Research Catalogue

Professional Doctorate in Arts + Creative is an educational pilot programme 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. Only candidates who have been formally admitted to the PD Arts + Creative programme can connect with and contribute to this portal. For more information on how to apply, visit 'Who is part of the PD Arts + Creative programme' on our website

Unni Løvlid (NMH) and Marianne Baudouin Lie (NTNU), from Norwegian traditional and classical/contemporary music backgrounds, collaborate to explore tonality's diversity, leveraging their distinct practices to enhance inner ear training and pedagogical methods. Their project aims to develop a shared verbal language and deepen collective understanding of varied tonalities, challenging the standardization of tonality in music. By internalizing diverse tonalities through the inner ear, they seek to freely interpret and create music, fostering new artistic insights for both composed and improvised works. In 2021, they partnered with five composers—Sven Lyder Kahrs, Lasse Thoresen, Karin Rehnqvist, Lene Grenager, Ole Henrik Moe, and Jon Øivind Ness—to create new compositions and improvisations centered on tonality, inspired by folk music. The duo investigates how folk singers and classical instrumentalists adapt to new listening and auditive methods, exploring microtonality, quarter tones, and pure intervals. Through artistic research and educational efforts, they aim to develop methods to embody microtonality naturally, benefiting performers, students, and the broader musical community. The project invites collaboration with composers, ear training experts, and music theorists to inspire new music and deepen tonal understanding, contributing to artistic development and a richer musical discourse.

This project aims to develop transcultural approaches of inspiration (which we regard as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic influence based on solidarity) by combining approaches from contemporary music composition and improvisation with ethnomusicological and sociological research. We encourage creative (mis)understandings emerging from the interaction between research and artistic practice, and between European art music, folk and non-western styles, in particular from indigenous minorities in Taiwan. Both comprehension and incomprehension yield serendipity and inspiration for new research questions, innovative artistic creation, and applied follow-ups among non-western communities. The project departs from two premises: first, that contemporary western art music as a practice often tends to resort to certain degrees of elitism; and second, that non-western musical knowledge is often either ignored or merely exploited when it comes to compositional inspiration. We do not regard inspiration as unidirectional, an “input” like recording or downloading material for artistic use. Instead, we foster artistic interaction by promoting dialogical and distributed knowledge production in musical encounters. Developing inter­disciplinary and transcultural methodologies of musical creation will contribute on the one hand towards opening up the—rightly or wrongly supposed—“ivory tower of contemporary composition”, and on the other hand will contribute towards the recognition of the artistic value of non-western musical practices. By highlighting the reciprocal nature of inspiration, creative (mis)understandings will result in socially relevant and innovative methodologies for creating and disseminating music with meaning. The methods applied in the proposed project will start out from ethnographic evidence that people living in non-western or traditional societies often use methods of knowledge production within the sonic domain which are commonly unaddressed or even unknown among western contemporary music composers (aside from exotist or orientalistic appropriations of “the other”). The project is designed in four stages: field research and interaction with indigenous communities in Taiwan with a focus on the Tao people on Lanyu Island, collaborative workshops in Vienna, an artistic research and training phase with invited indigenous Taiwanese coaches in Vienna, and feeding back to the field in Taiwan. During all these stages, exchange and coordination between composers, music makers, scholars and source community experts will be essential in order to reflect not only on the creative process, but also to analyse and support strong interaction between creation and society. Re-interaction with source communities as well as audience participation in the widest sense will help to increase the social relevance of the artistic results. The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) will host the project. The contributors are Johannes Kretz (project leader) and Wei-Ya Lin (project co-leader, senior investigator) with their team of seven composers, ten artistic research partners from Taiwan and six artistic and academic consultants with extensive experience in the relevant fields.

Below in English Ekspositio pyrkii vastaamaan tarpeeseen uudistavan kasvatuksen (regenerative education) tavoitteissa taiteilijapedagogisesta lähtökohdasta. Ekspositio pohjautuu paikkasidonnaiseen interventioon ja kuvailee taiteilijapedagogisen oppimisprosessin. Ekspositio tunnustelee taiteilijapedagogiikan suhdetta ekologisiin kysymyksiin kestävyysajatteluun sitoutuneen taiteilijapraktiikan ja taidepedagogian solmukohdassa. Kirjoittaja arvioi vahvan kestävyyden käsitteen avulla, millaisia ristiriitoja kestävyysajattelun ja oman praktiikan välille ilmaantuu interventioprosessin aikana, ja millaiset olosuhteet johtavat konflikteihin. Ekspositio tarkastelee aihetta ”myötäsyntyisen” metodin avulla yhdistäen taiteellista, agroekologista ja posthumanistista tutkimusta poikkitieteisesti. Päälöydöksenä on, että uudistavan kasvatuksen tavoitteet sotkeutuvat yhteiskunnan odotuksiin, päämääriin ja moraalikäsityksiin. Tämä johtaa neuvotteluun kestävyysajatteluun sitoutuneen taiteilijapraktiikan arvoissa suhteessa taiteilijapedagogiseen toimintaan. Kirjoittaja väittää, että taiteellisessa työssä ei ole erivapautta toimia ekologisesti kestämättömällä tavalla, koska taide on yhtä riippuvaista ekologisista suhteista kuin muukin elo. Hän väittää, että vahvan kestävyyden käsitteeseen sitoutumalla on mahdollista perustaa uusia arvostamisen paikkoja ja kehittää uudistavaa pedagogiikkaa. The exposition aims to meet the need for the aspiration of regenerative education from an artist pedagogical practice. The exposition is based on a place-specific intervention and outlines the artist pedagogical learning process. The exposition explores the relationship of artist pedagogy to ecological issues. Exploration happens at the intersection of artist practice committed to sustainability thinking and art pedagogy. Reflecting the concept of strong sustainability, the author assesses what kind of contradictions between sustainability thinking and one’s own practice emerge, and what kind of circumstances lead to conflicts. The exposition takes place with “innate” method, combining artistic, agroecological and posthumanist research in an interdisciplinary manner. The main finding is that the goals of regenerative education are entangled with the expectations, goals and moral concepts of society. This accompanies a negotiation of the values of artist practice committed to sustainability thinking. Negotiation takes place in relation to artist pedagogical activity. The author argues that there is no waiver to act in an ecologically unsustainable manner in art practice, because art is as dependent on ecological relationships as any other concept of life. She argues that by committing to a concept of strong sustainability, it is possible to establish new places of appreciation and develop innovative pedagogies.

Duodji refers to Sámi handicrafts and design. I reflect on the knowledge base of duodji thinking, how duodji is learned within the community, and how I have developed the teaching and research of duodji according to the principles of duodji and art. I also contemplate the essence and presentation of duodji in public spaces through the pedagogical-artistic practice, LaavuStudio."

This exposition takes as its departure the systemic inertia identified within Western Higher Music Education (HME), where education is driven by skill acquisition in a master–pupil format. Such approaches may hinder the growth of adaptable and reflective musicians. We propose an alternative: student-centred learning inspired by artistic research methods. To explicate this, we draw on findings through our own artistic research practices. Our hypothesis is that the model of the artistic, embodied research laboratory, as developed within the field of artistic research, may serve as a potent tool for renewal. By analysing our work as artist-researchers and educators, this exposition offers insights that support rethinking both institutional structures and pedagogical approaches in HME. Our aim is to strengthen student agency in learning situations and set them off on a path of lifelong learning. This research demonstrates that artistic research laboratories can provide practical frameworks for transforming HME pedagogy, offering educators concrete methods for fostering playful, inclusive, and sustainable learning environments whilst empowering students as active agents in their musical development.