johanna jõekalda / Selection of works

Interspace
The Estonian national exhibition „Interspace“ speculates on the spatial consequences of a data-driven society and explores the public space-making within an e-state where services and events that once brought people together in physical space now take place online. The exhibition uses live data streams to trace the shift of public space functions into the virtual domain, revealing the digital footprints left behind in physical space.

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Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseumi 30. juubelinäituse peateemaks oli “Majad mida

vajame“. Näitus kõnetas aina tõelisemaks muutuvaid ülemaailmseid ohte –

olgu need meie endi põhjustatud nagu potentsiaalne kliimakatastroof või tehnoloogiline

singulaarsus, või meist sõltumatud nagu mis tahes ähvardav jõud

avakosmosest. Näitusel osalevatele ruumiloojatele anti ülesandeks pakkuda

välja strateegia ilusama, turvalisema ja rahulikuma elukeskkonna loomiseks.

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Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseumi 30. juubelinäituse peateemaks oli “Majad mida
vajame“. Näitus kõnetas aina tõelisemaks muutuvaid ülemaailmseid ohte –
olgu need meie endi põhjustatud nagu potentsiaalne kliimakatastroof või tehnoloogiline
singulaarsus, või meist sõltumatud nagu mis tahes ähvardav jõud
avakosmosest. Näitusel osalevatele ruumiloojatele anti ülesandeks pakkuda
välja strateegia ilusama, turvalisema ja rahulikuma elukeskkonna loomiseks.
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Novel forms of equality
„Novel forms of equality“ is an immersive installation that explores social inequality and environmental racism through the lens of a forgotten resident. Moving along a single axis, the camera first reveals contrasting residential environments before turning around and reimagining the city from the perspective of those most affected by inequality. The work proposes empathetic spatial strategies to challenge segregation and rethink equality and engagement in the built environment.

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All people were born by the blue sea
Inspired by Jaan Kross’s poetry on shared origins, inherited paths and unique destinations, the artwork „All People“ focuses on the exploratory graphic motifs of land, people, and nation. Rooted in the Estonian experience, the work reflects an ongoing search in which arrival is always partial—some discover continents, others a place for thought and belonging.

Entropy
Johanna Jõekalda, 2020
Interactive Full HD projection
client: Innovation and Business Centre Mektory

Entropy is an interactive installation that offers a sensorial experience that is both physically and visually stimulating, echoing the restorative sensation of being immersed in nature and taking care of Your surrounding and Yourself. The installation responds instantly to the presence of a human being. At its core unfolds a living thicket—left unattended or without care, it drifts into wild overgrowth. By pausing before the work and moving one’s body, the viewer can control the level of entropy in the environment, gradually bringing order to both the space and their own stream of thought.

While the installation doesn’t resemble any specific natural setting it’s designed to evoke similar associations as we experience in nature.

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Entropy
Johanna Jõekalda, 2020
Interactive Full HD projection
client: Innovation and Business Centre Mektory

Entropy is an interactive installation that offers a sensorial experience that is both physically and visually stimulating, echoing the restorative sensation of being immersed in nature and taking care of Your surrounding and Yourself. The installation responds instantly to the presence of a human being. At its core unfolds a living thicket—left unattended or without care, it drifts into wild overgrowth. By pausing before the work and moving one’s body, the viewer can control the level of entropy in the environment, gradually bringing order to both the space and their own stream of thought.

While the installation doesn’t resemble any specific natural setting it’s designed to evoke similar associations as we experience in nature.
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Entropy

„Entropy“ is an interactive installation, echoing the restorative sensation of being immersed in nature. At its core unfolds a living thicket. Left unattended or without care, it drifts into wild overgrowth. The visitor can engage with the environment and change its level of entropy.

Renewal

Johanna Jõekalda, 2022
Full HD animation
client: the Tallinn facility of the Greenergy Data Centers

"Renewal" presents a speculative landscape derived from datasets that map the growing share of renewable energy. The visualisations consist of tens of thousands of freely moving particles. They occasionally resolve into configurations that resemble distant contours of real landscapes revived as a result of these processes.

The project reminds us that the adoption of renewable energy can reverse the destruction of natural environments, perhaps even allowing certain species and habitats to return.

Renewal represents the carbon cloud that remains un-emitted through the use of green energy, and the environments preserved as a result.

