Research Catalogue

Although it is virtually impossible to formalize what ‘best practice’ on the Research Catalogue might be, it harbours by now numerous examples of expositions that ‘work.’ In this session, I want to introduce a small set of diverse expositions from JAR as a way to highlight successful choices people have taken. With a short explanation of expositionality and virtual witnessing, I aim to support an understanding of the effect that those examples have as a way of describing how media-rich articulations can productively engage with both academic and artistic expectations.

short bio and cv

My position is that knowledge about an artist and their work can be uncovered through close looking at their work and that some of this knowledge can be held and transferred tacitly to viewers (that are also artists). This knowledge can be articulated through practice, in this case in the making and subsequent close looking and reflection of the Selfish Portrait paintings. Because the knowledge is tacit, as opposed to propositional, the knowledge may be sensed, felt or difficult to articulate in words. Practice is the most appropriate vehicle to test whether this knowledge can shift from what Alexis Shotwell’s has articulated as ‘nonpropositional knowledge’ to ‘potentially propositional knowledge’. In Selfish Portraits I search for self-portraits by a range of dead artists in terms of geography, gender, race, ‘status’, time of working, style, etc. This necessitates (re)searching beyond my current knowledge base using gallery visits, internet searches and books. The selected self portrait(s) are subjected to a period of ‘looking attentively’ in order to visual interrelate and learn about the painting, and by extension the artist. The main focus is allowing the self portraits to ‘talk to me’ following the theoretical stance of the ‘active’ painting or picture, that knowledge is held in the painting itself and cannot always be found in (written) documentation.

The project Mediation as Discipline is an attempt to build bridges between disciplines and make the experience-based knowledge that the contemporary art field can offer relevant to a broader academic community. At the same time, it is an investigation of needs within the field itself, which should be served by a university that prides itself on having an artistic faculty. This report, carrying the same name as the project, is based on a comprehensive survey among contemporary art mediators conducted in 2024 by the project group, and it examines the foundation for specialised education for mediators of contemporary art in Norway.

The collaborative process that has fostered the texts in this anthology started with two questions: What does it mean to be a curator who writes, and, more specifically, how can curators write about textiles? Curatorial practices vary just as much as do curators’ interest in and capacity for writing. At the same time, there are prevailing opinions about, and institutional demands on, what kinds of texts curators should provide for audiences, for instance as contributions to art discourses in the form of catalogue essays and the like. The Community of Writers was set up to create time and space to retreat from these outside opinions and demands and to let curiosity and the joy of writing be the driving forces of the writing process. I have had the pleasure of leading this process and am indebted to the individuals who formed the Community of Writers for newfound insights into textile art and the role of textiles in society. The writing process challenged the contributors’ own writing practices, sparked their enthusiasm, playfulness and criticality pushed the project further. Our conversations have deepened and become more entangled over time, and the reader can find traces of this in the texts in this volume.

This exposition traces the development of a reflective arts and health practice during 2025. It brings together short written episodes, visual documentation, audio notes, and process materials to examine how artists make sense of the emotional, relational, and practical demands of working in care-based and community settings. The work sits alongside a written PDF and expands on it by presenting the reflections in a non-linear, multimodal format suited to artistic research.