Research Catalogue

"Esparto, embodied" is the second of a series of three installations representing the artistic component of my doctoral degree at the Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki. In this exposition, I aim to unpack the research process leading to this event and its outcomes after I opened doors to it on October 18th, 2025, in Organo Hall of the Helsinki Music Center. The research project in which this series of installations is contextualized aims at understanding listening as a catalyst of remembrance in the context of a world in which things are susceptible to being quickly discarded, replaced, and, therefore, forgotten. The project has been developing through the documentation of my field trips – re-encountering certain places, objects, and voices in my homeland in rural Southeastern Spain –, the re-engagement with the documented material back in Finland, and its re-assemblage at the installations, so that this re-engagement can be further extended to an audience. The first installation, "Esparto, approached", discussed in an earlier exposition on Research Catalogue , represented a first attempt at verbalizing some of the ideas derived from working in the field and working with the materials from the field. On the other hand, the second installation, "Esparto, embodied", created many frictions emanating from a deeper questioning of those preliminary ideas. This exposition subsequently represents a space where those discomforts can cohabitate with an imaginal supposition of what the third and last installation, "Esparto, revisited", could help reveal. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3779770/3779771 Previous exposition

Insubordinate Costume: Inspiring Performance presents a comprehensive study of historical and contemporary examples of scenographic costume – the type of costume that creates an almost complete stage environment by itself, simultaneously acting as costume, set and performance. This book provides readers with an overview of the costumes, designers, context and theory that have contributed to the emerging field of ‘costume as performance’. Focusing on artists and their creative approach to space, form, materials and movement, the book looks at iconic figures such as Loie Fuller, Oskar Schlemmer and Leigh Bowery, amongst contemporary examples of practitioners that are blurring disciplinary boundaries between fashion, dance, performance and theatre. The book includes chapters by Dr Sofia Pantouvaki, who focuses on performance costume as a means of research; Christina Lindgren, who presents the findings of the four-year Costume Agency project at Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Norway; Charlotte Østergaard, who discusses the implications of 'Listening with costume' and Felix Choong, writing on 'Contemporary Runways, Contemporary Costumes'. The final part of the volume, 'The Practitioners’ Voice', examines current practice through interviews and contributions from key practitioners.

The Tarot Walk Part of Elinor Rowlands' practice based research in autistic stimming as artistic methodology

When does the singer become an artist? We ran an opera laboratory at the Department of Opera at Stockholm University of the Arts, during the years 2017-2020. With the searchlight focused on the creativity of the singer, we wanted to explore the borderland between the rehearsed and the spontaneous, in the art of performing opera. Our basic questions were: -when does the performance of the opera singer, which requires a high level of technical perfection, open up towards the unpredictable, creative moment? -Where is the border line between interpretation and improvisation, does it even exist? We commissioned a mini-opera to use as working material;Camilles irrfärder & äventyr, composed by Petter Ekman to a libretto by Tuvalisa Rangström. Windows for improvisation were included in the score, where the performers can play with text, rythm, melody or structure in different ways. In the work we alternated between artistic experiments and reflection. The ensemble reflected on how the different games and methods opened or closed the creative flow, and how the improvisations affected the performers' relationship to the material. A parallel focus was how the singers were inspired to change or expand their voices. We have found new methods in the work of developing the creative ability and force of the opera singer. We have applied the methods in different ways in higher education for Opera singers, developing new pedagogic approaches in the process.

This exposition reflects on the phenomenon of the public transport stop as a metaphorical framework for the condition of migration and the figure of the waiting individual. By centering the act of waiting, this research examines how mutual understanding and cultural translation unfold within intercultural encounters. The bus stop serves as both a physical site and a symbolic threshold, a space of transition, suspension, and projection toward an uncertain future. Within this context, the project traces the transformative phases of subjectivity experienced during emigration, emphasizing the temporal dimension of waiting, expectation, and the tension inherent in moments of immobility. The final installation is situated directly within the public sphere, specifically at bus stops, where the object destabilizes the everyday rhythm of transit. By oscillating between staged intervention and authentic environment, the project foregrounds the paradoxical beauty of stillness, alongside the latent unease of anticipation.

This exposition introduces an experimental framework for acquiring the “inner power” improvisation associated with 19th‑century non-literate Karelian kantele players. While their precise thought processes remain unknowable, it is clear they did not focus on finger control. The method emphasizes internalizing traditional plucking patterns without sheet music, allowing subconscious decision‑making to guide improvisation. Stepwise learning of increasingly complex patterns enables musicians to combine and vary them freely, creating a continuous flow of tones in which the player becomes part of the sound field. Contemporary practice thus reconnects with what kantele players once described as “playing their inner power” (“soitan omaa mahtia”), a style later termed “Quiet Exaltation” by folk music researcher Armas Otto Väisänen.