idea competition on possible futures of Linnahall took place. Everyone interested in urban space and architectural heritage was welcomed to speculate on the future of Tallinn’s mythical amphibian – Linnahall. The competition received 47 submissions. Thank you to all the participants!
The names of the prize winning entries are: Uusvana; Linnakivi “One and one, it is one – it is not two.”; Linnahall as Center for Culture, Sports and Music
The three winners will receive 3×1000€ prizes. The winners were determined as a result of voting by the jury, the public and the pupils who participated in the side programme.
The jury included five architecture and urban planning experts: Owen Hatherley, Karli Luik, Andres Ojari, Siiri Vallner and Kevin Villem. All the submissions and the comments given by the jury can be viewed on the online platform Tandeems.
The competition is part of the Estonian-Latvian collaboration project, the ‘Flock of Ideas’ series of idea competitions. The aim of the competitions is to collect as many ideas as possible, which could expand the imagination of the citizens and decision-makers about the urban space. We will publish our own article about the competition soon. And in just a few weeks, the competition on the topic of urban streams will be held, we will share more very soon.
Laura Pint is an architect who currently works in the Peeter Pere Architects office. She has graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts architecture and city planning department. Besides her main work, she likes to work with her hands and experiment with different media. Be it building furniture, sewing or leather work.
Laura’s goal during the residency is to delve into unconventional furniture design and explore alternative spatial configurations, blurring boundaries and redefining the relationship between the space and its users.
She is inspired by the idea of finding ways to make everyday standardized space more interesting, exciting and flexible. During the work, she plans to experiment with different forms, materials and construction methods. The goal is to use material waste and offcuts from furniture production and through it advocating for more sustainable ways of production.
The final result of the residency is a piece of furniture based on the month-long study. Laura aims for the piece to not only reflect the results of her research, but also to be a practical example of how architecture and furniture design can jointly contribute to an environmentally friendly and creatively thinking future.
Anni Saviaro is a Finnish architect whose PhD research studies shrinking context within the field of urban planning focusing on growth dependency and justification of urban planning.
She is into peer learning and working collaboratively and that has led her to create and be part of different communities such as jeesjeesgood collective, and various associations in the field of art and architecture. She is a dreamer who loves R&B music and is interested in degrowth.
Anni Saviaro’s interest and focus in her research lies in urban planning in a shrinking context, its justification, and its connection to growth. The purpose of her research is to increase understanding of urban planning in a shrinking context, through which it is possible to make planning processes more democratic and to create tools for finding appropriate planning goals and approaches in a shrinking context. The research emphasizes the need for urban planning that considers different growth contexts, where different starting points of cities and municipalities are identified.
From the residency period in VARES, she hopes to find inspiration, peer support, meet new people and possible collaborators as well as an inspiring and calming environment to work in. In her research, the focus will be on writing a paper that deals with an analysis framework she is developing concerning the relationship between growth and justification in urban planning.
On February 24, we officially opened the VARES residency. Alastair introduced his exhibition, we made Baltic sprat sandwiches, watched the President’s speech, hosted guests. When decorating the cake, we were inspired by the mud and snow melting under the first rays of the sun.
Approximately 40 residents with 17 residency projects will participate in the VARES residency programme in 2024. Here we will introduce the autumn-winter residents:
STUUDIO KOLLEKTIIVis a young architectural collective of 7 members: Lill Volmer, Eneli Kleemann, Mia Martina Peil, Saskia Epp Lõhmus, Anna Riin Velner, Katariina Mustasaar, Marie Anette Veesaar. They are dedicated to the repurposing of materials, prioritizing environmental responsibility and raising awareness of the amount of waste produced during construction. In the residency they wish to conduct a research about both natural and reusable materials in Valga. By mapping and collecting recycled materials, they will experiment with different composites and work on developing their own spatial language. The result of the tests would be setting up an installation in Valga, from local materials.
Augustas Lapinskas is an architect from Vilnius, Lithuania, having a background in literature, music, and performative arts, while Ditiya Ferdous is an artist and filmmaker from Queens, New York. Their common practice, Space Nursing involves the creation of Nurseries, or public spaces which recognize urban wastelands as ecologically rich environments. During the course of the residency, they would like to experiment with new recipes for bio-active paint, using lichens, mosses and fungi to produce site-specific installations.
