Silenced Womb
(2024)
author(s): Petra Kroon
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Photography & Society
In Silenced Womb Petra Kroon ( @fotosvanpetrakroon) examines the age-old taboo on menopause. What does it mean to be systematically silenced for centuries? What effect does it have on how you are represented? How you are treated? And how do you behave? She explores these questions from three perspectives: the medical world, society and photography. She investigates what this in/visibility looks like and analyses what it does to her and to her allies. Since she wants to lift this taboo on menopause, she also makes some suggestions for a different representation.
The Plane of Cicadas: On the Possibility of Making Kin through Musicking
(2023)
author(s): Mathew Klotz
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This autoethnographic exposition details a short series of musicking encounters aimed at making kin in a rainforest-covered mountain on unceded Djiru Country on the east coast of Australia. Each encounter consisted of a short hike and a discrete musical encounter with local subjectivities. The inquiry considers the place of the walking in the musicking, and my joint response-ability with my saxophone (or the ways in which we apprehend and respond to other subjectivities) in each encounter. I argue that the hiking and discrete sonic encounters became entangled processes, in which my epistemological capacity and music-making practice were challenged and the possibility of kinship resides.
Await what the stars will bring or moulding the gap
(2023)
author(s): Verena Miedl-Faißt
published in: University of Applied Arts Vienna
Verena Miedl-Faißt (Center Research Focus, PhD candidate PhD in Art) invites us with "Await what the stars will bring" to walk through her artistic research trajectory. Her contribution poetically narrates on longings, and on beautiful and painful experiences in connection with her artistic practice and collaborative work with her nephew L. Based on Donna Haraway’s concept of kinship, Miedl-Faißt searches for possibilities of relating to each other and seeks ways to make inner processes accessible. The contribution provides insights into her work with children and colleagues and how she creates “materialized relations, co-creations objecting time, space, and loneliness.”
Exercises in Existential Eccentricity. Conceptualising autoimmunity as a variation of the conditio humana
(2023)
author(s): Barbara Macek
published in: University of Applied Arts Vienna
Barb Macek (PhD candidate and fellow (DOC) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Fine Arts & Media Arts) takes as her starting point self-reflections and her own experiences with the autoimmune disease SLE. She approaches the phenomenon of autoimmunity in relation to fundamental human ambiguity, following the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner. Macek’s contribution, "Exercises in Existential Eccentricity", explores the bio-philosophical dimension of the disease rather than its bio-medical dimension, showing how autoimmunity raises existential-phenomenological questions regarding bodily ownership, the self, and the notion of the body as “one’s own”. From an assumed embodied diversity, she designs an artistic technique, EEE - Exercises in Existential Eccentricity, drawing on the technique of auto-interviewing, autoethnography and poetics to facilitate a dialogue between different inner voices.
Cleaning in progress: the line between art and life
(2021)
author(s): Ulvi Haagensen
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition combines image, text, and video to provide an overview of my artistic research, which focuses on the embodied experience of art-making in relation to the everyday. Equipped with the notions of a line and a circle, I explore the connections and overlaps between art and life through a multi-disciplinary art practice that combines installation, sculpture, drawing, performance, and video, and merges this with everyday experiences, mainly cleaning, one of the more mundane aspects of everyday life. In this work, I am accompanied by three imaginary friends, who are also artists. We find ourselves constantly crossing the lines between art, art-making, and everyday life as we move between our roles and various places of work, such as home, university, library, and studio. We dip into the everyday for materials, tools, and techniques, and work in the manner of a bricoleuse, using a ‘make do’ approach and ‘what is at hand’. Along the way, we ponder the specialness of art, especially from the perspective of an artist for whom art and art-making are a part of the everyday and therefore quite un-special. As we puzzle over the distinctions of whether something is practical or impractical, useful or useless, art or non-art, mundane or special, we end up blurring the borders to discover an approach that attempts to dispense with the idea of boundaries and binaries altogether.
