Research Catalogue

I like to approach my body of work as being one big opera. Every object, wearable object or costume serves the opera. Every spatial costume a backdrop, every sculpture a prop, every wearable object a costume, every costume a character. One day I will make an opera consisting of all my works. Welcome to my world, welcome to my opera

LOVE LETTERS is an ongoing multimodal artistic research project exploring strategies and politics of participation, love letters as a form of communication, performativity of text and writing, intimacy and (imagined) boundaries between the "private" and the "public", forms of fandom, discourses on liveness, and the materiality and performativity of the LED ticker as an artistic medium. PROJECT TIMELINE AND CONTRIBUTIONS 2024 // Lecture Performance "How to Facilitate Careful Listening and Non-Coercive Participation in Artistic Research? LED Tickers and Love Letter Writing as Research Tools", Forum Artistic Research // Symposium "Listen for Beginnings", Gustav Mahler Private University Klagenfurt (Proceedings article forthcoming in 2025) 2023-2024 // Participatory installation at the Kunstzelle // WUK Vienna and Vienna Art Week 2023 festival 2020-2022 // Experiments within the frame of the artistic research project "TACTICS for a COLLECTIVE BODY" at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, PI's: Renata Epifanio Lamenza and Stef Assandri 2021 // video contributions LOVE LETTER TO JENNY HOLZER and WHEN? WHEN? WHEN? in the Facebook Lockdown Calendar of WUK performing arts Vienna

In A place Like This sets out to investigate and expand the issues and critical discourses within Sandborg and Higgins' current collaborative research practice. The central focus for the research is concerned with how art, in this instance photographic and painted image making and text, can be used as an agent or catalyst of understanding and critical reflection. The research methodology is constructed through photography, painting, drawing and text. This utilises the form of an artist publication as a point of critically engaged dissemination: a place for the tension between conflicting ideas and investigation to be explored through discussion. The research question is focused on how the production of the image and the act of making images can communicate or describe moments of erasure or remembering in terms of historical and personal narratives with direct reference to moments of violence and place. This is seen not in terms of a nostalgic remembrance of the past; instead as one that is rife with complicated layers and dynamics where recognition is denied the ability to locate a physical representation. Embedded in this is an exploration of particular questions concerning the ethics of representation: the depiction of ourselves and other? In this sense it brings into question an examination of the act of remembering as a thing in itself, through the production of the image and text, contexts of knowledge and cultural discourses explored through the form of an artists publication.

Research Paper of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague 2024. BA Photography. This research paper began to investigate photographers and visual artists who use their practice as a coping mechanism to deal and understand family dynamics and events connected to it. Drawing inspiration from personal narratives and correspondence with my father, the research navigates through themes such as generational silence, family, and Italian patriarchal culture.Through a reflective process, I believe that artistic practice can become a way to delve into the traumas that affect the family environment. In this way, it is possible to approach places and people we do not know well, such as our parents. This process not only facilitates healing but has also given me the tools to further develop my practice by using knowledge gained from the practice of other photographers and exploring the combination of different methods of writing. The research paper was the starting point of my collaboration with my father as it gave me the possibility to open a conversation with him and discover the untold things that lay between us. In the process of writing, I’ve used the paper as a way to remember the stories of my childhood and take inspiration for my photography. The elements that I’ve touched appon the stories came back later in the process of making allowing me to have a clearest idea of my further steps into the project. To understand this, I looked in someone else’s houses, experiencing the tradition of mourning on the Greek island through the photography of Ioanna Sakellaraki and the tenderness of a mother in understanding her children with the project of Sian Davey. I moved to different places, to different generations, entering the house of Larry Sultan, full of kitschy design and colorful wallpaper that sets the scene for a story of discovery. The driveway of Deanne Dikerman has seen many days and many goodbyes and the loving words and confession of Chantal Akerman who could not give more for her mother. I discovered the work of Tami Aftab in the little post-its stuck in the corners of a house and now part of the outside world. And then between laughter and tears, I entered the complicated house of Richard Billingham, between one glass of wine and another. Each of these artists showed their intimate space, in which we discover stories that do not belong to us but that can guide us to understanding where we are, what we feel, and what we suffer. There is a lot of vulnerability in being behind the camera while a parent is in front. To ask questions and start seeing them as people and not just as parents. To reveal the stories of pain that lie in the past and are hidden by the passing of time. We hide in the home to escape from what frightens us and then we are called to talk about what is hidden. Photography is a way in which we can reshape what has happened, a way in which we can understand the succession of events and build a home that hides nothing. In doing this research I opened up a conversation and brought the house outside. I broke a silence that had lasted too many years and found a passionate father who wanted to discard the past. And so, in staying in silence while you are willing to say things but don’t know where to start there is some tenderness and there is some strength. In unfolding the memories and breaking the silence I know I have found empathy instead of trauma, creating a common ground where climbing trees is a moment of rest somewhere in the past.

This thesis is an attempt to unfold multifaceted discussions in multispecies entanglements, focusing on the fundamental act of feeding—a process that extends beyond mere sustenance to become a critical interaction within the web of life. It interlaces a rich array of perspectives, combining academic research, artistic inquiry, and personal reflections to illuminate the diverse implications of feeding.

This paper delves into how representation affects men’s entitlement to First-person shooters (FPS). Starting with a quick look at the history of computing and representation, I‘ll explore how FPS games have been marketed to men over time. I‘ll also research how e-sports and streaming contribute to shaping the image of a „hardcore“ gamer. Using Gamergate in 2014 and 2015 as a case study, we‘ll see how the „hardcore“ white male gaming community reacts when it feels like it is being attacked. The gaming industry has been targeting their games towards men for a long time, creating a space where they feel they can do whatever they want. Video games, for them, are a realm of endless possibilities. So, when it seems like someone is trying to impose on their (perceived) freedom (as seen in Gamergate), they‘re ready to fight back.