University of the Arts Helsinki
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University of the Arts Helsinki was launched in 2013 upon the merging of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Sibelius Academy, and Theatre Academy Helsinki. The university takes part in the development of the Research Catalogue platform for thesis publication, RUUKKU journal and educational uses.
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Recent Issues
Recent Activities
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NEPTUNE PROJECT: Transforming Personal Narrative Into Political Statement in an Autobiographical Play
(2023)
author(s): Vera Boitcova
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This thesis explores the ways in which personal narratives in dramaturgy can be read as political statements on the example of creating and staging my autobiographical queer play Neptune over the course of two years (March 2021-March 2023). My research questions include:
- What circumstances can evoke a creative desire to transform personal into political through art mediums? To what extent performance art can be effective as a tool to convey political messages?
- How to convey political messages through personal narratives in dramaturgy\playwriting? What makes a narrative political and what can be defined as a political narrative? What does ‘being political’ mean specifically for a queer artist\dramaturge?
- What methodology, aesthetical, directorial and acting choices can be made to further enhance and underline political message of a documentary narrative, specifically in queer context?
These questions will be examined in a detailed account of writing my own autobiographical play Neptune in the year of war and strengthening of oppression in Russia, and subsequent staging of this play. My play had three distinct layers: meta-level (where the narrator talked about her recent political experiences in the year 2022), memory level (subjective memories of a lost love), and fictional level (different characters acting in thematically-relevant vignettes). Therefore, I want my thesis to be reflective of the same structure: it will have three main chapters - Meta, Memory, and Fiction – with the overall reflection at the end.
Overall aim of this thesis is to trace the process of creating an autobiographical play from its creative conception (and reasons behind it) to turning it into a theatre production, and by doing so, to examine if it succeeded in its initial goal of conveying a certain political message, and if so, how this result was achieved.
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Villivirrestä Virsileikkiin: Virren luomisesta luovaan virteen_Tutkielma_videolinkit
(2023)
author(s): Sirkku Rintamäki
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
Sirkku Rintamäen taiteellisen tohtorintutkinnon tutkielmaan "Villivirrestä Virsileikkiin: Virren luomisesta luovaan virteen" kuuluvat videolinkit.
Video links of Sirkku Rintamäki's doctoral thesis "From Wild Hymns to Hymnplay: From Hymn Creation to the Creative Hymn"
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Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency - Open House: A Portrait of Collecting
(2023)
author(s): Lauren O'Neal
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
“Open House: A Portrait of Collecting,” a curatorial project held at the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2015, is part of my doctoral research on “Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.” The "Open House" exhibition was initially about collecting and caring for objects, a traditional function of museums. Curating with a choreographic mindset encouraged me to address other questions, including how objects and collections foster emotional connections. My initial question for the project, “How to do things with objects?” soon became “How do objects arrange spaces of relation between people and ideas?” Themes include community, memory, identity, taxonomy, preservation, accumulation, value, story, exchange, and display.
[This exposition corresponds to Section Five: Arranging Spaces of Relation(s): What Can Objects Do? in the printed dissertation.]
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Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency - Being and Feeling (Alone, Together)
(2023)
author(s): Lauren O'Neal
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
What "moves" in an exhibition, if not the bodies of artists, audiences, and objects? How does conversation move us? What can speculative artistic research offer? This exposition, "Being & Feeling (Alone Together),” held at the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy in 2020, is part of my doctoral research project, “Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.” While some aspects of the project (including the title), were developed before the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the project unfolds in relation to myriad cultural, spatiotemporal, and civic situations that the pandemic produced. This situation required experimental and responsive curatorial methods that encouraged the project to move in unexpected ways.
[This exposition corresponds to Section Seven: Letting Things Move in the printed dissertation.]
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Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems
(2022)
author(s): Alejandro Montes de Oca
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This composition-based project of artistic research introduces the term Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems to describe a set of electric, digital, and acoustic devices that are interconnected in a particular way to embody a specific sound work. The artistic research states that when the sound composition process occurs in tandem with the electroacoustic system configuration and design process, a particular creative practice is engendered. The main research questions are how the development of such a system becomes another parameter of sound creation, and how this influences the artistic ideas and process elaborated around a specific sound work. In the course of the doctoral trajectory five new sound works were created and presented, thus forming the artistic portfolio of this doctoral project. Each work included the composition, design, and creation of a case-specific electroacoustic system. An introduction to the concept of Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems, its contextualisation, and an analysis of the artistic practice and the outcomes of each of the five artworks are presented in this written thesis. The complete scope of this doctoral project, including the media material of the artistic portfolio and this artistic doctoral thesis, is contained within the exposition Case-Specific Electroacoustic Systems, published and archived in the Research Catalogue online database.
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Polska Travels: Composing (at) the Crossroads. In search of an itinerant musical home.
(2022)
author(s): Krishna Nagaraja
published in: University of the Arts Helsinki
This Exposition illustrates my artistic doctoral project 'Polska Travels', wherein I use composition and arrangement as practices for the hybridisation of several musical genres, with folk music from Sweden, Finland and Norway and Western art music as points of departure.
From its baroque German-Polish origins to the current Nordic local variants, the polska folk dance tune type has enjoyed a history marked by the crossing of geographical, temporal, and societal boundaries. The interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon addresses both theoretical and practical fields, such as musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and the performance practice of the local polska styles. The gathered knowledge becomes the basis for of the creation of new music that sits right ‘at’ the crossroads of many genres but further aims at composing ‘the’ crossroads itself, in the form of hybrid, temporary “musical homes” able to negotiate a dynamic dialogue between ever-changing personal identities and external bodies of knowledge.
The artistic output is organised in four concerts, each focusing on a different geographic area where the polska thrived, and a CD recording. The written thesis summarises the research findings, taking the string quartet ‘Stringar’ based on the Norwegian springar as a case study to suggest the concept of “personal tradition” inscribed in the open, itinerant field of trans-genre contemporary music.