Research Catalogue

In this exposition I’m showing you my journey for these past two years of investigating my artistic practice through the meeting of identity and aesthetics. Due to my Iranian background, I have felt a need and curiosity to bring together my Iranian and European identities. This project is a dialogue between myself and music, encompassing sounds, arrangements, physical presence, materiality, technology, context, and politics. By politics I mean; history, cultural appropriation, diversity, colonisation, beliefs, and the current needs of the western culture. A project involving confrontations with habits, default parameters, and elements within digital audio workspaces, thereby incorporating scales.

Digital overview of artistic works by musician Jordan Sand

In this autoethnographic arts-based research, I return to the gift of music in my life and use it as the ultimate form of expression. I explore the process of navigating my own transgenerational trauma through composing and working with musicians from different musical and cultural backgrounds. Something like home explores the effect of finding common ground of love and compassion between my family members, especially those who have been navigating the traumas of war. I collected stories, memories, and impressions from my family’s childhood, and composed music that is inspired by them. In the first sections I discuss some concepts related to the transmittion of war trauma , and Bowen’s family system theory. Moreover, I relate to reasearches and projects that have been concerned with trauma art therapy and dealing with cultural trauma through music. As well as showing examples of composers who have been working with similar processes. In this project, I unfold my compositional process, and I present some possibilities of dealing with harmonizing traditional Arabic music, using partials from the harmonic series. I also share my process of collaborating with a lyric writer and a videographer who have helped me to bring the stories to life. Throughout the process I discovered that engaging with the stories unlocked new artistic outcomes and some unexpected artistic practices, expressions and results. Another important outcome of this project was the need for coming up with approaches that were used for transcultural music making and engaging the musicians with the stories but making sure to leave space for their own artistic identities to come across and shine. In the near future, I am hoping to use this project as a basis of my doctoral research project which will focus on memory expression through music by working with the diverse citizines of the finnish community.

This virtual exposition partially concentrates the experimental works developed during the doctorate in musical performance. Based mainly on the theory of transcreation of Haroldo de Campos (1962-2003), the topic of virtuosity is approached from artistic gestures trying to raise the discussion on what it means to be a virtuoso in the contemporary musical world. Paradoxically, iconic piano technique studies were chosen as the main material,this transcreationist interpretation allows traditional material to be permeated not only by contemporary means and aesthetics, but also questions that reflect on the tradition that made the emergence of these studies possible.

Taking as a departure point my experience working with war survivors in Peru, this project investigates how art can enable the collectivization of mourning. I connected my interest in the act of mourning human losses with my experiences living in Athens, Greece, where I encountered depression as a common diagnosis on both the individual and collective levels. If being depressed relates to unresolved mourning processes, what are the objects of loss caused by economic crisis and political disillusion? How can art help us to mourn an abstract loss, such as a political project, a certain sense of dignity, a particular relation with time and nature, or a fixed role in the familial structure? How could mourning be shared to allow communities to reframe and re-signify those objects of loss, towards transforming our relation to the economic and political? Lost and Shared creates dialogue between theory and affective labour, through collective experiences that connect emotions, critical thinking, body and space. The intuitions and questions brought by conversations with Greek activists and artists are the core of the project. Later on, facing the impossibility of working as planned due to the pandemic, Lost and Shared was adapted to the new socializing conditions and to acknowledge how crisis and mourning had become a global concern. Thus, the project ends up proposing the idea of “fertilizing mourning” as a concept in the making - an open invitation to collectively create practices that help us reconsidering the entanglements between life, death, and regeneration. Urgent practices we need today in order to contest the increasing, global processes of loss caused by capitalism.

Warm-up routines are essential for preventing injuries and enhancing performance, not only for athletes but also for musicians. While technical exercises like scales are common, physical and mental preparation is often overlooked. Research shows that musicians experience a high incidence of injuries, yet many neglect a comprehensive warm-up that includes both physical and mental aspects. This study explores the importance of incorporating a warm-up routine that goes beyond the instrument itself. It introduces a "warm-up menu" that allows musicians to select exercises based on available time, integrating disciplines and techniques such as Yoga, Body Mapping, Flow, and Imagery, while also highlighting the significance of Core engagement for musicians. These practices enhance body awareness, reduce tension, and promote overall well-being, ultimately helping to prevent injuries. The research combines a literature review, expert interviews, and a case study in which three musicians experimented with different warm-up routines over a week, reflecting on their experiences and the impact on their performance and physical condition. Findings suggest that incorporating non-instrumental warm-ups, especially those influenced by Yoga, can reduce tension, improve posture, and enhance performance while lowering injury risks. Experts, including musicians, psychologists, and physiotherapists, confirmed these benefits but emphasized that warm-ups should be part of a broader injury prevention approach. This study provides initial insights into the benefits of holistic warm-ups and encourages further research. By understanding and implementing better warm-up strategies, musicians can cultivate a more sustainable and healthy career.