Research Catalogue

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.

My practice-based arts research proposes to create a toolkit to decentralize art activism using hand-crafted textiles from an intersectional, feminist, decolonial and anti-capitalist framework. When I say that I want to decentralize art activism, I aim to increase access in terms of location, timing and risk, so that people who do not live in major metropolises, centres of power, who work when most protests happen, or who for various reasons are not able to risk possible arrest that normal protests may present, can still engage in artistic protest. My praxis will embark on a series of art activist actions that utilize various methods of decentralization, creating a handbook that displays and analyses these methods. The ways in which textiles are particularly suited to decentralize art activism, through subterfuge, slow time, and haptic relationship will be explored within the praxis. Answering the seemingly peripheral question of whether or not art activism is compatible within a gallery space imperative for the main theme of my research, which is decentralization of art activism. If art activism harmoniously exists within a gallery exhibition, then the easiest way to decentralize it is to send the art activism to exhibit elsewhere. My initial findings within the research suggest that act activism mostly cannot exist within sanctioned art exhibitions and therefore exhibitions are not an effective way to decentralize art activism. My toolkit is inspired by practical how-to-guides of art activism (Boyd and Mitchell, 2012; Duncombe and Lambert, 2021; Aylwyn Walsh et al., 2022) and through textile practises such as Tanya Aguiñiga (B. 1978-), the Craftivism Collective (2009-), Aram Han Sifuentes (B. 1986-), and Sandra Suubi (B. 1990-). The critique on capitalism’s infiltration into the artworld and art activisms roll because of this that is reflected in Alana Jelinek’s ‘Lifelike art’(2013), Gregory Sholette’s ‘bare art’(Ch(Charnley, 2017)); and Brian Holmes’ ‘Liar’s poker’ (Holmes, 2010) and it helps shape my art activism practise.

A new filigrane sound object (or series of objects) in the making, w.i.p.

Even at one of the world's oldest and largest music universities, the mdw - University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, the siloing of fields is the norm. Thanks to budgetary and organizational structures, it is rare that artistic practice and traditional musicology teaching are actively combined; what conservatory students learn in music history seminars and what they learn from their performance teachers exist largely separately from each other. This exposition documents an ongoing, pragmatic attempt to interweave traditional music research with artistic practice and interventions, thereby introducing students to Artistic Research at bachelor's and master's levels. The CCC (Content-Concept-Context) module was initiated by Judith Kopecky at the Antonio Salieri Department of Vocal Studies and Vocal Research in Music Education and has enjoyed cooperation with the Institute for Musicology and Performance Studies (IMI) for the past three years. Here she, Stephen Delaney and Chanda VanderHart reflect on the promises, surprises, limits, and potential for intertwining scholarship and artistic practice in an institutional setting.

PhD Artistic Research project environment embodiment - towards poetic narratives (2020-2024) by Fernanda Branco at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. This artistic research explores experiential agency in encounters between body and environment. It draws from uncanny, embodied and poetic perspectives, unfolding as a constellation of sympoietic practices. Webdesign by Ellen Palmeira Illustrations by Aza

Abstract This artistic research project focuses on narrative accounts of Norwegians who self-identify with a ‘multicultural and/or immigration background(s)’, to explore how their (hi)stories can be woven into the tapestry of the contemporary Norwegian public memory and story. I set out to interview and collect their narrative accounts, which must also be understood as oral (topical) histories, focusing on (hi)stories of their lived experiences, with a special interest in an event that happened in a public space and has been experienced as a meaningful or life-changing moment. Through a collaborative process, the oral (hi)stories were transformed and used to produce interactive monuments installed on the sites where the narrated events took place. One of the key artistic challenges in the project was to grapple with the question of how not only the collaborators but also the public can be empowered to actively shape and engage with artistic works, becoming co-collaborators themselves. This artistic inquiry led to the development of monu(mo)ments, an artistic concept and initiative that is dedicated to turning stories of Norway’s diversity into interactive, performative works of public art. The monu(mo)ments are not just symbols of collective memory but embody that very concept in how they themselves function. Through an interactive/participatory design, the public is invited to contribute their own narratives, perspectives, and experiences, shaping the monu(mo)ment's meaning and relevance. They invite the public to become co-creators of the narratives embedded within their communal spaces, fostering a sense of ownership and agency, and blurring the boundaries between artist(s) and public, the past and the present. The project strives to illuminate the untold oral (hi)stories of these narrators by allowing them to take over public spaces and infuse them with gripping personal narratives to shift how we read those places and (re)negotiate their past/meaning. This is to create an ‘alternative history’, dedicated to writing and inscribing these voices into public spaces and our broader collective imagination. Other artistic results include a live-action role-playing game (LARP). Furthermore, the larp was modified to serve as a resource for educators, enabling them to address interconnected themes within their classrooms through immersive gameplay. It has been performed in schools, festivals, and conferences in Norway, Austria, and Denmark. Overall, by creating artistic works that (re)imagining public memory as a dynamic and interactive process, this artistic research project foregrounds and contributes to the ongoing efforts to capture and reflect Norway’s multicultural reality and identity.