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.

Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2025. BA Interior Architecture and Furniture Design Summary (8968 words)

This thesis explores the interwoven relationships between women, the textile arts, and its heritage, through a personal familial lens. Beginning with the question of the importance textile-making has held in our lives, I investigate whether engaging in crafting practices can reconnect us with tradition and allow us to re-root ourselves in the lives of our ancestors. Drawing from both historical context and intimate family stories, I trace the lineage of textile practices among the women in my family - my Mothers. These include my mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, whose experiences with sewing, knitting, crocheting, and weaving shaped their identities and daily lives. For many of them, textile-making was an act born of necessity, a survival skill often dismissed as “women’s work” within a patriarchal framework. For me, it is a conscious act and a choice - an exploration, a reclamation, and a form of personal and cultural healing. Through self-taught practice and reflection, I came to realise how textile traditions carry knowledge, strength, and connection across generations. My research, grounded in both historical analysis and storytelling, shows how making can become a language of remembrance and resistance, a way to bridge fragmented identity and reclaim belonging. In honouring the textile legacies of the women who came before me, I have tied myself into their story, not by romanticising their struggles, but to acknowledge their creativity and resilience. With each thread, I reconnect to a maternal lineage that continues to live through my hands.

This appendix is comprised of a small collection of photos that can be examined alongside the thesis 'my Mothers'.