Research Catalogue

Este projeto nasceu de um desconforto antigo, mas só encontrou forma quando o corpo — finalmente — começou a falar. Um corpo que, por anos, foi moldado pela obediência, pela culpa, pela contenção. Um corpo que serviu mais para agradar do que para existir. O Corpo que Nunca Foi não é apenas uma instalação visual. É uma travessia. Cada moldura carrega fragmentos de uma história interrompida, silenciada, violentada — mas que, ao ser contada, transforma-se em matéria de resistência. As peças não são ilustrações da dor. São gestos de enfrentamento. São corpos simbólicos criados a partir de camadas de memória, de experiências vividas, de feridas abertas e cicatrizes malformadas. Há nelas vestígios de abandono, de fuga, de abuso, de ausência de proteção. Mas há também outra coisa: o impulso de continuar. O espaço onde as obras habitam — um ambiente branco, forrado como uma câmara asséptica — não é um lugar de pureza. É o contrário: é o lugar onde tudo o que foi considerado “sujo”, “impróprio”, “mentira” ganha finalmente forma e voz. Neste quarto simbólico, o que antes era invisível torna-se presença. O projeto parte de histórias profundamente pessoais, mas oferece um espelho onde outras mulheres possam reconhecer as suas próprias trajetórias — sem medo, sem vergonha, sem a culpa herdada de séculos de silêncio. Aqui, a arte não quer consolar. Quer escancarar o que foi escondido, nomear o que foi abafado, e abrir espaço para outras existências possíveis. Mais do que um processo de cura, este projeto é um rito de insurgência contra os mecanismos que perpetuam a dor como destino. Aqui, a matéria ferida se ergue como discurso.

Art activism is powerful. Also known as activist art, protest art, visual activism, artivism and creative activism, it changes lives, situations and is and has been a powerful weapon across a whole spectrum of struggles for justice. Teresa Sanz & Beatriz Rodriguez-Labajos(2021) relay that art activism has the unique ability to bring cohesion and diverse peoples together and it can, as Zeynep Tufekci notes, change the participants (2017). As Steve Duncombe & Steve Lambert (2021) posit, traditional protesting such as marches or squats are no longer as important as they once were. As a result of my own lived experience in activist activities, I very much agree with Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell (2012) that the reason people use art activism is that it works, by enriching and improving protest. In the past, when I lived in a metropolis and was not a parent, I used to be an activist. Now I no longer have immediate access to international headquarters at which to protest and I have to be concerned with being arrested, I am hindered from protesting. This project is an attempt to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism. By devising methods which include at least one of the following: that do not require on-site participation, that can take place outside the public gaze, that reduce the risk of arrest, that open up protest sites that are not “big targets”, that include remote locations, that involve irregular timing, my thesis aims to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism to those who are underserved by more mainstream methods of conducting art activism. Textiles have unique properties that enable them to engage in subterfuge and speak loudly through care and thought(Bryan-Wilson, 2017). They have strong connotations of domesticity, the body and comfort that can be subverted within art activism to reference lack of this domestic warmth and protection(O’Neill, 2022). Being a slow form of art-making, they show care and thought, attention in the making, so that the messaging is reinforced through this intentionality in slow making.

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Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.

This artistic research explores a performance practice that integrates the phenomena of gravity and breathing as extensions of musical expression in improvisation. The aim is to develop a musical language that translates the qualities and characteristics of gravity and breath into sonic gestures, examining how they generate tension and release through both musical actions and silences. The project draws inspiration from traditional Korean music and dance, in which an embodied awareness of gravity and breathing constitutes a foundational approach to performance and interpretation. These cultural references serve as a framework for rethinking musical practice and transcultural awareness. As part of the research process, I undertook studies in traditional Korean dance, the vocal tradition of Pansori, and the percussion instrument Soribuk to understand how gravity and breathing are communicated artistically, verbally, and methodologically across these three disciplines. Insights from this embodied practice were then translated into the context of Western contemporary improvisation. The resulting concept is designed to enhance the performer’s awareness and is specifically conceived for a solo drum set context.

Can an acoustic grand piano be sonically and conceptually reimagined so as to re-negotiate its foundational assumptions around tuning and timbre? Why should the piano continue to be so accustomed to only one tuning system? In contrast, how can “pure sounds” (ratios found in the harmonic series) co-exist with ethnically diverse microtonal tunings? Spanning a period from 2020-2022, “Unburying, from Liminals, Emerging” explores a microtonal prepared piano in three artistic contexts. These include: a solo project called “Postcards of Nostalgia; a chamber ensemble consisting of saxophone trio, percussion and piano; and a “percussion ensemble with soprano saxophone called Juniper Fuse. Dialoging with a newly invented tuning system, what emergent properties might we find when magnetic piano preparations are used to evoke specific timbral effects from Balinese Gamelan and Indian Karnatik music? Collectively, how can this expanded notion of “piano” merge with spatialization to facilitate interactive experiences for audiences? How might a process-oriented Jungian-inspired dream work communicate itself so as to distill and coalesce a fertile musical landscape?