Research Catalogue

The thesis “Sexy Rooms: Spaces That Seduce - Depictions of Sexual Identity through Spatial Design” explores the visual language of spaces of sexual encounter and the underlying conditioning behind how they depict sexual identity. Beginning with an examination of the webcam modeling industry as a catalyst, the research delves into the realm of digital sex work and the voyeuristic tendencies that define contemporary society. It investigates the role of the backdrop space while touching upon the tension between intimate and exposed, performance and authenticity. The study extends beyond the digital sphere, tracing connections with the origins of reality TV, representations of gendered spaces in film and photography, and the historical example of the boudoir.

The EcoSomatics Conversations Series invites sharing of engagement, practices and thinking around environmental awareness through embodiment activities, dance and art. It posits a definition of EcoSomatics as of the body-mind-ecology and takes the form of open public dialogues between two (or more) people: independent artists, practitioners, and academics. The project was conceived by Dr Polly Hudson, (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University), and the conversations are co-convened with Dr Karen Wood, (Birmingham Dance Network and C-DaRE). The conversations took place virtually with a large international audience, and the podcasts are audio recordings of the live events. It is supported by funding from ADM Faculty Research Investment Scheme, Birmingham City University. Image by Ming de Nasty.

In our exploration of the spatiality of language and, specifically, the activation of the site where writing "makes" rather than takes place, we propose a multilayered experience of the book as an object, as well as a geometrical, topological, and especially performative space, which we understand as an "ecology of the book". Extending this practice beyond the book's margins, yet simultaneously embedding it within the material and technical affordances of the book’s medial articulations, we evoke a "new" ecology—one unfolding alongside the interaction-landscape and its actual and invented inhabitants, as well as the techniques of its production. Texts, drawings, figures, figurations, methods, and both human and non-human authors weave together the heterogeneous texture of the book’s "new" ecology. In our monographs, "Fauna. Language Arts and the New Order of Imaginary Animals" (2018), "Flora. Language Arts in the Age of Information" (2020), and "Fiction Fiction. Language Arts and the Practice of Spatial Storytelling" (2023, De Gruyter/Edition Angewandte), we explore and map the territory of language arts. This approach manifests, on the one hand, through the transgression of traditional scientific methodologies and a shift in models—from thinking-of-the-other toward thinking-with-the-other, and on the other hand, through the agency of our eponymous characters, Fauna and Flora, who not only title our books but also act as conceptual operators—figures that navigate, perform, and activate the very spaces our texts explore. Applying Michel Serres' methodology of thinking by inventing personae, these characters move within and percolate through the margins of text (written, figural) and space (concrete, fictional), reconfiguring the notion of authorship and placing literary texts and digital drawings within the frame(less) collective of more-than-human and more-than-organic actants.

Queer-identiteetti ja -tunteet lavalla, sen takana ja opetustyössä Kuvataiteen tohtorin opinnäytetyössäni tutkin queer-kuuntelemisen merkitystä taiteellisena käytäntönä ja tutkimusmenetelmänä. Tässä ekspositiossa haastattelen drag alter egoani Maimu Brushwoodia, jonka kanssa keskustelen sukupuolesta, tunteista ja pedagogiikasta. Haastattelu perustuu tutkimukseni toiseen taiteelliseen osuuten, mikä oli drag-esitys, jonka esitin kahtena iltana Club Kiihko: Uuden toivon illassa Kulttuurikeskus Caisassa Helsingissä 27. ja 28.6.2024. Ekspositiossa on haastattelun lisäksi drag-esityksen videotallenne ja kirjoitustehtävä, jonka tarkoitus on syventää esitykseni teemoja.

Tässä ekspositiossamme esittelemme veden-kanssa-kirjoittamisen praktiikkaamme kirjoittamisen taiteellisena tutkimuksena, poeettisena etsintänä. Veden-kanssa-kirjoittaessamme olemme tarkastelleet suhdettamme veteen, myös vesiin sisällämme, sekä yksilöllisesti että yhdessä erilaisia tekstejä tuottaen. Ekspositiossamme esittelemme tämän taiteellisen praktiikan tuotoksia sekä reflektoimme niitä poeettisia, poliittisia ja pedagogisia suuntia, joita veden-kanssa-kirjoittaminen voi avata – sekä meille että laajemmin, maailmalle. Teoreettisia lähtöhtiamme ovat feministinen posthumanismi ja uusmaterialismi sekä niiden piirissä harjoitettu hydrofeminismi. Lisäksi suhteutamme veden-kanssa-kirjoittamista keskusteluihin feministisestä pedagogiikasta, taiteilijapedagogiikasta ja ympäristöpedagogiikasta sekä veden merkityksistä kirjallisuudessa. Uskomme, että runouden avulla voi kielentää sellaisia kokemuksia, joita on muutoin vaikea muotoilla sanoiksi. Väitämme, että hankalasti sanallistettavien kokemusten poeettinen kielentäminen tuottaa ymmärryksiä ihmisten suhteista enemmän-kuin-inhimilliseen, kuten siitä, miten tehdä taidetta muuttuvassa maailmassa, eettisessä suhteessa enemmän-kuin-inhimilliseen. In English: "On Becoming Sensitized - Practices and Orientations for Writing-with-water as Artist Pedagogy" In this exposition, we explore what we call 'writing-with-water', a practice of artistic research in writing, a "poetic search". While writing-with-water, we have explored our relationship(s) with water – including the waters within us – both individually and together, producing different texts. Here, we share our artistic explorations and reflect on the poetic, political, and pedagogical directions our artistic practice and research opens up. Our theoretical starting points are feminist posthumanism and new materialism, but we also discuss our method in the context of hydrofeminism (as part of the aforementioned theoretical frameworks), feminist pedagogy, artist pedagogy, and environmental pedagogy, as well as the literary meanings and uses of water. It is our belief that through poetic practices and explorations, it is possible to express experiences that are otherwise difficult to put into words. We claim that these experiences, and the ways they are expressed in poetic language, can lead to better understandings of human relationships with the more-than-human; including how to make art ethically with the more-than-human in our rapidly changing world.

This exposition aims to examine the found and experienced environments as an impulse for artistic and pedagogical potentials in performance design. The writer asks, what kind of performance design could be created through scenographic worlding? The exposition presents a research approach to the urban, built environment, which is seen as an impulse, a constant and ongoing potential for performances and performance designers’ work. The topic is contributed with photographs from the writer’s site-sensitive memos. This approach offers perspectives on contemporary scenography and its theories. It is situated in the field of art-based action research, and the intention is to combine performing arts, performance design, visual arts, and pedagogy. The exposition highlights that an observational, experiential, and environmentally oriented way of working may prove more useful in the future; designers encounter applied and nomadic forms of performance design in their careers. How can we create more sustainable performance design, encourage ecocreativity and work towards more sustainable pedagogy?