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Renewal

Johanna Jõekalda, 2022
Full HD animation
client: the Tallinn facility of the Greenergy Data Centers

"Renewal" presents a speculative landscape derived from datasets that map the growing share of renewable energy. The visualisations consist of tens of thousands of freely moving particles. They occasionally resolve into configurations that resemble distant contours of real landscapes revived as a result of these processes.

The project reminds us that the adoption of renewable energy can reverse the destruction of natural environments, perhaps even allowing certain species and habitats to return.

Renewal represents the carbon cloud that remains un-emitted through the use of green energy, and the environments preserved as a result.
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Renewal

"Renewal" presents a speculative landscape derived from datasets that map the growing share of renewable energy. Tens of thousands of freely moving particles occasionally resolve into configurations that resemble distant contours of real landscapes revived as a result of renewable energy use.

Input Output

“Interspace” Research Group, 2014
The Estonian Museum of Architecture

Input Output
Input Output was a pop-up exhibition examining the mechanisms of a data-driven society. Its central element was the social media compass, visualising real-time, geolocated social media feed from Tallinn.

Vanishing point
Johanna Jõekalda, 2015
HD animation with stereo sound (1’57’’)

Vanishing point is a journey through a virtual space shaped by distorted perspective. Only from the right angle does the work open into new dimensions, unfolding as a trompe-l’œil extension of its environment. The viewer must walk along the edges of the installation, being guided through the space by a virtual character. At all other angles, the space dissolves into distortion.

The animation’s visual language draws from childhood memories spent in the same courtyard of the Artists’ Hall of Tallinn. The project reflects a formative sense of space where the boundary between dreaming and reality remains fluid and undefined.

In the end, everything becomes a matter of perspective.

The installation was created for the opening exhibition Open Borders at the Estonian Academy of Arts Gallery.

Vanishing point
"Vanishing point" reflects a formative sense of space where the boundary between dreaming and reality remains fluid and undefined. New dimensions of reality emerge for the visitor only when viewed from the right angle – creating a trompe l’oeil like extension to the existing space. At all other angles, the space dissolves into distortion.

"Interspace - a collection of essays on the digital and the public"
The Estonian exhibition was accompanied by an essay collection and a print series of the same name. The texts focus on the changes in the notion of the public and the digital, and together form a definition of contemporary public space.

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Launching the VR Lab at the Estonian Academy of Arts

Virtual reality applications allow us to experience layers of reality that are otherwise invisible, expanding our perceptual amplitudes and the umwelt. The VR Lab of the Estonian Academy of Arts explores these technologies as a creative medium for designing interactive spaces that are otherwise difficult to imagine and design due to their large amount of variables.

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Psychotectonics

The exhibition was based on a series of experiments measuring, recording, analyzing, and amplifying spatial experience. Test subjects were placed in controlled virtual environments designed to challenge their spatial perception. The exhibits were created from recordings of bodily movement, lines of sight, and shifts in mental states etc. The exhibition demonstrates how spatial experience can be captured in the form of data and how new kinds of spatial experience can emerge from this.

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Applying biometric data in interactive design solutions

The project explored interactive spatial prototypes that adapt in real time, reconfiguring their spatial parameters in response to users’ biometric data. Electroencephalography, galvanic skin response and heart rate variability sensors were used to measure user’s positivity-negativity and activity-passivity levels, using the valence-arousal method. By combining designer-defined adaptive logic with real-time user feedback, the research reimagined space as a responsive system shaped by human experience.

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Spatial experience analysis of a 48-hour holding cell

Measuring experiential data to evaluate user experience in the sequence of spaces and procedures that lead to a detention in a 48-hour holding cells of the North Prefecture of Tallinn. The experience analysis graph illustrates the changes in detainees’ activity levels during a simulated arrest, based on temporal variations in GSR and HRV data. The data was used to inform the interior architectural design brief.

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vide

I think the fristhand modelling experience that VR modelling softwares offer is gonna affect digital topologies a lot in the near future.o

Commissioning the Estonian National Pavilion for Biennale Architettura 2025

The exhibition takes over the façade of a Venetian historical residential building to address the paradoxes of renovation processes in pursuit of climate goals. This bold statement in the urban fabric of Venice and the accompanying exhibition brought Estonian Pav ilion wide international recognition. The exhibition is curated by Elina Liiva, Helena Männa, Keiti Lige, and commissioned by Johanna Jõekalda (Estonian Ministry of Culture).