Diāna Mikāne is an artistic researcher, currently working between Riga (LV) and Nida (LT). Paula Veidenbauma is an urbanist, sometimes a performer, sometimes a writer who lives and works between Riga (LV), Tallinn (EE) and Vienna (AT).Together, they form the artistic research collective gel, whose research inquiries gravitate around nuances of everyday aesthetics and the examination of postcolonial practices in the context of a modern Post-Soviet space. In this residency, they aim to study local pseudo-scientific and experimental building-related practices such as dowsing and explore energetic undertones of space-making through somatic movement, embodied reconnection, and human and material interaction.
Anna Tamm (b. 1994) is an Estonian multimedia artist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They have graduated at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Gerrit Rietveld Academy. At the moment, they are obtaining a master’s degree at the Sandberg Instituut in the department of F for Fact.
In the residency, Anna proceeds from the issue of preserving the Soviet heritage and focuses on local stories connected to the extendable dining table, Project no. 16, which was produced in the Valga furniture factory and is still present in many homes.
CONSTRUCTLAB is a transdisciplinary design-build network that breaks with traditional divisions of labor and brings together multi-talented designer-builders – as well as sociologists, urban planners, graphic designers, curators, educators and web developers – who carry the creative process from the drawing board to the field. Their shared vision of a collaborative way of working combines the creative with the practical, the thinking with the doing. During the residency, an installation will be built on the Estonian-Latvian border collectively with the locals.
Every month of 2024, there will be at least one public event in the town of Valga, in the framework of which VARES residents will present their work and activities to both locals and a wider audience.
VARES is a part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme. Residencies are supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, KULKA, Nordic Culture Point and LoovEuropa ‘Culture Moves Europe’
On February 24, the opening party of VARES took place, the highlight of which was the exhibition of the very first resident, Alastair Howard. Read the text of the exhibition, the main character of which is a character peeled from the wall:
A building’s material construction is sometimes known as its fabric. Playing with this idea, Alastair’s installation peels back and dramatises these layers of building fabric, using techniques gained through his work in the theatre. At the centre of this scene is the character of the Rothound, inspired by real dogs trained to smell for rotting timber in historic buildings. Here, the Rothound is imagined as a mythical detective, discovering hidden histories in each construction layer. He is made from steam-bent plywood, like that used to clad the interior walls of the classrooms here in the 1960s. The hound is discovered behind a linen scrim, animated on a pulley system like those found on a theatre stage. An imprint of the original wood panelling has been made on the scrim, along with a fossil/a relic/the markings of a bird. A thermal image of the wall is projected at 1:1 scale, with the stove a glowing red. Throughout the room, plaster has fallen away to reveal the wattle and daub technique, as well as the structural logs behind.
From February 19 to 26, a 7-day international idea competition on possible futures of Linnahall took place. Everyone interested in urban space and architectural heritage was welcomed to speculate on the future of Tallinn’s mythical amphibian – Linnahall.
The competition received 47 submissions. Thanks to all the participants!
All works have been published on the online platform Tandeems, and public voting is open until March 24. Don’t forget to vote for your favourite idea!
At the same time, the jury has began their work, the result of which will be written feedback to each submitted work, which will be published as comments under the competition entries. The jury consists of five architecture and urban planning experts: Owen Hatherley, Karli Luik, Andres Ojari, Siiri Vallner and Kevin Villem.
The three best works are selected as a result of online voting, in which three voting groups participate – the jury, school students who took part in the side program and the public. Winners will be announced no later than March 25. The three winners will receive 3×1000€ prizes.
The competition is part of the Estonian-Latvian collaboration project, the ‘Flock of Ideas’ series of idea competitions. The aim of the competitions is to collect as many ideas as possible, which could expand the imagination of the citizens and decision-makers about the urban space. In April, a competition will be held on the topic of the water streams of Valga.
The idea competition “Possible futures of Linnahall” has began!
The short 7-day international vision competition invites everyone interested in urban space to participate and speculate on the future of Tallinn’s mythical amphibian, Linnahall.
The competition task and the base materials can be found on the online platform Tandeems. The competition work consisting of 1-3 pictures and text must be submitted there by February 26.
The three winners will receive 3×1000€ prizes. Each submitted work is given written feedback by five experts in architecture and urban planning: Owen Hatherley, Karli Luik, Andres Ojari, Siiri Vallner and Kevin Villem.
The three best winning works are selected as a result of an online vote, in which the jury, young people participating in the side program and the audience participate.
