Research Catalogue

(EN) "Imperial coffe breaks" is a transdisciplinary seminar format that deals with challenges of perception and possible transformations of academic time and space, using a ritual as example of shared identities and multiplicities. A Greek coffee is a Turkish coffee, a Palestinian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Bosnian, Armenian, Cypriot and more. Grinded a bit more finely or a bit more roughly, served in a cup with or without a handle, with cardamon or not, with sugar or without. During our meetings we prepare and serve this coffee with the multiple “originalities”, while we discuss written and oral histories and practices around the beverage. Starting from the Ethiopian berry that spread with the Ottoman Empire, the bean that still holds a strong presence in Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and the Balkans, the powder that comes to foam and its local variations, we will talk about other Empires, slavery, cargo boats, plantations, corporates and associations/meanings/roles/origins of coffee trade and consumption in our daily routines. As this kind of coffee is traditionally also served in memorials, we will inevitably discuss loss and grief. We will also talk about relations to the future through tasseography (cup reading divination) that is another strong tradition. We will look at epistemological effects, ways we construct truth and meaning and ways to work with random patterns. Finally, we will exercise cleaning up our mess after the gatherings. Through sharing and rotating the roles, we will practice rituals of togetherness and empathy, thinking with coffee and with each other, about the origins and futures of otherwise unremarkable things in our daily life. (DE) „Imperial coffe breaks“ ist ein transdisziplinäres Seminarformat, das sich mit den Herausforderungen der Wahrnehmung und möglichen Transformationen von akademischen Zeiten und Räumen befasst und dabei ein Ritual als Beispiel für gemeinsame Identitäten und Verschiedenheiten verwendet. Ein griechischer Kaffee ist ein türkischer Kaffee, ein palästinensischer, ägyptischer, libanesischer, bosnischer, armenischer, zyprischer, kurdischer. Etwas feiner oder etwas gröber gemahlen, in einer Tasse mit oder ohne Henkel, mit Kardamom oder ohne, mit Zucker oder ohne. Bei unseren Treffen bereiten wir diesen Kaffee mit den vielfältigen „Eigenheiten“ zu und servieren ihn, während wir über schriftliche und mündliche Überlieferungen und Praktiken rund um das Getränk diskutieren. Ausgehend von der äthiopischen Kaffeebeere, die sich mit dem Osmanischen Reich verbreitete, über die Bohne, die im östlichen Mittelmeerraum, in Nordafrika und auf dem Balkan nach wie vor stark vertreten ist, bis hin zum Pulver, das aufgeschäumt wird, und seinen lokalen Variationen, werden wir über andere Reiche, Sklaverei, Frachtschiffe, Plantagen, Unternehmen und Vereinigungen/Bedeutungen/Rollen/Ursprünge des Kaffeehandels und -konsums in unserem Alltag sprechen. Da diese Art von Kaffee traditionell auch bei Gedenkfeiern serviert wird, werden wir unweigerlich über Verlust und Trauer sprechen. Wir werden auch über die Beziehung zur Zukunft durch Tasseografie (Wahrsagen aus dem Kaffesatzlesen) sprechen, die eine weitere starke Tradition ist. Wir werden uns mit erkenntnistheoretischen Effekten befassen, mit der Art und Weise, wie wir Wahrheit und Bedeutung konstruieren, und mit der Art und Weise, wie wir mit zufälligen Mustern arbeiten. Schliesslich werden wir üben, nach den Versammlungen aufzuräumen. Durch das Teilen und das Rotieren der Rollen werden wir Rituale der Zusammengehörigkeit und Empathie praktizieren und mit Kaffee und miteinander über die Ursprünge und die Zukunft von ansonsten unauffälligen Dingen in unserem täglichen Leben nachdenken.

