Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• Community art as an egalitarian participatory practice (2025) author(s): BANGHUA SUN published in: Research Catalogue
  The most discussed participatory art projects today for their values, are always based on either breaking new ground (or shaking the theoretical foundations of public art, or existing frameworks and definitions), significantly expanding participation (which is still as an important, even decisive indicator), or elevating the audience/recipients to a position of priority (or using local indicators to evaluate success or failure).The results are often hidden rather than immediately apparent on the surface. The core issue here is to what extent the choices of participants are respected, or how to minimize intervention in their choices? This study aims to re-examine the two aesthetic preferences represented by Kester and Bishop—collaboration and antagonism—as an extension of Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics, further developing them into two distinct approaches: bottom-up, community-based collaborative and dialogic participatory art, and top-down, large-scale participatory art. Today, non-community participatory art is generally understood as an attempt to control the audience’s perception and interpretation, exerting a broader influence and gaining favor among critics as a form of post-elite art. Community art, on the other hand, is often questioned for its aesthetic value, with its social value as an priority, being emphasized in the context of excessive intervention by art institutions and governments, resulting in a smaller influence and little attention from critics. If these limitations are overcome, community art can practically enable the public to reach the true “collaborator” stage of participation. This study serves as a further reflection on the position of community art in today’s art world, as presented in Matarasso’s book A Restless Art (2019), and provides a value assessment diagram for participatory art, attempt to clarify the practical value of community art as the significant participatory art through a visual model.
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  The theme of fragility through sculptural portraits and drawings - an artistic research on matter and its impermanence (2025) author(s): Antonio Ricca published in: Research Catalogue
  This project explores the theme of human fragility, examining its many dimensions through sculpture and painting. Fragility is not approached as weakness, but as a fundamental aspect of existence — a space of vulnerability, yet also of sensitivity, transformation, and creative potential. The works emerge from an intimate dialogue with the body, memory, and time: delicate or weathered materials — such as wax, plaster, paper, and fluid pigments — give shape to ephemeral figures, incomplete or transforming bodies, and marks that evoke the instability of identity and the constant interplay between resistance and collapse. Through this process, art becomes an act of listening and bearing witness — to what breaks, but also to what, in breaking, reveals a new possibility of presence.
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  Southern Outfall Works (2025) author(s): Mhairi Vari published in: Research Catalogue
  'Southern Outfall Works' consists of the collected partworks developed through extensive period as field artist at Crossness, a historic sewage pumping station on the banks of the Thames, leading towards a large-scale, site-specific installation, Southern Outfall, in May 2025. The evolving works form part of submission for practice based Phd, alongside a co-evolved paper 'Southern Outfall: sensible ways in evolving installation'. The works and paper encompass a spectrum of thought from multiple knowledge bases, brought together through an underpinning in process philosophy. The part-works and text support the generation of immersive, multi-modal event-installation which will be sensitively situated across the site, engaging a range of sensory encounters while exploring the nature of the voluntary organisation that keeps the place in existence. Through a layered relationship to science, technologies and redundancy and with a touch of common sense, mingled encounters emerge...
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  AS HOLA (2025) author(s): Aðalheiður Sigursveinsdóttir published in: Research Catalogue, Iceland University of the Arts
  AS this is an informal tale, restating my master’s studies. AS I was in the midst of a Uturn, entering formal art education, my hopes and expectations were unclear but deeply felt. AS ever, I feel compelled to question, review, examine some more. AS every question gives an indication to the inner world of the questioner. AS if I want to know if there is a pattern or a path? AS a collector I have documented, framed and reflected with words and stored. As curators act I showcase my creative learning journey.
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  ▲The LGP Apartment as a Performative Box: Eroticism, Ritual, and Desire in Transit (2025) author(s): Lorena Croceri published in: Research Catalogue
  ▲ The LGP Apartment as a Performative Box: Eroticism, Ritual, and Desire in Transit explores how a domestic space becomes a stage for embodied performance, blending elements of eroticism, ritualistic acts, and transient desires. This work investigates the intersections between personal and performative identities within the confines of an intimate environment, highlighting the transformative power of space in shaping human experience and creative expression. Oriented to the materialization of creative projects to make them productives. This exposition constitutes the first delivery of a broader research-creation process around the LGP method. It proposes a performative, erotic and ritual-based perspective on space, body, and desire. This fixed publication is intended as an archival moment within an ongoing constellation of artistic and psychoanalytic inquiries. Further works will unfold as complementary explorations. Published in parallel on Zenodo with DOI: [10.5281/zenodo.1562769] ▲ El departamento LGP como caja performativa: erotismo, ritual y deseo en tránsito explora cómo un espacio doméstico se convierte en un escenario para la performance corporal, integrando elementos de erotismo, actos rituales y deseos transitorios. Esta obra investiga las intersecciones entre identidades personales y performativas dentro de un ambiente íntimo, destacando el poder transformador del espacio en la conformación de la experiencia humana y la expresión creativa. Orientado a la materialización de proyectos creativos para hacerlos productivos. Esta exposición constituye la primera entrega de un proceso más amplio de investigación-creación en torno al método LGP. Propone una perspectiva performativa, erótica y ritual sobre el espacio, el cuerpo y el deseo. Esta publicación fija funciona como un momento de archivo dentro de una constelación en expansión de indagaciones artísticas y psicoanalíticas. Los próximos trabajos desplegarán nuevas exploraciones complementarias. Publicado en paralelo en Zenodo con DOI: [10.5281/zenodo.1562769]
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• The effect of Mental Practice and Body Awareness on the daily practice of music students (2025) author(s): Juan Rodes Pintor published in: Research Catalogue
  This research investigated the effect of mental practice tools and body awareness exercises, when correctly integrated in a practice routine. This type of practice is heavily used in sports but is yet to be completely discovered by musicians. This research proposed a one-month routine which implements tools like Imagery, Visualization, External focus, and Body awareness exercises amongst others, and investigated the effect it had on Imagery abilities, motor and cognitive learning, performance anxiety and enjoyment. Eight conservatory students from different countries and instruments followed this routine for one month practicing unfamiliar pieces. The data was collected using a mixed methodology composed of personal questionnaires, logbooks and the Bett’s Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery, a tool that helped keep track of the mental abilities of the participants before, during and after the intervention. The use of different imagery and visualization exercises reflected a twofold improvement in scores according to the Bett’s QMI criteria in the vast majority of participants, even though none of the participants mentioned feeling improvements in their mental abilities in the post-intervention questionnaire. Logbooks showed fewer levels of mental and physical anxiety after performing body awareness exercises and the personal questionnaires reflected a slight improvement in practice and performance enjoyment and motivation thanks to the goal setting strategies of the routine. The findings suggest that the use of mental practice and body awareness exercises should be used more in the musician’s daily life.
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