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.

'Latency Records: The Delay, an Inhabitable Field' analyses a fictional mediated environment by studying the lapses of time involved in its diffusion. Approaching media as a source for new habits of perception over a landscape, it is concerned with the electronic tools used for the representation of nature; in particular those applied for near-real-time broadcast from sensory meteorological tools, webcams or satellites. Introduced with seven images from audiovisual references, punctuated by fourteen quotes from various sources and interwoven to three poems written exclusively for the essay, 'Latency Records: The Delay, an Inhabitable Field' is inspired by humans’ incomprehension of the artificial structures in which they blindly place their hopes for representing the unrepresentable: a living image of the exterior world. In doing so, it delves into humans’ attempts to portray themselves in order to comprehend who they are. Therefore, 'Latency Records: The Delay, an Inhabitable Field' interrogates the instantaneity of these naturalistic archives, ultimately shaping our cognitive engagement with our environment—which acts both as a mirror and a departure from it.

Water covers more than 70% of the earth’s surface, and thus constitutes a major section of the ecosystem on Earth. It is a vital element on earth, all life (as we know it) depends on water to be able to thrive. The climate has always changed a bit, but in recent years, due to greenhouse gases, the climate has experienced extreme changes which have also strongly impacted the global water cycle. From melting glaciers to ocean acidifications, flash floods, and prolonged droughts, disruptions in ecosystems now happens faster than most species can adapt to. Because of global warming, the atmosphere can hold and transport more moisture. Water doesn’t have the opportunity to fully infiltrate the soil. This accelerates the hydrological cycle. While it is still important to decelerate this process as much as we can, it is also important to look into strategies of adaptation and think ahead to a future with water that will be compromised. In this book, we explore water futures through the speculative design approach. This design practice aims to challenge preconceptions, raise questions, and provoke debates. It opened the doors for designers to imagine and explore possible water futures globally. We start with the water spring in India where the Ganga river starts, then travel further down the river stream. We end up in the Netherlands where different rivers connect to the sea. We continue where the river meets the sea and travel to the salterns in France and Croatia. Here water changes form, turning into gas and flowing through the air as evaporating steam in the geothermal region of Iceland. Eventually this book will end up with the condensation of the fog net in the Namib Desert.

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