Walking with Soldiers: How I learned to stop worrying and love cadets
(2020)
author(s): Susanna Hast
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
“Walking with Soldiers” examines an auto-ethnographic moment of marching across the city of Helsinki with first-year cadets of the Finnish National Defence University. In a reparative reading, the walk dismantles boundaries of bodies, critiques, and affects. Through a walking methodology and autoethnography, the present exposition demonstrates how the author began orienteering within military structures through an affective investment. The exposition is a researcher’s journey across subjectivities and difference in a female civilian body. Epistemologically, it brings theory closer to the skin; and empirically, it offers insight into the affective world of belonging. “Walking with Soldiers” is multimodal and polyphonic: it consists of a text for reading, three audio tracks for listening and co-walking, as well as illustrations created by Julia Järvelä based on photographs taken by the author. The provided materials can be selectively attended to. The artistic technique used in the exposition is seduction: the reader/listener is invited into an experience. The exposition is a conversation between critical military studies and artistic research: it gives artistic attention to a military march and places importance on the acoustic and vibrating qualities of academic research. The writing itself subverts the practice of authoritative scholarly writing by presenting descriptive work as theoretical work, and by using citations as companions from the outside.
Interrogating the notion of 'frock consciousness' through the practice of dressing and responding to dressed bodies
(2020)
author(s): Jennifer Anyan
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
Within my practice as an artist that draws upon my professional experience as a fashion stylist, I have undertaken a broad range of practice-based projects in the last thirteen years that deal with the identity and dress. This exposition seeks to use Virginia Woolf’s notion of frock consciousness as a framework to demonstrate how each of the projects has contributed to a body of research that has enabled me to make a contribution to knowledge in terms of how the practice of dressing ourselves impacts upon one’s consciousness and experience of being in the world. Lisa Cohen in her essay "Frock Consciousness”: Virginia Woolf, the Open Secret, and the Language of Fashion (1999) reminds us that, whilst the idea of frock consciousness discussed by Woolf in her diary of 1925 might at first appear to be an oxymoron, one word concerned with coverings and the other a quality of mind, clothes “lie between what we understand to be public space (the social world at large), and what we consider private (the body of an individual)” (150:1999).
Just a mere Spring to take: Embedding in Capitalocenic Atmospheres
(2019)
author(s): Christoph Solstreif-Pirker
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
30 years after the publication of Félix Guattari’s “The Three Ecologies,” we are facing a turning point in the way we are encountering our environment. Established concepts of “nature” have proved to be considerably part of a grand homocentric design whose spatiality Peter Sloterdijk poignantly defined as the “World Interior of Capital.” To investigate these capitalocenic strata, it becomes necessary to re-territorialize institutionalized debates, conceptions and practices, and perceive contemporary landscapes as manifold, unknown and peripheral alterities.
This research exposition aims to encounter the capitalocenic field, its actors and inherent specificities, and to propose a peripheral methodology for its investigation. According to its etymological roots, periphery not only implies a field or site at “the outer surface”, but also refers to the Greek verb periphérō, meaning “to carry around.” This adds a proto-ethical component, as we become part of a carrying and compassionate interplay with virtual forces of capitalocenic dominance, violence, and destruction.
In this intimate moment of becoming peripheral, we are striving from the grand institutional narrative towards the fragility of an uncertain world interior. To Félix Guattari, this is an act of empathy, of an affective affinity and imaginary re-construction that unfolds new practices, grounds, and epistemologies of how to encounter our manmade planet. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of peripheral discourse on the edge of the planetary crisis, and unfolds a vibrant and democratic borderspace within the all-encompassing ecological trauma.
Departing from Victor Turner’s “social drama” and the unpredictability of a global monetary system, the research exposition focuses on the specific context of Iceland as a knot geographically located within the global fabric of the Capitalocene. Being the site of a massive banking crisis between 2008 and 2011, the island-state is seen as an artificial environment of capitalist warfare, based on an ecosystem of virtual forces that actualize themselves on a social, economic, cultural or ecological level.
Applying a situated performative research praxis, the research exposition affirmatively investigates this manifold and monetary-driven spatiality. As the research exposition suggests, performative research allows to confront the unpredictability of the capitalocenic field in all its complexity and to pave the way for “vanquishing [...] or even befriending“ the dominant forms of global financial market capitalism” (Gilles Deleuze, Logic of Sensation). “Just a mere Spring to take” is a discursive assemblage of various investigative highlights on a virtual, global and elusive phenomenon, aiming at peripherically unfolding horizons of performative thinking, and enabling a fragile intra-active confrontation with our vertiginous, traumatized but still living cosmos.
