The Embassy of Ireland is delighted to support an exciting, creative initiative between the Estonian Association of Architects, the Estonian Centre for Architecture and the Irish Architecture Foundation. Wood Works, an Éireesti architecture collaboration, focuses on the use of wood in design and construction in architecture. Full details can be found below.

 

 

International Open Call for a Curatorial Team

Ideas competition

 

 

The Estonian Association of Architects (EAA), the principal organiser of Wood Works has joined forces with co-organisers Estonian Centre for Architecture (ECA) and Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) to promote an international Open Call to select a curatorial team for a new architecture exchange and exhibition programme, taking place between Ireland and Estonia 2020 and 2021.

 

Wood Works is an Estonian and Irish collaboration that focuses on the use of wood in design and construction in architecture. The result of the Wood Works project will be a travelling exhibition in Ireland and Tallinn in 2021 and potentially in other countries.

 

The Wood Works 2020-2021 project supports an exchange of expertise and creativity between architects from Estonia and Ireland to establish collaborative possibilities between all participants. We are seeking applications for a curatorial team who together demonstrate that they are deeply acquainted with the architectural culture in both Estonia and Ireland in equal measure.

 

 

The aim of the competitive Open Call is to find curators for the Wood Works initiative, which includes a travelling exhibition, collaborative workshops and publication.

 

The concept for the exhibition and workshops should aim to:

 

• Expand and encourage innovative architectural solutions using wood that demonstrates technical knowledge, research, and experimentation, whilst also supporting the aesthetic ambition in equal measure.

 

• Demonstrate the use of wood in contemporary architecture, and its response to essential societal, technological and environmental challenges, needs and opportunities.

 

• Create a robust and novel process of exchange to enable both countries learn from and enhance each other’s inventiveness.

 

• Create an engaging, immersive and content rich exhibition, that communicates both to a broad international audience and an industry-based audience.

 

 

The role of the curators is to set the theme and concept, construct the narrative and title of the exhibition and publication, select the architect participants, plan and deliver 2 workshops (within Covid guidelines), liaise with the teams as they produce work for exhibition, and compile the publication.

 

 

The exhibition will be preceded by two workshops in 2020. The curators will choose min 5 teams who make maximum of 5-10 installations for the exhibition. The curators allow the teams the freedom to create their own responses to the curatorial proposition. Through the workshop and exchange process each team proposes an installation-prototype for the exhibition, guided by the curators and their curatorial concept. The 5 teams taken collectively must have equal representation from Ireland and Estonia. The exhibition will open in the Solstice Art Centre in Ireland in March 2021 and travel to Tallinn in later in 2021.

 

The publication is both a document enhancing the themes in the exhibition and a visitor's guide for understanding the initiative and should be completed by March 2021.

 

The curators will be appointed from September 2020 until March 2021. The total fee for the curatorial team is €10,000. We expect the team will contain individuals who together demonstrate that they are acquainted with the architectural culture in both Estonia and Ireland in equal measure.

 

 

We seek proposals from architects and professionals in architecture and design disciplines, including writers, critics and academics that are interested in exploring editorial and curatorial work in making architecture.

 

We are excited by the unconventional, experimental, contextually rich and culturally engaged. The proposed concepts must address topics relevant to Estonia and Ireland in the field of wood in architecture. Proposals should consider the viewer, the participant, the public and the potential experiential nature of exhibitions.

 

Proposals should support innovative research to foster new kinds of intellectual and practical exchange that spark dialogue in the profession and amongst the public and specifically advancing the theme of using a natural resource like wood in building the infrastructure to support contemporary society and the natural environment.

 

 

The competition may not be entered by the chairman, members, back-up members and experts of the jury, or the individuals who have been involved in drafting the terms and conditions of the competition, those who have participated in the preparation of the competition and those who are clearly in a privileged position due to the preparation and organisation of the competition and/or who could influence the decisions of the jury. The following are also not allowed to enter the competition: close relatives (spouses, partners, direct relatives, siblings) of the abovementioned individuals, as well as business partners related to the chairman and members of the jury, who are shareholders of a company operating in the same field of activity. 

