Research Catalogue

Presentation at the seminar at Pallas UAS (28.11.2024) Best Practices in Integrating Research, Development and Creative Activities into Teaching. Stories of R&D projects by Kadi Pajupuu, Textile Department

Performance Collector of Dreams Finding a goldfish to tell the wish Porto, Fonte dos Aliados – Public space 14.06.2025 18:30-19:00 Performance duration: 30 minutes Objects: gold tape, 10 gold ballons Photography: Camilla Formiconi

Islington studio flat 4, at 14 Barnsbury Road, London, 2022, privately rented. Interior design and styling, as art installation. Looted, 2024. Investigatory research with artworks, 2023-24. Interactive research blog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_(magazine) My personal belongings were still at the property for two months, after I left on 27 March 2024 and was asked to collect them by 3 or 4 April from Woolwich. After I left, the landlords moved in two or three under aged, who I have never met, so that they pretend to be my daughters. Subsequently, they must have been 'removing' them one by one over the last few months and until October 2024. The company behind 14 Barnsbury Road was deemed illegal through the courts, on 22 April, 2024, shortly after I was forced to leave at the end of March. The maintenance employed many Polish citizens, all dressed in black with black caps, adopting the XRW supporters' fashion code. The household of tenants was mixed and multicultural, but mainly British natives, with the exception of a couple from Hong-Kong, an American citizen, and myself, a naturalised British citizen, originally from Greece. Twenty-one (20+1) digital photographs of the studio, for twenty (20) missing Albanian and of Albanian ethnicity, non-EU immigrants; as well as one (1) missing Italian citizen. Golden Dawn has taken responsibility. The twenty-one confirmed persons, whose details got stolen were abducted by mainly Golden Dawn and, secondarily, the NRM; they are deceased. A new 2025 addition of one (1) more fake passport, Greek, of a woman of Greek citizenship abducted, most likely in the US, circa 2022: making it to a total of twenty-two (22). Finally, a fake Greek passport in my.artistic name, Betty Nigianni, for a teenager, was found in 2025. This last fake gives a total of twenty-three (23). Twenty-two (22) and twenty-three (23) photographs, including two (2) plus one (1) of myself: NOT a missing person, from the 2022-2023 period in the eventually looted, in spring 2024, Islington studio. Two (2), plus one (1) targeted cultural producers: the anti-fascist Greek musician, Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P. (domestic); the French/Belgian filmmaker of Jewish origins, Chantal Akerman (global), who lived and worked in France, as well as the US, and whose personal details, specifically her life insurance policy and her medical file, got stolen in connection with the case, can be added to the toll of two (2) deceased. My personal details, name known as and artistic name, as well as numbers connected to my personal details, were stolen, too, while I (post-global) was targeted as a cultural producer, an artist and former academic. Was I going to be the third victim? Golden Dawn were originally pagans, drawing from the ancient Greek mythology and ritualistic practices, including human sacrifice. The visual imagery and the art included in the photographs is influenced by the marketing and advertising industry; I brushed shoulders briefly with students in the creative industries teaching at the Winchester School of Art. I used this an ironic commentary on Golden Dawn trying unsuccessfully to create a brand through propaganda, not political marketing. The art world has been traditionally male-dominated. This has not changed dramatically in contemporary art. Female artists have sometimes adopted male attitudes, or personas, to break into the art scene; see Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin from the YBA movement. I hold the view that art is not gendered, that there is no art for women or so-called women's art. Good art transcends such categories, tapping into more universal experiences. Saying this, I would like to quote Nancy Spero, who doesn't crudely distinguish between male and female art, as follows:"What if the default gender for 'artist' were female? What if, when we looked at a work by a woman, we said to ourselves, "That is art," and when we looked at a work by a man, we automatically identified it in our minds as 'men's art'?" In 1999, I wrote a long essay about the architectural uncanny, which I submitted as my graduation thesis for my first MA in architectural theory. I called it "Space as a 'Bad' Object: A criminal investigation on the notion of space". I got inspiration from detective novels and real-life crime stories. The long essay was about the role of architectural space in crime. It was unsupervised until submission: I received a distinction by a Bartlett staff member. I took the digital photographs in conceptual adherence with that essay. I was a postgraduate philosophy student 9/2017-11/2019 at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. In this exposition, I include new photographs from a series of digital photography called "Forensics", taken with my mobile phone, after I was forced to leave the Islington property I was renting, on 27 March 2024. I gave the photography series that name, because it has served the purpose of investigating, recording and