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.

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 exposition is a documentary project on the artistic research project Neither Fish nor Fowl. The research project consists of theater making, film making, workshops, performances and writing, and explores the wondrous worlds of becoming in theatre for early years. Together with my theater company Teater Fot, I have been investigating the significance of affect as philosophical, emotional, and material inspiration in the creative process, and in relation to young children in Theater for Early Years. Neither Fish nor Fowl was conducted as a performance project from April 2017 to March 2020. During this period, the research process was documented in RC, presenting methods, writings, and reflections along the way. The pre-production performance (for babies 0-2) was shown at the festival Olavsfestdagene in Trondheim, Norway, summer 2017 and at Trondheim Kunsthall autumn 2017. The full production, Begynnelser (for 3-5 years), was presented in april 2018 in co-production with the venue Teaterhuset Avant Garden in Trondheim. Baby Becomings (0-2 years), was presented at festivals and for kindergartens in Trondheim autumn 2018, and the final version Himmel & Hav / Sky & Sea was presented at Rosendal Teater in in March 2020, touring kindergartens for one week. Animalium (2019) was a spin-off production with film making, workshops, visiting exhibition spaces and other public spaces. An exposition in VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research #2 on the theme Estrangement was published in 2020 through RC. In the period 2020-26 Animalium has become a new site specific research project, looking at post humanist approaches to different sites such as kindergarten spaces, libraries and art exhibition spaces, documented as an ongoing research project here. In 2026 a new version of Sky & Sea will be produced for kindergarten touring: Himmelfiskene.

This exposition is an archival gesture emerging from the Dramaturgical Ecologies research-creation collective. Rooted in the entwined inquiries of Blacknesses and Dramaturgy, it gathers the dialogues, encounters and an artistic residency that unfolded through the SSHRC-funded Murmurations project. Between the viscous resonance of okra and the shifting flight of murmuring birds, this exposition shares choreokratic ecologies - a garden of study where movement, thought, and relation co-compose. Here, Blackness becomes a method, a lens, a refrain, challenging the neutrality of the performer-dancer body and inviting modes of collective creation that are relational, porous, and opaque. Murmurations attends to what forms in the formless - like a swarm of birds: a living archive of bodies, voices, and ecologies composing a landscape.

With the artistic research project Costume Dramaturgies we explore the dramaturgy that emerges when performance takes an unconventional starting point: a costume – a thing. By approaching dramaturgy as an assembly of things, we shift perspective from the human to the non-human, giving agency to costume, props, and light in performance. We argue that the dramaturgy of things remains an under-researched area in the performing arts. The one-year project is funded by Stockholm University of the Arts and brings together 12 researchers from costume design, dramaturgy, mime acting, LARP, film direction, theatre studies, scenography, and performance art. This multi-perspective, poly-vocal approach aims to generate a nuanced understanding of dramaturgy of things, and includes workshops based on devising methods—most notably the Costume Jam Session, where participants interact with costumes through chains of action, followed by reflection on the dramaturgy that emerges. The project is a continuation of the artistic research project Costume Agency.

The Opener - sharing the performer’s process was a one-year artistic research pilot project (March 2024 - March 2025) funded by strategic funds at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Music and Design, University of Bergen. It was part of the Grieg Academy Research Group for Performance and Interpretation (GAFFI) together with external members from The Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. The project consisted of 8 sub-projects and educational activities, involving different instruments: piano solo, violin, duos with voice and piano, clarinet, accordion and guitar. The term opener can in this project proposal symbolize a three-fold meaning connected to the music performance field. This project seeks to - see the performer as an opener of musical meaning in a performance (interpretation of musical intentions in scores and improvisation) - challenge ourselves as performers as openers that share his/her artistic work (getting insight into the creative process and methods) - finding openers as tools to reveal and show the creative process of performers (ways of showing the artistic process)