The TAhTO Doctoral Programme in artistic research (2012–2015) was an expedition with both general and individual aims. Now, at the time of its closing, we have the opportunity to reassess the framework, the tactics and the aims with which we had set out on that expedition almost four years ago. Run jointly by the University of the Arts Helsinki and the Aalto University TAhTO organizes a Closing Event on Friday December 11th 2015 (9:30-17:00) with a program that consists of talks and discussions by TAhTOs Doctoral Students, its Board and Steering Group members as well as invited guests. TAhTO has been partly funded by the Academy of Finland. The three themes that the Programme set for itself were 1) the Methodology and Practices of artistic research 2) Art Aesthesis and Society and 3) New Artistic agency. Each of these aims was directed – simultaneously – at the betterment of the institutional conditions and societal scope of artistic research and at enabling individual Artists to find productive paths as artistic researchers. It is evident that during the four years much has changed, individually and in more general terms. There have been many great individual and collective accomplishments, but just as many ideas have been rerouted or have reached dead ends. But most importantly, the world around us has changed. What does it mean now, at this particular moment in time, to examine how various political imperatives – whether ecological, economic or administrative – are translated into the language of art? Or, having advocated change for arts and art institutions as the precondition for individual emancipation, how exactly have we been able to change? What kind of responsibility have we been able to take for the future development of the field as a whole? It is these changes that are the target of this Closing Event – a critical celebration.
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