tracking a crime, for which architectural space, such as private rentals, has been used. For Chris, my former neighbour, who was suddenly transferred by his employer, from London, where his daughter lives, to somewhere outside of London; and for Lawrence, a second generation immigrant from Nigeria, whose temporary post was prematurely terminated, though he was planning to return to his legal studies. And for Ali. And for Oliver, also my former neighbour. In memory of Howard, also a tenant at Bellview, and former neighbour. To all those who don't just "play" the cultural and racial diversity clause; they don't just rely on identity politics, because the class problem has not been resolved for them, either. Saying this, the UK must still be scoring high on racism, especially for people of African descent. A Nigerian was among the Golden Dawn victims of assassination in Greece. I was listening frequently to Massive Attack, a British trip-hop band, when I was living in Islington. Sophie Calle is a French writer and photographer, working on themes of identity, intimacy and everyday existence. Her work is partly inspired by the detective fiction genre.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 BA Photography With the recent cultural emphasis on the pursuit of happiness, the expression of negative emotions seems to be neglected. The impact of not valuing and integrating emotions that can be viewed as negative can be detrimental to one’s well-being. There seems to be a widespread denial or suppression of such emotions that, eventually, can lead to problems such as self-esteem problems, depression, anxiety, etc. This has led to the urge to better understand what this observation is based on. How do you dress? What parts of your life do you share? What version of yourself do you show? Do you show the socially acceptable version or the raw and authentic version of yourself? There seems to be an unspoken rule that dictates how people should behave and portray themselves in front of others, showing only the positive aspects of their life. Taking this concept to a photographic level, I have encountered this scenario many times. You walk up to somebody and ask if you can take a picture of them. Their body tenses up, they rise tall and proud, and their smile stretches from ear to ear. They suddenly seem to be the happiest they have been all day, just for the picture. This is also the reality of social media. Once you open the app you are sucked into a wonderland. Posts and stories of people seemingly living their best lives, travelling, smiling, flexing, and comparing themselves to a #FAKEBODY. This makes me question what power photography holds in this day and age. In what ways could photography be used as a tool used to suppress our emotions instead of allowing us to express our true feelings? Through the use of chaptersation and personal stories, this thesis is presented by different emotions. By doing this, my aim is to create awareness and highlight the emphasis of emotions, making the reader question their own feelings and emotions, taking what resonates and helping them to tap into into their own body.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague 2023 BA fashion and textile Imelda Marcos was the First Lady of the Philippines for 20 years. She is an image of wealth (ill gotten) and the display of wealth. She is real and not real, her possession of wealth is real and not real. The image display of fake wealth by Imelda is not isolated, it is the humour of contemporary culture ‘fake it til you make it’. It is also fuelled by our daily life in the consumption of technology. Instead of criticising these behaviours of displaying fake wealth, we embody them somehow, it intrigues us to the extent of making films such as on Netflix ‘Inventing Anna’ and ‘Tinder Swindler’. ‘Generation fake wealth’ is a group of people whose goal is to portray having abundance in wealth despite their financial capacity. It is this extravagance in life that excites reality. This research will look into the diverse areas of thoughts and great people of our time. It will traverse to different ideologies such as: postmodernism, social capital, the search for beauty in this troubled times and political identity. They are important because they discuss the complex intertwining of realities, the reality itself and its possible multiple copies. The intangible commodity is the image; the image is a reflection of reality but not the absolute truth which we assume to be real. Social media is the main platform for portraying our alternative reality and its discrete influence

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague 2022 MA Artistic Research Writing introductions and quickly pitching my thesis must have become easier by now I suppose. I’ve talked about it so much these past months and to my surprise people get excited when I do. Somewhere along the fragmented lines of my communication I must do something good. I’ve caught myself often in that I keep saying the same thing. Which I suppose I will do again now when people ask me what it is about. It’s a multifocal piece, written my me and my friends, through conversations and interviews, in which we try to deconstruct our notions on intimacy. I guess it’s about (auto)cannibalism, sliminess, sex, love, anglerfish, grinder, bodies, sickness, healing and community too. The body as an archipelago and a guide to how to slowly consume oneself and the other.