MA Design Research social media editor Jenny Morris spoke with Estonia-based writer, educator and D-CRIT alum Sandra Nuut (class of 2014) for our Alumni Spotlight series. Sandra Nuut currently teaches at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her work includes lecturing, writing, and curatorial projects in the design field. Together with Ott Kagovere, she is behind the monthly publication Dear Friend that covers issues of design and culture. Nuut has previously worked at New York-based gallery Chamber.
I’d love to hear about your background and what led you to D-Crit.
I went to D-Crit in 2012, right after graduating with a BA in art history. I graduated from the same school that I’m working at now, so it’s kind of a circle. I was looking for academic programs in things like fashion studies and design theory. D-Crit was more open, flexible and experimental. I was very interested in fashion design at the time so I felt I could have this focus, but it could also be shifting. I’m from a very small country and I was very young and inexperienced, so going to New York and attending D-Crit was a lucky chance for me.
How do you feel the program has shaped your work and way of thinking?
It did have a very strong effect on my career. At the end of my first year, there was a lecture series every Tuesday evening. One was a talk between Alice Twemlow and Murray Moss. Their discussion changed my understanding of what design curation can be. Murray Moss is this very charismatic figure and really showed something new to me that I hadn’t seen before. Very quickly, it led to an internship that same summer with Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell at the Moss Bureau. Although it’s not directly connected, after my graduation in 2014, I joined Chamber Gallery, which focused on showcasing one-of-a-kind, rare, limited art and design objects. I think the D-Crit program and my life in New York made me much more relaxed about work life, writing and thinking. Life was very intense, but there was a different kind of freedom that I didn’t know before. I found a way to position myself where writing, research and curation could be combined in a playful manner.
Can you tell us about your project “Dear Friend” and how it got started?
I wanted to do a small publication that would be very personal, but at the same time speak to many. I came back to Estonia after five years, which was kind of a shock in the beginning. I wanted to connect to and feel the community. I also wanted something that would react to the times. It’s distributed via snail mail so people will notice they have something strange in their mailbox, rather than an email that they would maybe delete. It also came out of different discussions with my colleague, Ott Kagovere, with whom I work here in the graphic design department. I was inspired by a publication called Fulcrum initiated by students at the AA School that no longer runs. It was a one page publication and I really liked how straightforward and specific it was — one issue per publication on one page.
We also wished to cultivate some kind of design writing culture — not only locally, but internationally. That is why the publication is in English, not Estonian. We started in 2019 and it’s a monthly publication. There have been many different designers, journalists, curators, and translators with different perspectives contributing to the publication. It’s rather remarkable that it has continued this long, because these small initiatives tend to die out very quickly. It’s a free publication that is self-initiated and it’s still fun and very much something we still want to do. We only run about 150 copies, so the edition is rather small. One thing we changed this year is that we now include young designers that design the covers.
We love getting the hard copy in the department! I’m really curious to hear you speak a little bit about your upcoming show this June.
I’m working with German designer Judith Seng on an exhibition titled “Acting Things VIII — Silent Negotiations”. It’s a performative installation that invites participants to negotiate and play with colored sand. Participants — inhabitants and visitors of Tallinn — come with a partner to explore a question that matters to them and interact with the sand. One of the starting points of this exhibition is that our public life is different after so many lockdowns. We enact all our life in one place and these bubbles may be comfortable, but they also may stagnate our collective development. As a personal and collective learning experience, the exhibition provides us with an opportunity to exercise empathy and solidarity by intuitively moving together with sand.
I’m curious to hear more about the performative nature of this exhibition.
Basically, you have a topic in your mind. Let’s say, I am interested in segregation in Tallinn. One sand pile is red and one is yellow and there are two people negotiating the topic. One sandpile represents collectivity and one represents individuality. Participants will negotiate this topic with their body, silently, moving the sand towards or away from each other. Judith has said it can have very transformative outcomes. We don’t look to solve any issue, rather, we investigate and explore patterns via our own choreography performed in our everyday life.
On the note of performing in our everyday life, do you have some sage advice for recent graduates who are just entering out into the world?
Perhaps people could give themselves a chance to explore by not being too decided in their own ways. We all come from a certain background and I think that really informs us. At D-Crit, we all came from different places. I would say, just be open to do what pushes you in different directions.
So many of us can relate to that advice. Thank you so much Sandra!
About SVA MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism
The SVA MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism is a one-year, intensive MA program well suited to the circumstances of established professionals, in addition to graduates wishing to continue their studies at an advanced level. In providing the research tools and journalistic techniques for researching, analyzing, and critically interpreting design, the program amply prepares its graduates for future-facing careers in research-driven design practices and institutions, in journalism and publishing, or for continued studies in a design-related subject.
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