Research Catalogue

This page is under construction It contains material created for and in the context of the research project Gifts from the Sentient Forest at the University of Lapland. See https://www.sentientforestproject.com

PhD in Artistic Research. Expected viva voce / defence in February 2026

Professional Doctorate in Arts + Creative is an educational pilot program in The Netherlands for an advanced degree in universities of applied sciences. The PD program at an university of applied sciences is developed to train an investigative professional. This portal is a platform for publishing artistic research generated by the PD candidates. Within the Professional Doctorate program, this portal will also be used as an internal tool for documentation.

The project Mediation as Discipline is an attempt to build bridges between disciplines and make the experience-based knowledge that the contemporary art field can offer relevant to a broader academic community. At the same time, it is an investigation of needs within the field itself, which should be served by a university that prides itself on having an artistic faculty. This report, carrying the same name as the project, is based on a comprehensive survey among contemporary art mediators conducted in 2024 by the project group, and it examines the foundation for specialised education for mediators of contemporary art in Norway.

The collaborative process that has fostered the texts in this anthology started with two questions: What does it mean to be a curator who writes, and, more specifically, how can curators write about textiles? Curatorial practices vary just as much as do curators’ interest in and capacity for writing. At the same time, there are prevailing opinions about, and institutional demands on, what kinds of texts curators should provide for audiences, for instance as contributions to art discourses in the form of catalogue essays and the like. The Community of Writers was set up to create time and space to retreat from these outside opinions and demands and to let curiosity and the joy of writing be the driving forces of the writing process. I have had the pleasure of leading this process and am indebted to the individuals who formed the Community of Writers for newfound insights into textile art and the role of textiles in society. The writing process challenged the contributors’ own writing practices, sparked their enthusiasm, playfulness and criticality pushed the project further. Our conversations have deepened and become more entangled over time, and the reader can find traces of this in the texts in this volume.

This exposition traces the development of a reflective arts and health practice during 2025. It brings together short written episodes, visual documentation, audio notes, and process materials to examine how artists make sense of the emotional, relational, and practical demands of working in care-based and community settings. The work sits alongside a written PDF and expands on it by presenting the reflections in a non-linear, multimodal format suited to artistic research.