The body within the clothes
(2019)
author(s): Julia Valle-Noronha
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Observing dress practices as a field of research is a recent phenomena in exponential growth in which the voice of the designer is often left aside. Aware of this gap, this study dives into the experience of dressing and wearing in search for understanding the ways in which the body materiality is involved in the designer’s creative processes. It explores this inquiry through two path-dependent projects investigated as case studies, namely Dress(v.) and Wear\Wear. The projects make use of auto-ethnographic notations about my personal routine of dressing and wearing to inform the creation of flat patterns for clothes via creative pattern cutting method. Adopting of practice-led research stream via a phenomenological approach to data, the interpretation leads to a further understanding on how the designer’s subjective body is manifest in the design processes and outcomes. The work contributes to the design community by presenting ways in which research methods can inspire design methods, investigated from a practitioner viewpoint. It concludes with suggestions for future collaborations between academic research and design practice in the context of fashion design.
Note to the reader: This exposition is a reworked version of the paper "The Body within the Clothes: A case study on clothing design practice from a practitioner viewpoint" presented at the Art of Research 2017 Conference".
Laatukuvia ja kirjallisia kokeiluja / Genre pictures and experiments in writing
(2017)
author(s): Elina Saloranta
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
GENRE PICTURES AND EXPERIMENTS IN WRITING is a doctoral thesis in article form of the interaction between image, word and sound. It consists of five essays, which have been published or otherwise made accessible to the public in various forums for artistic research, plus a total of seven videoworks. The last of these videos is a wordless epilogue. The thesis also includes an introduction in the form of a letter.
Hienopesu 40 astetta / Delicate wash 40 degrees
(2017)
author(s): Elina Saloranta
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition contains two video pieces that mirror each other (Two rooms and a kitchen 2010, Reflections in a window pane 2012) and an essay originally published in the Finnish-language audiovisual-culture journal Lähikuva 3/2013. The essay and the videos are part of my article-based doctoral thesis Laatukuvia ja kirjallisia kokeiluja/ Genre pictures and experiments in writing (University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts 2017).
Migration research in collaboration with Tamil Sri Lankan artists in the British diaspora
(2015)
author(s): Anna Laine
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This research exposition investigates how artistic practice is used among British Tamil artists with a Sri Lankan background to explore their multiple belongings and in-between notions of homing and migrating.
It is based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in London, Belfast, and Jaffna. Through the author’s position in the overlap between art practice and anthropology, the exposition poses questions about the possibilities of an interdisciplinary approach to artistic research.
The additional overlap with the Tamil artists’ profession challenged the relationship between self and other in the research process, and knowledge has consequently been produced in a collaborative form.
In and out of memory: exploring the tension when remembering a traumatic event.
(2015)
author(s): Anna Walker
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
The modernist approach to trauma points to an occurrence that demands representation and yet refuses to be represented (Roth 2012: 93); the intensity of the experience makes it difficult to remember and impossible to forget, making any form of recollection inadequate. This exposition explores the repetitive and unresolved notion of trauma using 11 September 2001 as the entry point to navigate a pathway backward into the past and all that was remembered, and uncovers what was forgotten in an effort to lay a traumatic memory to rest. The research began with a journal written on the day of and days following the disaster, which up until a couple of years ago remained closed and unread. Personal remembering is layered upon a well-established collective memory of the event and a vast array of literature, art, and theory written in response to 9/11.
Resonating Voices - Waves of Sound and Spirit in a Palestinian Musician's Quest for Identity and Freedom
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Richard Alsadi
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration into the nature of artistic identity, resilience, and cultural memory informed by my journey as a Palestinian musician and artist navigating the interplay of music-making, identity, and political turmoil. Through collaborations with artists across cultures, improvisational methods, and engaging with diverse musical practices, I draw on the approaches of artistic research to investigate the emotional and cultural dynamics of an identity that both endures and transforms inherited struggles.
