Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
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About this portal
Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH) was established in 2014 and have about 500 students and 250 employees. With our unique composition of education and artistic research, we want to create new opportunities for societal development and knowledge of tomorrow.
On 1 June 2016 SKH was authorised to award artistic third-cycle degrees in artistic practices. Exposition is an integrated part of artistic work at SKH. Each research project must present (stage, narrate, sing, choreograph and so on) its results in a way that is both rigorous and consistent. This requires research to be critically reviewed by peers in a combination of different exposition formats. By developing different formats in which peer review can be carried out, research within the area also addresses the challenges that arise when research is formulated and presented in forms that communicate through an artistically performed experience and thereby contribute to pushing the boundaries that existing forms of publication and dissemination of research set for the ambitions of artistic research.
Stockholm University of the Arts enables its researchers, PhD Candidates and staff to present their projects and findings on SKH’s RC portal in order to publish, archive, and internationally connect their artistic research.
SKH organizes private lessons and workshops aimed at our students, researchers, and employees. For bookings, please contact: heidi.paateremoller@uniarts.se.
contact person(s):
Heidi Möller ![](/rc/images/email.gif)
url:
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2225914/2551399
Recent Issues
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0. X-position
Stockholm University of the Arts publication series: X-Position, ISSN 2002-603X;3
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0. Published expositions
Published expositions by Stockholm University of the Arts.
Recent Activities
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Släpp sångarna loss!
(2023)
author(s): Tove Dahlberg
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
My dissertation "Unchain the Singer! Gender, Performance Norms and Artistic Agency in Opera" is taken from an opera singer’s perspective and the aim is three-fold:
• to investigate and problematize how gender and performance norms are reproduced on the opera stage
• to provide tools and propose approaches to transform gender perspective and norm critique into a creative artistic practice, enabling conscious and active artistic choices in relation to gender and performance norms
• to explore ways to expand the singer's artistic agency.
The artistic research project draws on knowledge from both my own practice as a professional opera singer and my collaborators’ experiences from the worlds of opera, classical music and theatre.
The thesis consists of four artistic investigations:
1. In "Mönster och möjligheter" (Patterns and Possibilities), gender markers were explored and identified, both in vocal and dramatic performance. The five Mozart scenes that were studied revealed a structure suggesting that femininity in the operatic art often can be expressed by taking responsibility for the music, for facial features and bodily behaviour, and for the audience. Correspondingly, masculinity seemed to be expressed by actively taking less responsibility in these areas.
2. The second investigation was connected to Norrbottensmusiken's production of the new opera "Under en kvinnas hjärta" (Beneath the Heart of a Woman). This study exposed how performance norms affect singers' artistic possibilities also in contemporary opera. The investigation found that if the director's reading of an opera is norm-creative, it can facilitate a less traditionally gender-coded performance. However, even in more traditional opera productions, there are still options for the singer to work norm-creatively with their role, for example by mixing feminine and masculine gender markers.
3. The third investigation, the concert production "Sångernas sång" (The Song of Songs), explored an expanded artistic agency for the singer. Actively using my experience from my career as an opera singer, I wrote the libretto for the chamber mini-opera "Stark som döden" (Strong as Death) in collaboration with a composer. The study suggested that singers, in addition to their creative work on the role, could also contribute with other important perspectives. Concert and opera productions, as well as newly written works, can be enriched by a dialogue with the singers early on in the artistic process. In the creation of the two roles in the chamber pieces "Hög visa" (Songs of Solomona) and "Stark som döden", useful methods for creating a subject position for the characters were developed, as well as ways to work in a concert situation with the portrayal of sexual desire.
4. The fourth and final investigation, "Interaktion och intimitet" (Interaction and Intimacy), was an exploration of intimate scenes. The study showed that the method and know-how of an intimacy coordinator can provide a sense of security that can make the singers freer in their portrayals of sexuality. A greater focus on the story can also make the scenes more interesting artistically. In addition, this study revealed the potential of an expanded agency for the singers. Allowing singers to adapt the text and the distribution of lines in repertoire opera, as well as creating a more collective rehearsal process, where the singers take an active part in the stage directing work, could open up for more norm-creative representations of gender on stage.
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BLOD, BLOD(y), BLOD
(2023)
author(s): Kersti Grunditz Brennan, annika boholm
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
BLOD, BLOD(y), BLOD – an exposition of recurring processes, trails and building blocks of the film and research project BLOD through the lens of its methods.
The BLOD methods are articulated as a Manifesto, written to accommodate a multitude of contents, forms, and modes of collaboration, while demanding cross-disciplinarity, honesty and risk-taking. The methods are non-linear, looping, and embedded in the manifestations of the research: films, performances, presentations, etc.
The BLOD project aims to create multivocal cinematic experiences through embodied practices. The research explores relation-building through a feminist methodology of creating gaps and friction – between audience, story, time, matter, and co-creators. The project asks: how to tell multifaceted, non-exploitive stories of womb-related states of life and death, rarely depicted in cinema? And how to disturb film industry hierarchies through a collaborative practice that maintains individual artistic integrity and promotes collective authorship?
The BLOD research shares its outcomes via the mediums of its artistic practice: videos, texts, digital expositions. This exposition is designed to reflect the connections and interactions of the research's building blocks: ideas, places, materials, people, time, experiences, technologies.
