Research Catalogue

An eco-feminist perspective on photography Our vision has untapped, forgotten or perhaps undervalued potentials. These potentials lie within what I would like to coin “the peripheral gaze”. It is at the outskirts and at those distant horizons that I believe great insights lie. It is the gaze of interconnected matter. At the level of matter we are all equal: everyone and everything consists of matter. Looking with a “peripheral gaze” means seeing which materials are co-performing the image and seeing the ecological interconnections.

Research Paper of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague 2024. BA Photography. This research paper began to investigate photographers and visual artists who use their practice as a coping mechanism to deal and understand family dynamics and events connected to it. Drawing inspiration from personal narratives and correspondence with my father, the research navigates through themes such as generational silence, family, and Italian patriarchal culture.Through a reflective process, I believe that artistic practice can become a way to delve into the traumas that affect the family environment. In this way, it is possible to approach places and people we do not know well, such as our parents. This process not only facilitates healing but has also given me the tools to further develop my practice by using knowledge gained from the practice of other photographers and exploring the combination of different methods of writing. The research paper was the starting point of my collaboration with my father as it gave me the possibility to open a conversation with him and discover the untold things that lay between us. In the process of writing, I’ve used the paper as a way to remember the stories of my childhood and take inspiration for my photography. The elements that I’ve touched appon the stories came back later in the process of making allowing me to have a clearest idea of my further steps into the project. To understand this, I looked in someone else’s houses, experiencing the tradition of mourning on the Greek island through the photography of Ioanna Sakellaraki and the tenderness of a mother in understanding her children with the project of Sian Davey. I moved to different places, to different generations, entering the house of Larry Sultan, full of kitschy design and colorful wallpaper that sets the scene for a story of discovery. The driveway of Deanne Dikerman has seen many days and many goodbyes and the loving words and confession of Chantal Akerman who could not give more for her mother. I discovered the work of Tami Aftab in the little post-its stuck in the corners of a house and now part of the outside world. And then between laughter and tears, I entered the complicated house of Richard Billingham, between one glass of wine and another. Each of these artists showed their intimate space, in which we discover stories that do not belong to us but that can guide us to understanding where we are, what we feel, and what we suffer. There is a lot of vulnerability in being behind the camera while a parent is in front. To ask questions and start seeing them as people and not just as parents. To reveal the stories of pain that lie in the past and are hidden by the passing of time. We hide in the home to escape from what frightens us and then we are called to talk about what is hidden. Photography is a way in which we can reshape what has happened, a way in which we can understand the succession of events and build a home that hides nothing. In doing this research I opened up a conversation and brought the house outside. I broke a silence that had lasted too many years and found a passionate father who wanted to discard the past. And so, in staying in silence while you are willing to say things but don’t know where to start there is some tenderness and there is some strength. In unfolding the memories and breaking the silence I know I have found empathy instead of trauma, creating a common ground where climbing trees is a moment of rest somewhere in the past.

WALKING AS PRACTICE WAP23 was a process-based residency during September-November 2023, where artists using walking as a method delved into each others’ knowledges and things they encountered together at BKN, the Northern Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden. Fieldworks, share sessions and seminars were created jointly to locate and entangle structures, narratives and themes for walking. The residency formed a transformative, dynamic space for art that engaged with life and nature towards critical and poetic explorations, influenced by the immediate surroundings: the forest, lakes, sea and people living in the rural area. Processing how walking is interlocked in our artistic practices, this exposition represents a gathering of texts, visuals and audio from the walking art residency. The selected artists contributed with interdisciplinary practices, primarily drawing, photography, video, performance and dance. They worked both individually, in spontaneous constellations and in group sessions. The dissemination of the program took place in share sessions upon arrival of new artists - including dinners, open studios, walks, workshops etc. In addition, as the program unfolded, each artist developed their own exposition.

Originating from antiquity, the idea of associating colour with music has been researched extensively in recent decades. The terms for this phenomenon include crossmodal correspondences and synaesthesia (or chromaesthesia), both of which refer to associations our brain makes from stimuli that it perceives through different senses. Correspondence between sound and music, and light and colour, has been a scholarly topic for years—mostly from a scientific point of view. This thesis aims to investigate different views on the subject, focusing on its artistic/aesthetic rather than neurobiological components. Music-colour correspondence was born from the need of philosophers to make sense of both music and the world. Linguistics has proven ambiguous when used to explain or make sense out of music, hence colour has been a very powerful replacement. It is possible to draw parallels between sound and light because of their similar ontological nature (vibration). The goal of this thesis is to prove that such an association can enhance a classical music performance for the audience (as related to engagement) and for the performer (as related to analysis, artistic input). As a case study, Olivier Messiaen’s Theme and Variations is analysed in this rather unconventional colour-coded way. Keywords: synaesthesia, chromaesthesia, crossmodal correspondences, Olivier Messiaen, colour and music.

In this research I explore how writing poetic fieldnotes relates to my (compositional) practice. I examine a method of repeatedly visiting the same locations, wherever I am at the time, and writing about and reflecting on those situations and places when I'm there. Through this process of exploring and returning I hope to wander into ideas, connections, or otherwise inspirations for my practice.

This exposition is a copy of Ivar Grydeland's artistic research fellowship project (2011-2015) at The Norwegian Academy of Music, financed by The Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme. The exposition was redesigned within The Research Catalogue in 2024. The content is identical to the original documentation. ________________________ Ensemble & Ensemble of Me is an artistic research fellowship project carried out at the Norwegian Academy of Music, as part of The Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme between 2011 and 2015. In this project I produced solo improvisations deriving from the music of two improvising ensembles to which I belong: Dans les arbres and Huntsville, and I produced collective improvisations with the ensembles. The project’s key questions: - What are my concepts when improvising with the ensembles and when improvising alone? - How do the ensemble improvisations inform my solo improvisations? - What do I think about when I think about our and my own improvisations? The Haruki Murakami-paraphrase in the sub-heading indicates a process of on-going reflection upon what I regard as key aspects when I improvise. More specifically, what I regard as key aspects in the music of Dans les arbres and Huntsville, as well as for my own solo improvisations. These reflections reveal key aspects and main challenges that emerged during my attempts to create solo works informed by the ensembles. The reflections are chiefly documented in the form of a personal encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia includes audio and visual examples, both from the final artistic results and from artistic activity during the project.