Research Catalogue

Research Portal of Janacek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno

The exhibition Estranhamento (Strangeness) aims to share the visual art work developed by researcher Catarina Casais, associated with her doctoral project Políticas de Estranhamento: Práticas de resistência e revigoração docente (Policies of Strangeness: Practices of resistance and teaching reinvigoration). These drawings, linocuts and embroideries seek connections between her artistic practice and research work, promoting possibilities for reflection on the teaching profession in the visual arts and the teaching demonstrations that took place between 2020 and 2024. The challenge in developing these works is to think, based on the materiality of the teaching demonstrations, about possible languages through the techniques and materials used. These languages reflect a desire to think about the daily reality of visual arts teachers and the moments of protest related to their professional practice. Linocut, embroidery and drawing become ways of addressing the issue of visual arts teaching and its politicisation within the school environment, inviting everyone to visit the thinking laboratory that has been developed over the last academic year at Atelier Sem Forma.

This research explores creation as a form of violence that operates through interruption, erasure, and bodily pressure rather than through visible conflict or aggression. Through a conference-performance, writing is treated as an unstable action: it begins, stops, fails, and is physically destroyed without revealing its content. The work focuses on moments where creation resists completion, and where decisions to stop, delete, or abandon become central gestures. By placing the performer behind the audience and withholding textual legibility, the research shifts attention from meaning to process, from narrative to tension. Creation is approached not as expression or inspiration, but as a concrete and irreversible experience that acts upon the body and its limits.

Journalistic storytelling should move away from the hero narrative. Instead, drawing on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory, it should adopt a “carrier-bag” perspective: to gather, carry, and connect—collecting attentively, bringing home what matters, and linking insights through pencil-based drawing. Drawing becomes a journalistic method for deepened research. Through the nouvelle histoire (Annales School, longue durée) and the sculptural contrast between Rodin (monumental condensation) and Medardo Rosso (fragile appearance), the text shows how attention to everyday life, materiality, and in-between spaces generated new forms of relevance and helped initiate social shifts. Drawing is proposed as a research practice that makes complexity visible, marks uncertainty, and enables more peaceful, context-rich modes of storytelling in newsrooms and teaching.

Questa esposizione fa parte di un progetto di ricerca artistica più ampio, articolato in diverse declinazioni. Il focus presentato si concentra su un’indagine specifica della violenza attraverso il dispositivo dell’auto-conferenza, intesa come pratica performativa e riflessiva. La ricerca prende avvio dalle conferenze autofinzionali di Sergio Blanco, in particolare dalla sua elaborazione della violenza come costruzione narrativa, e si sviluppa attraverso la rielaborazione di un’esperienza personale di violenza subita. In questo contesto, l’autofinzione diventa uno strumento metodologico capace di mettere in relazione l’esperienza vissuta, il discorso teorico e la rappresentazione. L’auto-conferenza viene quindi intesa come una vera e propria metodologia di ricerca artistica: uno spazio in cui l’esperienza personale si intreccia con riferimenti teorici e visivi, generando una riflessione critica sulla rappresentazione della violenza e sulle possibilità del racconto di sé come pratica di conoscenza. L’elemento autobiografico, sempre in bilico tra attendibilità e finzione, diventa così il punto di partenza per una riflessione che supera l’io dell’autore e si apre a una dimensione collettiva, coinvolgendo lettori e spettatori.

Interviews about where artistic research is heading The work Paths of artistic research is a collection of interviews with artistic researchers - Andrea Buršová, assistant professor at the Nika Brettschneiderová Dramatic Acting Department, Faculty of Drama, JAMU, Jiří Honzírek, director, manager of the Feste Theatre and PhD student at the Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Barbora Klímová, head of the Studio of Environmental Design at the FFA BUT, Lenka Klodová, head of the Studio of Body Design at the FFA BUT, Lucia Repašská, researcher at the Cabinet for Theatre and Drama Research, Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Hana Slavíková, head of the Studio of Radio and Television Dramaturgy and Scriptwriting, Theatre Faculty, JAMU, Pavel Sterec, artist and former head of the Intermedia Studio at the FFA, BUT, and Lenka Veselová, researcher at the Department of Theory and History of Art at the FFA, BUT and PhD student at the FFA, BUT. These are artists who have been associated with art colleges in Brno, specifically with the Faculty of Fine Arts of the BUT and the Theatre Faculty of the JAMU. Through interviews with the artists, the reader will learn under what circumstances they began to engage in artistic research, how they perceive it, what meanings they attribute to it and the purpose it serves for them. The selected group of artists is very diverse and their creative and research strategies are different, as are the purposes for which they use artistic research. The work does not aim to provide an exhaustive overview of the methods used in artistic research, but it does aim to show that there are many approaches to artistic research and to present the paths that have brought particular artists to artistic research.