To enjoy BLOD, BLOD(y), BLOD: move around it with your mouse, follow dotted paths out from the center towards texts, images, and videos. Hover over numbers and words in BOLD to reveal expanding texts. Linger on images and videos for captions, translations, and instructions for further interaction. Along the outer rim of the main page are spiral buttons to take you back to the center with a click. Subpages have links on the main page but are also listed in the Content index in the upper left menu.
The exposition is mainly in English. Videos in Swedish have English translation.
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Beyond Cut and Join - Expanding the creative role of film editing
(2023)
author(s): Kersti Grunditz Brennan
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
The research project Beyond Cut and Join – Expanding the creative role of film editing comes out of two major observations over decades of professional film editing experience: that a lot of film editing’s potential is untapped in filmmaking, especially in relation to character creation; and that editors’ skills, influence and authorial participation often are misunderstood and undervalued. Through editing practice and writing, this research explores an expanded role of editing by asking: 1. what can editing do to create characters; 2. what is a useful and challenging creative research design for exploring editing; and 3. what expanded description of film editing can be articulated for these explorations. The project aims to share, refine, and add to editing vocabulary by articulating creative strategies for shaping characters. It further aims to challenge notions of authorship in cinema by developing collaborative structures and artistic methods that benefit creative processes in the edit room. By demonstrating how significant the handprint of one individual editor is, the project’s final aim is to highlight the extent to which editors’ personal experiences influence their choices in composition of material. Outcomes of this project are filmmaking methods that place editing and collaboration in the forefront when weaving dramaturgy, aesthetics, and content creation processes that shape film characters and cinematic stories.
The output of this research includes films, academic articles, personal essays, a video essay, and pedagogic applications. These outputs cumulatively demonstrate the artistry of the editor and the significance of editing.
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The potential of multilingualism in dramatic works
(2022)
author(s): Vanja Hamidi Isacson
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
"The potential of multilingualism in dramatic works" is an artistic research project that aims to investigate, develop and deepen the practice of writing multilingual drama for an imagined audience in Sweden. Through placing significant focus on the playwright's practice, the goal is to contribute to the artistic development of dramatic writing in Sweden and in other Swedish-speaking contexts.
By using sociolinguistic theories and terms around multilingualism, both the artistic practice and the discourse surrounding it are developed and challenged. Through the application of an integrated ideology of multilingualism, language ideologies based on a monolingual norm are contradicted. In this way, the project makes room for silenced and marginalized voices and perspectives that rarely take or receive a place in Swedish performing arts contexts.
Considering language, and thus multilingualism, as social practice and action is the starting point for the research. This post-structuralist approach is in line with the theories of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and language theorist Michael Bakhtin. In this research drama is considered as both practice and as action. Central concepts are linguistic repertoires, translingualism and speech acts.
Within the project, two dramatic works have been created, ASIA/ÄRENDE and UniZona & PolyZona. These constitute the artistic result of the research and can both be described as dialogical polyvocal plays. Common and central to both works is that multilingualism permeates them and constitutes their formal core. The multilingualism has consequences that affect the dramaturgical and musical structures.
The creation of the works has taken place in dialogue and collaboration with multilingual actors, directors and translators in Sweden and Finland. The form of the artistic work has been conversations, workshops and periods of writing, translation and design. Through these processes and works, the issues have been successively investigated. As tools for analysis, reflection and discussion, four categories have been created: dramaturgical, political, emotional and communicative potential. With the help of these, the concrete functions of multilingualism in both dramatic works are examined with the aim of making visible the potential of multilingualism in dramatic works.
The project demonstrates that multilingual dramatic writing requires different, less traditional approaches and in this way contributes to an expanded practice for the playwright. The methods used in the creation of the works have been collaborative, transcultural and dialogic, shifting between practices and acts of listening and composing.
"The potential of multilingualism in dramatic works" aims to show the enormous artistic, creative, political, emotional and communicative potential that multilingualism can bring to the dramatic work and, by extension, the performing arts.
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Lyssna till ASIA/ÄRENDE och UniZona & PolyZona
(2022)
author(s): Vanja Hamidi Isacson
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Welcome to the exhibition "Listening to ASIA/ÄRENDE: Kaarle Vihtori Turunen and UniZona & PolyZona".
This exposition is linked to the thesis "The potential of multilingualism in dramatic works", which is available both as a printed copy and digitally as a PDF. The thesis consists of eight chapters and a prologue and epilogue. Chapters three to seven contain audio files that are available to listen to in this exposition.
The exposition consists of audio files and text excerpts from the two multilingual works ASIA/ÄRENDE and UniZona & PolyZona by Vanja Hamidi Isacson.
The audio files and excerpts from the works relate to specific chapters of the thesis, where these examples are discussed and analysed.
The thesis in its digital form can be read and downloaded in the exposition "The potential of multilingualism in dramatic works"
For those who visit the exposition without reading the thesis, it is recommended to go through the pages via the chronological order of the table of contents.
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Hair, Materiality and immanence
(2022)
author(s): Gunilla Pettersson Thafvelin
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
A research on materiality and human hair as material. Can a material on itself create narratives and if so, because of its immanent qualities? What constitutes that presumed immanence?