The competition is motivated by the controversy about the Tallinn City Hall (Linnahall), which has revived in recent months, and its goal is to collect as many different ideas, future scenarios and potential uses as possible, which would help to expand the imagination of both the citizens and the decision-makers regarding the City Hall. Delicate interventions, quick speculations and down-to-earth solutions are welcomed. But also constructive utopias that rethink conventional practices, but whose roots are in the present around us, not in an ideal world with unlimited resources.
Who are we expecting to attend? We welcome both practicing and studying architects, urban planners and heritage conservationists, as well as art scholars, artists, writers and all other creators who care about the fate of Linnahall to participate! The competition also includes a side program aimed at schoolchildren.
For inspiration: 5 mini-lectures As an introduction, we asked five architecture practitioners and theorists to give a speech that would inspire others to take part in the idea competition: Multiple Views on Linnahall They are talking about the spatial potential of Linnahall, architectural parallels, rare constructions, human scale and metaphysical dimension.
Approximately 40 residents with 17 residency projects will participate in the VARES residency programme in 2024. They were selected as a result of two open calls at the end of last year.
The residents of the first half of the year are:
Alastair Howard is an architect from England. His interest in scenography makes him experiment with the mechanisms used in scenic construction, which results in the creation of animated inventions of the VARES house.
Laura Pint is an Estonian architect whose residency work will be based on the word ‘softness’. During her stay in Valga, installations will be made from the leftovers of furniture production both in the VARES building and in the town of Valga.
Anni Saviaro is a Finnish architect who is writing a thesis on shrinking cities and justified urban planning. Valga is an interesting case study for her, and she will present the results of her research to the locals.
DE JENZ is an artist duo Vibeke Jensen & Santiago De Waele living and working on a tiny island off the west coast of Norway. During the residency, they plan to discover the peculiarities of the twin city of Valga-Valka by involving the community and collecting stories, which will eventually manifest as a spatial intervention.
Ben Weir is an architect from Belfast, who is drawing inspiration from the contemporary condition of artists as transient beings. In the residency, he wishes to free heated elements from their usual fixity. For this purpose, he designs and builds a set of heated furniture, as kind of companions for daily camping, where objects are significant for survival.
Ola Lewczyk is an artist from Poland who during her stay in VARES will be creating bricks from locally found organic materials like construction rubbles, dust, sand, hair etc. The project uses making bricks as a way to re-think local manufacturing and connection to our surroundings.
Liis Vares is an Estonian choreographer and an artist. She is curious about spaces that unroll when functionality and aesthetical norms are put aside. She sees the potential in connecting physical and virtual spaces in order to drive attention to and reduce the solitude and isolation that disablement or peripheral dwelling creates.
Jinseok Choi is an interdisciplinary artist who comes from South Korea but lives in Los Angeles at the moment. In Valga he will open an open repair shop aimed to ponder over manual labour, productivity and efficiency in our current society.
Päär Keedus & Karolin Kull are Estonian interior architects who are driven by locality, re-used materials and self building. They are planning a site specific installation in the public space of Valga.
Additionally to the regular residency programme VARES is hosting a group residency with a specific theme: Sketchy Materials Wasteland. The group was assembled via an open call and cosists of six architects: Emel Tuupainen, Jack O’Hagan, Sandra Mirka, Aistė Gaidilionytė, Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė, Jakob D’Herde. During their stay they will focus, find unique perspectives and take a look at the afterlife of the ever growing issue of cheap, fast and unreliable materials surrounding us. The residency will finish with a group exhibition in the middle of August.
In the first half of June VARES will host a group of regional artists-researchers with their project Baltic Lines. The project is part of a larger artistic research, which focuses on rail connections within the Baltic states and geopolitical dynamics from the perspective of a critical urbanism.
In every month of 2024 at least one public event will be held, where residents of VARES will show their work to the public from Valga and beyond.
VARES is part of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 main programme. Residencies are supported by Estonian Ministry of Culture, KULKA, Nordic Culture Point, Culture Moves Europe and German Embassy in Tallinn.
We welcome our very first resident, Alastair Howard!
Alastair is an architectural designer from Manchester, UK. Having worked at architecture and engineering firms in New York and London, his practice is aimed at breaking out of the professional silos that constitute the production of our built environment. Most recently he has worked with scenic craftspeople at the Royal Opera House, designing and managing the build of Opera and Ballet sets. He likes to study the histories behind a building’s conception, construction, appearance, and use.
