Research Catalogue

I presented my paper at the Asian Pacific Artistic Research Network 2025 Conference under the theme Artistic Research for Creative Communities. My presentation, titled “Embodied Memory and Subversive Performances: Reimagining the Repressed Body in Collective Action,” explored how the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran has generated a rich archive of embodied protest. Through gestures like group clapping, headscarf-burning, and silent standing, and plural embodied subversion experiences, that inspired from their collective memory, protestors challenged hegemonic gender norms and collectively reimagined femininity through performative resistance. Drawing on field interviews, sensory ethnography, and archive analyze, I reflected on how these subversive performances are shaping new femininity social imaginaries.

WALKING AS PRACTICE WAP23 was a process-based residency during September-November 2023, where artists using walking as a method delved into each others’ knowledges and things they encountered together at BKN, the Northern Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden. Fieldworks, share sessions and seminars were created jointly to locate and entangle structures, narratives and themes for walking. The residency formed a transformative, dynamic space for art that engaged with life and nature towards critical and poetic explorations, influenced by the immediate surroundings: the forest, lakes, sea and people living in the rural area. Processing how walking is interlocked in our artistic practices, this exposition represents a gathering of texts, visuals and audio from the walking art residency. The selected artists contributed with interdisciplinary practices, primarily drawing, photography, video, performance and dance. They worked both individually, in spontaneous constellations and in group sessions. The dissemination of the program took place in share sessions upon arrival of new artists - including dinners, open studios, walks, workshops etc. In addition, as the program unfolded, each artist developed their own exposition.

This research introduces Psychoformism, an innovative artistic style synthesizing form, emotion, and subconscious energy into a unified aesthetic expression. Positioned within the broader discourse of art history, Psychoformism proposes a fluid, dynamic visual language that transcends traditional bodily representation. The style aims to shift the viewer's role from passive observer to active participant by visually embodying internal emotional states as forms that emerge from subconscious energies. Psychoformism thus provides a conceptual and practical framework for exploring deeper psychological engagement and subjective perception within aesthetic experiences. As proposed by the author, “Form is emotion itself; emotion emerges from within the body and transforms directly into visual form.” (A. Babak, 2025)

This essay is inspired by the contributions to this issue, whose common denominator seems to be the transformation of the nature of authorship and the position of the authorial subject, reflecting the broader theme of the position of the subject in the contemporary world. Some authors, responding to ArteActa’s previous call for submissions, “AI (and) Art: The Poetics of Prompting,” explore the changing conditions of artistic work with AI, while others focus on the interaction between materiality and human perception. All raise urgent questions related to the concept of the subject and the connection between the perceiving mind and the surrounding world. Through a historical reflection of poetics as the art of “prompting,” the text addresses theoretical conceptualization of the subject, in which emancipation at the level of the perceiver plays an increasingly important role. With the advent of AI as a “separate intellect” (Agamben 2025), the emancipation and transformation of (creative) subject raises questions stemming from today's paradox, in which all important and necessary emancipation efforts seem to be distorted or lead to tendencies that brutally contradict them. In this context, does AI bring about the final stage of the emancipation of the subject, or does this autonomous intellect enable hedonistic ochlos-authorship? Without reviving the laments of the past, the essay attempts to point out the fragility and uncertainty of the subject facing unprecedented pressure.

This project researches body and object relationships through practical exploration (practice-led research) in suspension and on the ground. It illuminates connected thoughts linked to posthuman philosophy, permaculture, physical movement and contemporary circus. Our perception of the world is getting more global and connected, but we have not realised yet the full complexity of all the interdependencies and interplays. In fact it is more than questionable whether this might be graspable for any human to its full extend at all… The state of being ‘in suspension’ is taken as an analogy for the times we live in – life itself. In a world in which pop-stars sing ‘I have no roots’ (Merton, 2016), mass-migration makes people leave their homes involuntarily and others choose nomadic livestyles that leave them only loosely connected with a geographical place and a single culture. But at the same time, we are always tightly connected (digitally) with ‘the whole world’. 'How to strike roots into the void?' is the essential question of this interdisciplinary research, which has its roots deep 'down' in aerial acrobatic movement. How could this rooting be possible at all? And in which ways? – referring to the question of quality: 'HOW' can we in these times as human being strike out our own roots? Who and what can keep us grounded? To whom or what are we reaching out to search for connection? What nourishes us? And where to hold on to, if the substrate is emptiness – the Void – the uncertainty of life itself?

In this article, Bob Selderslaghs presents a research project by the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp and Fontys Academy of the Arts Tilburg on how teaching artists can strengthen their practice in an international, hybrid learning community. Through inspiring lectures, practical experiments and in-depth reflection, participants gained recognition for their practice, expanded their artistic-pedagogical repertoire and built valuable contacts. The project emphasises the power of flexible frameworks, embodied learning and sustainable networks for greater visibility and impact in this dynamic field.