Research Catalogue

The purpose of this exposition is to collect data of what Performative Theology can be and become primarily within an academic research but also beyond. The expo will be a timespace nurtured by members the Network for Performative Theology, established 6 October 2022 in Oslo.

"My Public Stage" is not merely an artistic practice; it is a dynamic fusion of performance art and civic engagement that transcends conventional boundaries. At its core, this practice navigates the intricate relationship between the artist and the public sphere, offering an unconventional perspective on how art can reshape our understanding of the world. The essential aspect of this artistic journey lies in the intentional placement of artistic interventions and performances within public spaces, where the encounter with viewers is not a predetermined spectacle but a meeting. This deliberate approach seeks to dissolve the traditional separation between the artist and the individual, fostering a unique connection that is spontaneous and genuine. I view public space as not only a material but also a social environment that is produced, reshaped and restructured by the citizens through their experiences, their intentions for action and the relations they develop in it. My project draws on Lefebvre’s (2019) approach to urban public space not as a neutral container of social life, but as a fluid entity, both constructed and produced by social practices. Lefebvre’s approach confirms and expands my view that public space is not fixed, yet it requires a conscious effort to intervene in its production. The philosophy driving "My Public Stage" aligns with the concept of civic engagement. By presenting long durational performances in the heart of everyday life, the artist consciously assumes the role of a creator, using performance art as a medium to unveil the interconnected elements that bridge art with life. This philosophy echoes the sentiment of Joseph Beuys, who believed that everyone is an artist, actively sculpting the intricate sculpture we call life. In embracing the public sphere as its canvas, this practice transcends the conventional boundaries of art and daily reality. It becomes a catalyst for a different perspective on how individuals perceive and engage with their surroundings. The transformative power of performance art is harnessed to reveal the latent artistic potential within each person, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between art and life.

The research explores 'ornamenting' as a transferable method in inter-disciplinary studies, inter-faith dialogues and artistic/therapeutic practices. Adapting techniques of Renaissance musicology, the processes we have developed de-create and re-create vital connections. It is a communica-tions strategy for times of crisis. Starting with simple sonic relations we extend the method far be-yond its traditional musical setting. The practice utilises 'Nothingness' as a component of creativity, providing a novel response to figurations of nothingness as mere negation. Preliminary results sug-gest its potential as a counter force to nihilism and social dislocation. The work divides into four areas. 1. Primary research on relationships between sound, meaning, and the sense(s) of self, exploring how sense is made of Otherness via processes akin to musical praxis: consonance, dissonance, 'pure voice' and ornamentation. 2. To apply this new perspective to a range of exile experiences – mourning, social disconnection, ex-communication and aggres-sive 'Othering'. 3. To investigate the cancelling of normal time-conditions in crisis situations such as trauma, dementia, and mystical experience, relating non-linear temporality to creative practice and healing. 4. To widely disseminate our results and methods as contributions to the methodology of artistic research via journal articles, live workshops and performances, and a book of original, praxical, testable, and teach-able interventions.

This exposition centres around the fieldwork and shooting process of my documentary feature film, 11 Underground (Chico Pereira, 2024). 11 Underground is a reenactment film project based on a mining strike that happened in Almadén in the summer of 1984, in which 11 miners locked themselves in at 650 meters underground to protest their precarious working and social conditions. After 11 days of enduring the dark and toxic underground galleries, the Almadén Mining Company finally accepted the miners’ claims and the miners came out of the dark hole, received as heroes by their neighbours. As a local filmmaker belonging to the first non-mining generation in over 2000 years, I thought of the premise of making a reenactment film in town: what if 11 people locked-in in the underground mine for 11 days now to pay homage to the 1984 strike? Out of this rather strange proposition there was a desire to create an event -partly social, partly artistic-, that could help to collectively reflect -or re-imagine- our present by reenacting a collective action from the past. On the one hand, 11 Underground can be presented as a loose reenactment that reproduces the form and duration of a past strike: 11 people confined inside a mine for 11 whole days. On the other hand, the speculative character of this what if scenario (what would happen if..), opens these 11 days to the unexpected, to new actions and directions that might emerge from the implementation of that speculative scenario into the town’s present reality. The intrinsic relation of reenactment with the past, together with the future-oriented nature of what if scenarios -as ways of engaging creatively with possibilities- are, in fact, representative and metaphorical of the current situation of Almadén, which tries to construct a future from the remains of the mining past, while deeply struggling with the negative consequences of the lack of structural plans after the end of mining. Overall, the way this artistic research approaches reenactment is by using the historical referent (i.e. the past mining strike) as a documentary scenario and performing it in the current socio-political conditions, opening the possibility to intervene in the present and collectively imagine possibilities for a better future.

The artistic research project TiO₂: The Materiality of White (MoW) is led by Associate Professor Marte Johnslien, Department of Art and Craft, Oslo National Academy of the Arts. The project builds on her PhD project White to Earth, completed at the same department in 2020. MoW is funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) through the Programme for Artistic Research for the period 2022–2026.

The artistic intervention "Foot Baths for All" (2024) emerged from an ethnographic exploration of collective forms of life on wastelands in Switzerland. Ethnographic insights regarding self-organized care, occupation, informal infrastructure, gift economies, and the shared use of water and electricity were fictionalized and recontextualized in the inner city of Zurich, in order to explore new forms of appropriation and participation in urban life. This exposition aims to share the results and experiences of this research through multiple formats: a video documentation, a how-to guide, and a text that offers insights into the ethnographic research and its translation into an artistic intervention, conceptualizing "Foot Bath Urbanism" as an artistic method for city-making from below. This project is situated in the field of artistic urban research. It is based on an expanded notion of art that moves beyond institutional contexts to intervene directly in public urban spaces through installations and performative practices, following approaches such as “New Genre Public Art”. The how-to guide is connected to instruction-based art, challenging conventional notions of authorship while emphasizing accessibility, participation, and interactivity, rooted in the conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Fluxus movement.