Through the residency Alastair plans to test encounters between scenography and inhabitation, developed from his work in the fields of theatre and housing design. These experiments will first and foremost be tectonic: appropriating the concepts, techniques and fixings commonly found in scenic construction. This could include mechanical inventions using ropes, fabric, pulleys, and sandbags, or it could involve timber constructions that utilize standardized fixings for the aim of disassembly and reuse – a common concern when designing sets for rep theatres or touring shows. In keeping with the material aims of Vares Space, he will use found materials wherever possible, exploring how reuse creatively informs a design process and output. The exact function or form of these ‘scenographic’ constructions will be deduced during the residency, perhaps aiding the action of collective inhabitation, or acting as symbolic backdrops based on observations and conversations.
You can come and see the exhibition “Living Space” displaying Alastair’s inventions on February 24 and 25.
→ Residency period: 1–2 months during February–December 2024 → Individuals & collectives from different disciplines → Funded residency + travel support → Applications were open until November 20, 2023
How do we act as architects in a world where spatial practices are driven by market logic? Where building new is preferred over repairing the existing? Where standardised architecture and design is overproduced while unique and regional vernacular techniques are disappearing? Could it be that the standardisation of ways of making and their concentration only in the hands of specialists manifests itself over time in the spaces around us and in the lives that are lived there, losing the unexpected, original and strange?
Somewhat idealistic in our approach, we seek to rethink and practise alternative ways of creating spaces, using already existing places and materials from urban and peripheral environments. We explore manual crafts in architecture by combining old techniques with new technologies and skills while always bearing in mind the wider picture: where materials come from, how long can a building last and what happens after. Instead of building new, our focus is on maintenance – how to creatively refurbish, retrofit and reuse existing spaces, how to harvest and reuse both valuable and fast fashion materials for new projects. Though more time consuming, the extended life cycle of materials is one of the core beliefs of the residency.
With delicate and sparing approach to materials and reuse as an indisputable starting point, we also encourage residents to explore various topics of their own interest, vast or small – from reinventing everyday routines, domestic spaces or objects with an imaginative angle to it, to research-based urban explorations or speculative utopianism and societal critique.
The residency and the town of Valga will become the stage and testing ground for the artists’ projects.The VARES building, a two-storey house that for the past hundred years has been used as a school, will transform into a “House Museum” that will embody the ideas, amusing inventions and theories proposed, researched and built in the residency.
The Open Call was available for both individuals and groups to apply. The timeframe of attending the residency is approximately 1-2 months. From each resident we expect a presentation, exhibition or event surrounding their work to be shown at the end of the residency, for the Valga public and wider audience in Estonia and Latvia.
The choice of residents was made by the VARES curators and project managers Margus Tammik, Mari Möldre, Merilin Kaup, Triin Reidla and Ulla Alla.
In the first days of November, architecture students of the 1st year of Estonian Academy of Arts settled in VARES for an introduction to the Shelter course.
Shelters are projects made during the first year of architecture studies – experiments with space, form and material on the scale of the human body. Since this year decaying building heritage is treated as a potential building material, the introduction also included field work in abandoned buildings: exploring around, observations with both eyes and hands, including peeking inside the walls and floors, reflections and making conclusions.
Tutors: Elina Liiva, Helena Rummo, Margus Tammik, Mari Möldre, Merilin Kaup
Thank you, @pilvel6hkujad, for filling the house with warmth!
Until October 10th 2023, VARES held an open call for a 2-month funded group residency dedicated to the sketchy materials used in homes and offices around us. Looking at the short life cycle of MDF, OSB and other particle boards used in fast fashion architecture and furniture design, we invite artists, architects and other cultural practitioners to rebuild or destroy the reputation of the simple particle board.
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.
In summer 2023, we sent out a call to our colleagues, friends and acquaintances to take part in the activities to adapt the house located at Uus 35 in Valga into a residency and a meeting place for spatial artists. The sessions were spread over two weeks in August: 31.07.–6.08. and 21.–27.08.
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 spring 2023, we tutored the 2nd year interior architecture students of the Estonian Academy of Arts in their semester studio, “Educational Space”. This course focused on hands-on and conceptual expression skills and searched for the possibilities and forms of the “self-educational space” through research, activities, experiments, documentation, reading, formulating and thinking.
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.
