Transforming with the Artistic Palette

Karin Emilia Hellqvist

Transforming with the Artistic Palette ‘Transforming with the Artistic Palette’ is my PhD project in artistic research, a practice-led exploration of performer creativity, agency and collaborative composition, carried out at the Norwegian Academy of Music in the years 2018–2024. The central idea of the project is the conceptualization of the artistic palette. The artistic palette comprises the skills and abilities I use in creative work (skillabilities). It develops with the creative work I engage in and is active in imaginative as well as evaluative processes. The artistic palette has been explored in collaborative work with five composers as well as in an own composition. I have explored it as a multidimensional concept, comprising embodied, contextual, relational and intuitive dimensions. By engaging with the artistic palette, new sonic materials and work methods have been created and I have shared compositional processes as a co-composer. It is a poetic and dynamic concept that keep developing with my experiences. By using my artistic palette in shared work, I have explored and expanded my creativity as a performer of contemporary classical music. The five composers involved in the project come from a diverse background of styles, aesthetics and compositional approaches, as minimalistic music, improvisation and music theatre. Some of the creative partnerships build on previous work together. The works created in the project are Gradients (2023) by Karin Hellqvist and Henrik Strindberg, Solastalgia (2022) by Carola Bauckholt and Karin Hellqvist, One and the Other (Speculative Polskas for Karin) (2021–22) by Liza Lim with Karin Hellqvist, Eiksmarka Omland (2024) by Christian Wallumrød and Karin Hellqvist, Pango (2021–24) by Karin Hellqvist and Chain of Triggers (2024) by Manos Tsangaris and Karin Hellqvist. Through the artistic processes undertaken in this project, I have experienced a transformation of my performer’s role into an increasingly creative one. From seeing myself as a faithful performer of works, I have come to view myself as a creating artist involved in the whole lifecycle of the works I perform and co-compose. By exploring the artistic palette in shared work, thoughts about connection, identity, responsibility, empowerment, complementarity, taste, ownership and transformation has come to the fore in my practice. Those topics are discussed across the works created in the project. The methodology of the project is rooted in the specific forms of collaborative composition it comprises; engaging in improvisation, developing technological skills, accessing embodied performance materials, engaging in interdisciplinary work with a printed publication and developing connection through cyclical patterns of work where materials are circulated between participants. A curatorial process of selecting material for research has along with text writing, peer-review and publication processes been important research methods of the project. The structure of this reflection is a compilation of six case studies wrapped with an introduction and a closing discussion. The reflection has been created over the course of the project and includes four already published articles. The project is situated in a broad artistic- and research field with connections to other collaborating performers and composers, artist researchers who develop their performance practices, historical composer-performer collaborations and the rich artistic contexts of the involved artists. I draw on theories of collaborative composition (Taylor, Lim, Östersjö, John-Steiner), Werktreue (Goehr), embodied knowledge (Merleau-Ponty, Lüneburg), eco-anxiety (Albrecht) and identity (Hargreaves, Markus & Nurius).

Karin Hellqvist and Carola Bauckholt during a workshop at Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Solastalgia

Carola Bauckholt & Karin Hellqvist,

with a video by Eric Lanz

Solastalgia, composed by Carola Bauckholt and Karin Hellqvist is a work for violin and electronics with and an optional video by Eric Lanz. The work on Solastalgia took place during the years 2020–2023 and the first performance was held at rainy days festival, Luxembourg 2022 (version without video) and Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Germany, 2023 (version with video).

Solastalgia is supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and published by Edition Peters. It is realized in collaboration with Studio für Elektroakustisches Musik Akademie der Künste, Berlin, together with Malte Giesen and Andrei Cucu, as well as at SWR Experimentalstudio together with Michael Acker and Daniel Miska.

The work on Solastalgia is outlined in one article and one audio paper, both published and peer-reviewed. Both the article and the audio paper were created during the ongoing research process, before Solastalgia was finished. Other aspects of the work on Solastalgia are further being discussed in the Discussion chapter in the end of the portfolio. Click on the text to open it in a new window.

Carola Bauckholt & Karin Hellqvist: Solastalgia (2022).

From Palette (2024), LAWO Classics

Hellqvist, K. (2022b). Solastalgia. The voicing of a fading natural resource. Seismograf Peer – Sounding Women’s Work II. DOI https://doi.org/10.48233/SEISMOGRAF2804

For additional reading on Solastalgia, I have made a published peer reviewed article in Ruukku – Studies in Artistic Research, that is not included in the PhD reflection:

Hellqvist, K. (2022d). Solastalgia: Layers of Caring. Ruukku – Studies in Artistic Research, Issue 18.https://doi.org/10.22501/ruu.1369344

Performances and presentations of Solastalgia during the fellowship include:

Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, Norway, 2024.
Frequenz Festival in Kiel and Plön, Germany, 2024.
Royal College of Music, Stockholm, Sweden, 2024.
Swedish Society of Composers, Stockholm, Sweden, 2024.
Klangspuren Festival, Schwatz, Austria, 2023.
Broadcast in Radio Austria, 2023.
Akademie der Künste Berlin, Germany, 2023.
Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Germany, 2023.
Radio broadcast Westdeutsche Rundfunk, live from Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik 2023.
rainy days Luxembourg 2022.
Online presentation of Solastalgia at 13th SAR Conference Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2022.

The audio paper ‘Solastalgia: The voicing of a fading natural resource’ has further been featured in SWR2, Germany, with an interview and excerpts of the audio paper in ‘Ich höre, also weiß ich: Das kreative Wissenschaftsformat “Audio Paper”’, edited by Friedmann Dupelius, 2022. It is also featured in ‘Audio Papers’, an upcoming book on the format of the audio paper by Stefan Östersjö and Sanne Krogh Groth for the Study of Sound Series, Bloomsbury Publishing, and in Solastalgie – Vom Heimweh nach der Natur, edited by Sabine Fringes, in WDR Musikportrait in May 2024.

Hellqvist, K. (2024a). Solastalgia – Toward new collaborative models in an interdisciplinary context. In Hagen, A. N., Solberg, R. T., Nærland, T. U. & Duch, M. F. (Red.) (2024/in press). Når musikken tek form. Om skapande praksisar i musikk. Fagbokforlaget.

Solastalgia, full score. Courtesy of Edition Peters.

Click to enlarge

Audio paper:

Solastalgia. The voicing of a fading natural resource.

In Seismograf Peer - Sounding Women's Work II

Audio paper abstract

'Solastalgia' is the feeling of emotional or existential distress, experienced as we witness negatively perceived environmental change unfold in places dear to us. Since coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003, the neologism has supported suffering people in need of a term to describe their increasingly outspread eco-anxiety in time of ecological breakdown. Through the lens of collaborative composition and the use of audio technology, this audio paper explores what happens when composer Carola Bauckholt and violinist Karin Hellqvist collectively seek to address their solastalgia. The process of composing the violin-electronics-video work Solastalgia (2022), aims at the outset to address environmental change, but with the space of trust that develops between the collaborators, a process of role expansion is additionally catalyzed, challenging the field’s traditional roles of composer and performer. The repetitive act of mapping sonorities of fading ice resources, therefore not only offer the collaborators a space to stay with, and accept, their painful feelings of solastalgia, but further leads them into new collaborative artistic terrain.

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