Research Catalogue

Digital overview of artistic works by musician Jordan Sand

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.

This exposition gathers all the essential information needed to get started with the Research Catalogue (RC) platform at the Iceland University of the Arts (IUA). It offers a clear overview of how to create a profile, start an exposition, and navigate the basic functions of the platform. The goal is to provide staff with a central reference point for working with RC in the context of artistic research and institutional use.

The Custodian of Consequence: Reframing the Role of the Critic By Dorian Vale In this philosophical essay, Dorian Vale redefines the role of the critic—not as interpreter, judge, or analyst, but as custodian of consequence. Rooted in the doctrines of Post-Interpretive Criticism, the work challenges the traditional posture of critique as commentary and repositions it as a form of ethical stewardship. Vale explores how every act of writing about art either preserves or distorts the original encounter. Through sharp theoretical analysis and poetic argumentation, the essay exposes the critic’s unseen power to shape memory, public reception, and even the afterlife of a work. The true critic, Vale contends, is not the one who explains most eloquently—but the one who bears the most moral proximity to the wound. This piece is a foundational rearticulation of what it means to “respond” to art—offering not just a new lens, but an entirely new ethic. Vale, Dorian. The Custodian of Consequence: Reframing the Role of the Critic. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17075493 Dorian Vale is a chosen pseudonym, not to obscure identity, but to preserve clarity of voice and integrity of message. It creates distance between the writer and the work, allowing the philosophy to stand unclouded by biography. The name exists not to hide, but to honor the seriousness of the task: to speak without spectacle, and to build without needing to be seen. This name is used for all official publications, essays, and theoretical works indexed through DOI-linked repositories including Zenodo, OSF, PhilPapers, and SSRN. This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, art criticism ethics, role of the critic, aesthetic responsibility, non-interpretive writing, witness-based criticism, philosophy of criticism, contemporary art theory, moral proximity in art, language and power, poetic criticism, ethics of response, conceptual art critique

Language as Custody — Writing Without Harm in Post-Interpretive Criticism By Dorian Vale In this critical essay, Dorian Vale addresses the often overlooked violence of language in art criticism. Drawing from the philosophical core of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC), this work reframes writing not as interpretation, but as custody—an act of ethical stewardship over what cannot be explained without distortion. Vale explores how clinical, ironic, or overly descriptive language can flatten the moral gravity of witness-based artworks—particularly those dealing with trauma, silence, exile, or the sacred. Instead of attempting to decode or resolve these works, the essay proposes a discipline of linguistic restraint, where words become protective vessels rather than invasive instruments. Through real case studies and comparative language analysis, Language as Custody offers both a conceptual foundation and practical framework for how one might write without harm. The goal is not to say more, but to write in a way that holds what the work cannot say aloud. This is not a guide for translation—it is a doctrine for presence. A refusal to violate what resists interpretation. And in that refusal, it calls for a quieter, more reverent kind of authorship. Vale, Dorian. Language as Custody — Writing Without Harm in Post-Interpretive Criticism. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17077653 This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) post-interpretive criticism, Dorian Vale, study guide for art criticism, five principles of art ethics, ethical witnessing in art, presence over interpretation, restraint in criticism, moral proximity, viewer as evidence, rejecting performance, contemporary art criticism, poetic criticism, art education resources, museum pedagogy, witnessing trauma in art, art writing without interpretation, anti-interpretation philosophy, critique without harm, non-extractive art writing

Fractured Curation: On the Cost of Discontinuity Author: Dorian Vale In Fractured Curation, Dorian Vale exposes the silent violence of discontinuity in institutional exhibition-making. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, this essay critiques not the art on display, but the fragmented and careless curatorial strategies that sever meaning, rupture context, and erode ethical witness. Focusing on spatial logic, visual sequencing, and the absence of coherent narrative threading, Vale reveals how curation can either dignify or disfigure the viewing experience. When works that bear trauma, memory, or moral weight are mishandled—isolated from their context or stitched into spectacle—the institution itself becomes a site of erasure. This essay stands as a manifesto for curatorial reverence. It reclaims the role of the exhibition not as entertainment or aesthetic collage, but as a moral architecture—one that must be approached with continuity, restraint, and care. The cost of ignoring this? A public who walks through beauty without bearing its consequence. Vale, Dorian. Fractured Curation: On the Cost of Discontinuity. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16996506 This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, fractured curation, curatorial ethics, art exhibition critique, museum responsibility, trauma in curatorial practice, continuity in curation, moral proximity in exhibition design, witnessing through curation, ethical curation, spatial narrative in museums, careless curation, art and erasure, institutional critique, aesthetic sequencing, exhibition as architecture, custodial art criticism, reverent exhibition design, post-critical museum theory, viewer disorientation, discontinuity in art spaces