The heart of this work lies in a continuous dialogue between the self, the collective, and sound—a triad that reveals layers of creativity and survival intertwined within my identity. This research comprises original compositions, interviews, and collaborations with Palestinian and international artists, resulting in a diverse soundscape where tradition and innovation coexist. Working with the qanun and other instruments, I aim to reflect on my own experiences and the collective history of the Palestinian people. The research culminates in performances that offer glimpses of hope, humanity, and connection, framed within the broader context of Palestinian artistry in a world that frequently dismisses or deliberately denies its existence.
Ultimately, this thesis questions and redefines what it means to be a creator in a world marked by systematic erasure. It proposes that artistic expression can be a means of reclaiming one's voice, a way of confronting the fragmentation imposed upon an identity. In exploring how music becomes a pathway to the inner self, a bridge to ancestral memory, and a gesture of solidarity, I hope to illuminate the essential human drive for expression and the enduring will to survive.
In The Ordinary And Ineffable Instant
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Madelief van de Beek
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Visualisation of Thesis Koud en wit en bleek: Perceiving time in times of grief
Something like home
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): Nemat Battah
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
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.
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Photography & Society In Silenced Womb Petra Kroon ( @fotosvanpetrakroon) examines the age-old taboo on menopause. What does it mean to be systematically silenced for centuries? What effect does it have on how you are represented? How you are treated? And how do you behave? She explores these questions from three perspectives: the medical world, society and photography. She investigates what this in/visibility looks like and analyses what it does to her and to her allies. Since she wants to lift this taboo on menopause, she also makes some suggestions for a different representation.open exposition comments (0)
This autoethnographic exposition details a short series of musicking encounters aimed at making kin in a rainforest-covered mountain on unceded Djiru Country on the east coast of Australia. Each encounter consisted of a short hike and a discrete musical encounter with local subjectivities. The inquiry considers the place of the walking in the musicking, and my joint response-ability with my saxophone (or the ways in which we apprehend and respond to other subjectivities) in each encounter. I argue that the hiking and discrete sonic encounters became entangled processes, in which my epistemological capacity and music-making practice were challenged and the possibility of kinship resides.open exposition comments (0)
Verena Miedl-Faißt (Center Research Focus, PhD candidate PhD in Art) invites us with "Await what the stars will bring" to walk through her artistic research trajectory. Her contribution poetically narrates on longings, and on beautiful and painful experiences in connection with her artistic practice and collaborative work with her nephew L. Based on Donna Haraway’s concept of kinship, Miedl-Faißt searches for possibilities of relating to each other and seeks ways to make inner processes accessible. The contribution provides insights into her work with children and colleagues and how she creates “materialized relations, co-creations objecting time, space, and loneliness.”open exposition comments (0)
GENRE PICTURES AND EXPERIMENTS IN WRITING is a doctoral thesis in article form of the interaction between image, word and sound. It consists of five essays, which have been published or otherwise made accessible to the public in various forums for artistic research, plus a total of seven videoworks. The last of these videos is a wordless epilogue. The thesis also includes an introduction in the form of a letter.open exposition comments (0)
This exposition contains two video pieces that mirror each other (Two rooms and a kitchen 2010, Reflections in a window pane 2012) and an essay originally published in the Finnish-language audiovisual-culture journal Lähikuva 3/2013. The essay and the videos are part of my article-based doctoral thesis Laatukuvia ja kirjallisia kokeiluja/ Genre pictures and experiments in writing (University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts 2017).open exposition comments (0)
This research exposition investigates how artistic practice is used among British Tamil artists with a Sri Lankan background to explore their multiple belongings and in-between notions of homing and migrating. It is based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in London, Belfast, and Jaffna. Through the author’s position in the overlap between art practice and anthropology, the exposition poses questions about the possibilities of an interdisciplinary approach to artistic research. The additional overlap with the Tamil artists’ profession challenged the relationship between self and other in the research process, and knowledge has consequently been produced in a collaborative form.open exposition comments (0)
Visualisation of Thesis Koud en wit en bleek: Perceiving time in times of griefopen exposition comments (0)