Heidi Hanninen, Academy of Fine Arts / Uniarts Helsinki, 5th year Doctoral student Artistic research: KAS! Kontula Art School – socially engaged public art Possibilities of the community art in culturally diverse contexts In this photo gallery you can take a look inside to KAS! Kontula Art School's socially engaged public art practice through the last artistic part of the artistic research by community artist-researcher Heidi Hänninen. "Kaupunki on meidän koti" ("City is our home") art work includes paintings from 36 KAS community members implemented for the renovated metro station in Kontula suburb. Both sides of the walls by the metro rails were covered by art: other side with the paintings by 18 adults from KAS collective and the other side by KAS Juniors (age 8-19 years). Juniors paintings include word HOME in 29 different languages locally spoken at homes and by friends and relatives of these kids and youngsters involved. Some of the languages are such that our juniors would like to know better or are already learning. In my artistic research initiated in 2021 I focuse on questions about ethically sensitive community art practice in the context of my ongoing project called KAS! Kontula Art School, socially engaged street art project, that I started in 2019 in suburban district Kontula in Eastern Helsinki. The aim of The Kontula Art School is to implement interesting public art but also to strengthen the community spirit and contribute to reducing potential conflicts in the region. Kontula is one of the most vivid, multilingual and culturally rich suburbs in Finland with the income level lower than the average. Kontula has been well known, especially among the media, for drugs used and sold around the shopping mall. The area is conflict sensitive and challenging but also a ground for experimenting new kinds of social / artistic realities and for the birth of communal practices far from the conventional borders and definitions. KAS! project has been cooperating with the local low threshold day center Symppis, where many of the customers have dual diagnosis (issues with both substance use and mental health). The participants of highly heterogeneous Kontula Art School consists of both adults and children. Participants represent various cultures, including substance use cultures. Some of the participants have educational background in arts but majority of them have been self taught. KAS! project has been involving artistically motivated people, regardless of their background, status or the life situation. Through the art making process I have had access to build ethically sensitive methodological toolkit for community art practices in culturally diverse contexts in a changing urban environment like Kontula, where understanding about good life varies greatly between its residents. Art creates possibilities for encountering and helps to break stigmas concerning certain groups of people. From the point of view of “Rebellious Research” (Ryynanen & Suoranta 2016) the world of art has crucial role in the process of fostering wellbeing of people and the justice in our shared society; art can reconstruct thinking and sometimes even the whole life of an individual. The key element in activist art is the act of participating, and questions like how people take part of the process and how does the act of process participates politically arise. (Suoranta & Ryynanen 2016, p. 235) In my study (street) art practice is the method of working and collecting research material (socially engaged art making practice and ready artworks in the public environment) but it is also an intervention for the (social) change. Through this research I suggest that socially engaged art interventions similar to KAS practice can empower both, the authors of the public art works and the whole surrounding community in a unique way, especially when used through the heterogeneous group context. KAS! practice is bringing up critical perspective concerning issues about public art and artistic experience of the urban environment by creating new directions to debate questions related to the community art, artistry, and the nature and possibilities of art itself in this changing world among those new realities that we share and shape together to be lived in. text: Heidi Hänninen (2025) photos: Tanguy Gérôme (2025)

The thesis “Sexy Rooms: Spaces That Seduce - Depictions of Sexual Identity through Spatial Design” explores the visual language of spaces of sexual encounter and the underlying conditioning behind how they depict sexual identity. Beginning with an examination of the webcam modeling industry as a catalyst, the research delves into the realm of digital sex work and the voyeuristic tendencies that define contemporary society. It investigates the role of the backdrop space while touching upon the tension between intimate and exposed, performance and authenticity. The study extends beyond the digital sphere, tracing connections with the origins of reality TV, representations of gendered spaces in film and photography, and the historical example of the boudoir.

Desert Dwelling is a research project conducted by Associate professor Christine Hansen and Independent Artist Line Anda Dalmar. The desert is used as a site and framework to reflect on landscape, environment and time. In addition, Desert Dwelling endeavor to explore the act of observation and documentation. The project uses common documentation/observation methods such as photography, video and sound. In addition, we employ more obsolete and time-consuming observation means such as drawing, casting and watercolor painting. This is to stress that different observation methods render the world differently, and provide noninterchangeable information about the world. Much of the visual material is from a field study in deserts in California in spring 2018. The study took place mainly in Death Valley and Joshua Tree and had a processual method. We selected a place in the desert and stayed there until we found something interesting to work with. Every day, we made experiences that we built on the next day. The working method focused on the fluid relationship between process, work and documentation.

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.

The project ‘Outward Threads’ is an artistic investigation rooted in music composition, integrating computational frameworks from machine learning and artificial intelligence to create new music. It seeks to develop a fresh approach to established compositional methodologies within computer-assisted composition, as well as incorporating novel tools. Some of these contributions, including the development of creative software tools, are discussed. Theoretically, the project examines various forms of creative cognition and their manifestation in Western art contemporary music composition, drawing insights from cognitive sciences and AI. These discussions provide a framework for presenting each composition within the project and serve as starting points for exploring individual creative processes, methodologies, and techniques. The goal is to deepen the understanding of these cognitive processes and their interactions in the creative process, aiming to bridge the gap between purely neurocognitive approaches and practice-based research. In a broader context, the project examines ethical aspects of music and composition and the composer’s role in society. Finally, it considers the impact of new technologies -particularly generative AI- on creative processes and discusses influential practitioners and current trends in the field.