Research Catalogue

CITY AS SPACE OF RULES AND DREAMING promotes emancipation and democratisation in urban space by cross-examination through artistic research, empirical urban research, political theory and legal theory. The study strengthens polyphony of urban space and thereby develops a more just city It asks: How is urban space formed and shared, and who has access to it? What normative and de facto instruments regulate, control and inhabit this space? What kinds of processes, structures and spaces of inclusion and marginalisation, as well as disagreement and controversy are there in the city? What kind of fractures, escape lines and dreams are hidden in the normativity of urban space? What kinds of spaces of shadow, noise, potentialities and dreams are there and how do they actualise? The study reaches beyond established art-science boundaries by bringing new and more inclusive means of “soft law” to urban decision-making and inviting different neighborhoods to dream of their own dwelling-regions through imaginary urban archaeology and fictionalising democracy combining different artistic mediums. The project is coordinated by the Academy of Fine Arts (Doctoral programme) at the University of the Arts Helsinki. Other partners are Helsinki University Faculty of Law, Helsinki University Faculty of Arts/ Aesthetics and Aalto University Department of Built Environment. In Memoriam Ari Hirvonen (1960–2021) The responsible leader (PI) of the project is Maiju Loukola at the Academy of Fine Arts / KuvA, Uniarts Helsinki. The other research group members and co-initiators are Aino Hirvola (Dept. of built environment, Aalto University), Tanja Tiekso (Faculty of Arts/Aesthetics, Helsinki University Faculty of Arts/ Aesthetics) and Paul Tiensuu (Helsinki University Faculty of Law). Since 2023 Jaakko Ruuska (KuvA, Uniarts Helsinki), Henna-Riikka Halonen (KuvA, Uniarts Helsinki) and Niran Baibulat (KuvA/Uniarts Helsinki) have contributed as postdoc artist-researchers for shorter periods. Other collaborators include Stefan Winter, Zen Marie, Brigitta Stone-Johnson, Anita Zsentesi, Chris Butler, Jan Schacher, Josue Moreno, Denise Ziegler, Simon Critchley, Antti Nyyssölä, Gabi Schillig and Kristina Sedlerova. Villanen We dedicate this project to Ari, and to Stargazing

In this work, I want to show some excerpts from my grandmother's patriarchal resistance. The narrative and the photographs will be at the center. They will clarify Esters Lindberg's attempt to negotiate and renegotiate her position within the usual norm. The narratives and photographs will hopefully give an expanded understanding of what it could be like to live as a woman with a desire for freedom in Sweden during the early 20th century.

This exposition emerged from my participation in the second interval of the Simultaneous Arrivals (Simularr) Artistic Research Project—a research project inviting international artist-researchers to explore relational, situated, and process-based inquiries in dialogue with core researchers. Core researchers: Nayari Castillo, Hanns Holger Rutz, Franziska Hederer, and Daniele Pozzi. For the second interval, the visual artist and researcher Elena Radaelli and I were invited as visiting artist-researchers. (More information on Simultaneous Arrivals: https://simularr.net/about/) The exposition presents my process during the residency, i.e. my Traces and Paths Towards a Singularly-Plural Companionships. The eight-week residency (3 March-30 April 2024) took place across three sites: Graz (Austria); Lecce, San Cesario (Italy); and Klagenfurt (Austria). The exposition traces this journey through various mediums, including texts, graphics, video and audio material experiments, field encounters, and theoretical companions. My processes, are informed and shaped by my companion collaborators—human (research-creation companions), more-than-human, textual, and material—who co-inform and co-create the unfolding of the research.

This research explores how choreomania - the historical phenomenon of uncontrollable, communal dance “plagues” that emerged in the Middle Ages - can inform and shape my artistic practice. Central to this inquiry is the question: how does choreomania influence my creative process and the way I shape my performance practice as a classically trained pianist? The study unfolds three main blocks. First, an essay examines the conceptual formation of choreomania, its contemporary relevance, and its impact on my artistic work. Simultaneously, I observe and document the creative processes of artists-in-residence during my internship at the residency programme "Choreomania - Bodily Excess, Collective Unrest". The thrid block involves an experimental playground consisting of several performance try-outs, each rigorously documented, analysed, and reflected upon. Adopting a rhizomatic approach, I explore performance-making as a fluid, irregular process. The resulting performances weave together classical piano, improvisation, movement, voice, collaboration, live-electronics, audience engagement, and the submerged elements of choreomania. The research culminates in a synthesis and reflection of the entire process, offering new insights into performance-making.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, cellists were trained to provide chordal continuo realisation for recitativi in various parts of Europe. In other words, when they accompanied an upper voice, players would create a harmonically rich texture to better support the line above them, filling in chords rather than playing single bass notes. My research aims to trace the origins of this practice, examining pedagogical materials from the Neapolitan conservatories at the end of the 1600s. First, we investigate sections of the Montecassino Manuscript MS 2-D-13 (1699), analysing cases when Neapolitan-trained cellists needed to conjure up music beyond the written bass line. Selected works by prominent cello virtuosi and pedagogues of the time (Rocco Greco, Gaetano Francone, and Francesco Supriani) help us grasp how the violoncello gained the possibility of playing sophisticated improvised lines upon a bass and even (dare we say) partimenti. The second part of my research takes us forward in time to the second half of the eighteenth century. We discover how Salvatore Lanzetti and Antonio Guida continued the pedagogical traditions established by the preceding generations of Maestri, crafting methods that trained cellists to employ the rule of the octave in order to get comfortable with chordal improvisation. Ultimately, these explorations aim to suggest how the ground may have been fertilized for the growth of the aforementioned recitativo practices in the late 1700s, treating chordal continuo realisation as a result of a dynamic process across generations rather than an isolated phenomenon.

This exposition is part of the peer-reviewed article: Østern, T. P., Reppen, C., O’Connell, S., & Daneberg, M. (2025). Choreographer/researcher/teacher: Developing a/r/tography as an approach to dance pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in a professional learning community of teachers. Nordic Journal of Art & Research, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/ar.5460 This exposition explores my a/r/tographic design dive as course coordinator of the course "A/r/tography in theory and practice in higher education" (7.5 ects) at Stockholm University of the Arts. The decision to create and offer this course arose from a large collaborative change project at the former Department for Dance Pedagogy. The project led to a revision of the BA in Dance Pedagogy into an a/r/tographic study program, emphasizing the entangled roles of choreographer, researcher, and teacher. The course was developed to support professional development in a/r/tography for staff teaching across arts disciplines in higher education. As course coordinator, I dove into the course design a/r/tographically.