Home, carried
research project
Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp’s ArchiVolt research group.
Antwerp, BE

Home, as both a physical and emotional space, is inherently personal, yet universally significant. Home, carried explores the intersection of hope, history, and contemporary society by looking into the feelings and memories related to home. Drawing from oral heritage and memory archiving, the project investigates how individuals find hope and resilience in a world often characterised by division and alienation.
Influenced by Alamaa’s family history under Soviet repression, the research addresses the lingering effects of political oppression. Growing up in Estonia, a country shaped by repeated occupations, Alamaa has observed how unresolved historical injustices fuel contemporary conflicts. The often-silenced histories of the Baltic States and Eastern Europe serve as a foundation for analyzing broader geopolitical struggles and the normalization of violence.
Through interviewing, the project explores how scents linked to home and bread can serve as evocative markers of identity and belonging and how memory shapes perceptions of home. Alamaa also incorporates sculptural elements of costume and textile in their work, exploring how everyday objects and rituals, such as bread-eating, hold profound cultural and political significance.

Energy: Yes!

A course for BA fashion and accessory students in Estonian Academy of Arts.

teaching, 2022 – present

Together with Lisette Sivard

The course is an experiment, trial and research. The course allows the students to prepare a collective clothing related conceptual work that is not limited by any theme or approach. Fashion can often start from the physical body. Body is almost always present, when creating clothes but also when making a decision to wear something. However, the “body” can also be an abstract form or a meaning. Fashion and costume design can therefore be considered both bodily and also instinctively as the closest cultural form
to a human: clothes are both physically and mentally related to people everyday and people are part of the society. The question arises: who and what is the body? Based on the bodily presence, we move from our own body to a larger societal body in the course.

The aim is to arouse interest in societal processes and guide the student to position themselves in society. The creative process is enriched by lectures that provide theory and an overview of various different approaches. The practical part of the course includes creating a collective conceptual work. The work(s) would be shown during a public presentation in an unknown form. The format is developed during a collective working process, based on the directions of the participating students.

photos by Elo Vahtrik