Research Catalogue

Conceived and co-organised by Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, this Society of Artistic Research Special Interest Group (SAR SIG) provides contexts for coming together via the exchange of language-based research. The intent is to support developments in the field of expanded language-based practices by inviting attention, time and space for enabling understanding of/and via these practices anew.

This research was conducted with a diverse group of dancers, varying in age, background, and dance experience, and was guided through somatic embodiment and artistic articulation. Through a somatic approach, the body was explored as both an archive of lived experience and an oracle for emergent knowledge, offering a strong gateway into authentic dance material. The creative process unfolded through four phases: somatic exploration and improvisation, composition, structuring, and refinement. Throughout, leadership shifted fluidly between an open, facilitative mode, amplifying the dancers’ voices, and a more directive mode, articulating the artistic vision. The methodology highlights how initial somatic explorations were gradually shaped into choreographic form, maintaining a dialogue between internal embodiment and external composition throughout the process. Key insights include that this process proved particularly effective within a diverse group context, demonstrating that, regardless of formal dance training, each individual, when guided somatically, can access embodied memory and, through compositional shaping, transform authentic movement into coherent choreographic structure. Both the research and the resulting performance, Equilibrium, do not seek to offer resolution, but rather to evoke recognition and the possibility of coexisting with tension.

The aim of this PD project is to bring artists and citizens together with each other and their environment, and collectively explore how the wordless voice can be a means of communication. Artists leading this project bring understanding from the multiple fields in which they are working – music, theatre, visual arts, and circus. In addition to the collective exploration of connection, the objective is to propose a methodology (which combines and develops from a range of existing methods and is provisionally termed “Resonant Cycles”) and investigate if it can have a transformative impact on the subjectivities of the individual participants. The project involves interventions in the field of performing arts with the goal of modeling less language-dependent and more inclusive, sensory-rich experiences of cross-disciplinary creation and performance. It invites a holistic and immersive experience of performing arts that brings the physical voice to the forefront and prompts reflection on the essence and meaning of vocal sound regardless of language, and the way that sound itself functions as a means of communication.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 MA Artistic research, Volatile Life is a thesis exploring the yearning for emancipation in an uncertain world, examined through puppet theatre. The thesis consists of four prologues that establish the context and motivations for the exploration. The prologues set clear objectives for the thesis, including storytelling as a means of disruption, theatre as a rehearsal for revolution, and reevaluating power dynamics in puppet theatre. Uncertainty serves as the driving force behind the investigation, with the play's structure embracing this uncertainty as a means of exploration. Within the play, a powerful voice gradually emerges, engaging in a dialogue with a girl and transforming into moving shadows that morph between various objects. At the play's conclusion, the voice manifests as a physical head, engaging in a discourse about puppetry. This narrative concept draws inspiration from the Jinn mythology found in Islamic cultures. The Jinn initially manipulates humans through a voice in their heads, gradually gaining power and eventually revealing itself in physical forms when the humans surrender to its influence.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 - BA Photography 'Vessels of Home' is a 'Search for Belonging.' As more and more people feel disconnected from the world around them, finding belonging is no longer only a question of physical place, but of creating moments in an imaginative space. These moments of belonging are short-lived, they are hard to grasp and contain in our ever individualizing world. Yet, I believe they can be found and nurtured through conscious acts and rituals. Rowan Moonlion proposes various ways to cultivate moments of belonging, through stories contained in the vessels of Fire, Earth, Water and Air (Le Guin 2020). Firstly, in Fire, regarding human interactions: rejecting patriarchal and capitalist notions of group thinking, by letting go of identity definitions based on difference. Secondly, in Earth, considering nature: returning to our connection to the land, to understand the unifying power of interbeing. Thirdly, in Water, looking within our bodies: searching for sensorial experiences of belonging by making our bodies our homes. Finally, in Air, gazing in our minds and memories, imagining new worlds, holding stories together with our ancestors. Witchcraft and Earth honoring rituals are used as a framework to explain and exemplify the four proposed layers. 'Vessels of Home' combines academic research grounded in queer and feminist theory, conversations with witches and other lived experience stories, poetic reflections taken from Moonlion’s artistic practice, and practical tools like rituals, recipes and affirmations. Together the four layers of belonging and the four types of writing form a unifying whole. Moonlion urges you to connect to your own personal form of belonging, and hopes you will learn to understand the value of trying to live in harmony with all else on this Earth. The elements return again and again in a cyclical manner. The circle of life is ever present.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE) Today, one percent of humanity is displaced and there are twice as many forcibly displaced people than in 2011 when the total was just under 40 million.  Many possible solutions are being given to the extent of providing shelters for migrants in precariousness. Many of these solutions seem to attempt to normalise precarity. But so little attention has been given to the perception the migrants have of that precariousness.   Then how can my response to such phenomena go beyond merely providing shelter to understanding the relationship between displacement and belonging? This research explores new processes towards knowing and claiming territory; it speculates on the domestic environment that may emerge through processes of listening, tracing and drawing together with those living on the front line of precariousness inside refugee camps.   To this extent this research will draw a new way of looking at hospitality as a tool for refugees to gain empowerment in the camps. How would that be for a refugee, to be a host in a hosting country?