 

 

• Title, theme, concept for the exhibition, suggested team participants (max 3 x A4 pages)

 

• The theme, concept and process for the workshops (max I x A4 Page)

 

• The concept for the publication content (max I x A4 Page)

 

• A CV for each curator in the team showing relevant experience for this role (max I x A4 Page)

 

• A price quota what is in accordance with the curatorial fee (budget €10,000)

 

• A digitally signed letter of commitment stating that the author assumes responsibility for the co-ordination of exhibition and completion of the publication on time and within budget (see entry requirements). (max I x A4 Page)

 

• Submissions must be signed and a confirmation of receipt is sent to the sender.

 

• Submissions must be in English and Estonian.

 

 

• The production costs of the exhibition installations must be less than €50,000 *

 

• The costs of organizing two workshops must be less than €8,500.

 

• The cost of producing the publication (print, design, essays) must be less than €5,000

 

• The proposed concepts must take into account the exhibition space of approximately 70-100 m2 allocated for the exhibition.

 

• The exhibition must be easily removable and allow repeated exhibition in Estonia and elsewhere.

 

 

*The amount maximum €50,000 for ‘production costs’ does not include exhibitors fees, transport, insurance of the exhibition, travel expenses for curators and participants, exhibition installation and de-installation in Ireland and Estonia, exhibition marketing and communication. These are costs covered by the organisers.

 

 

EAA is the principal organizer who ensures organizational and technical fluency. ECA and IAF are co-organizers.

 

The competition is public and non-anonymous, which means that by submitting the project, all participants confirm their consent to participate in the project. Only the title or the exhibition and the curators of the winning concept will be announced. Other participants in the submitted entries will remain confidential, unless the authors of the entry wish otherwise.

 

The proprietary rights of the works created by the curators in the framework of the Wood Works shall remain with the principal organiser, except for the proprietary rights of pre-created exhibits outside this exhibition, which shall remain with the authors unless otherwise agreed with the authors of the works.

 

 

Entries submitted will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

 

• Relevance of the aims of the initiative

 

• Innovative, relevant architectural solutions, experimentation, prototyping and new thinking around using wood

 

• A programme focusing on subjects that are highly relevant to society nowadays, and addressing major current issues of contemporary architecture.

 

• Compliance of the entry with the competition conditions

 

• The feasibility of implementing the curators’ vision

 

• The transportability of the exhibition and the opportunity to re-exhibit it both in Estonia and elsewhere after the opening of the exhibition in Ireland.

 

 

The competition is held in two stages. Stage I consists of submitting the competition project in writing and stage II is an oral presentation of the project in front of a jury. If the jury finds that a winner can be chosen in stage I, the jury is entitled to cancel stage II.

 

The participating languages are Estonian and English.

 

 

Raul Järg, Chairman of ECA

 

Nathalie Weadick, Director of IAF

 

Veronika-Valk Siska, advisor of architecture and design at the Ministry of Culture in Estonia

 

Merritt Bucholz, Architect and founding Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture University of Limerick

 

Ott Kadarik, partner and architect at Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid

 

Ciaran O'Connor, President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland

 

 

Information Session Webinar is on 18 June 2020 at 13.00 Ireland time / 15.00 Estonia time. Click here to register.

 

The deadline for submitting the concept in writing is 28th August 2020 at 12.00 Ireland time / 14.00 Estonia time.

 

Jury will meet on the 3rd of September at such time the shortlisted teams will be required to attend interview.

 

The entry must be submitted digitally to Kadri Laar, Estonian Association of Architects, kadri.laar@arhliit.ee. +372 52 36 139.

 

 

Opening dates of the exhibition in Solstice Arts Centre and further exhibitions may be affected by Covid 19.

 

Covid 19 means that the process of exchange, collaboration and communication in the cultural exchange phase of Wood Works between the curators and the exhibitors may be delivered online or within the limits of social distancing guidelines of both governments.

 

Covid 19 means that the process of fabricating work for the exhibition, installing and viewing of exhibits by the public will need to take into account government guidelines.