The first KuvA Research Days 2015 focused on topics close to the Academy of Fine Arts artist-researchers.

During the last couple of decades, the questions of what artistic research is, what it could be, and how it should be named have been under a lot of discussion. KuvA Research Days will not continue these already somewhat repetitious discussions. Instead, the Research Days will illuminate, reflect on, and problematize the contexts in which artist-researchers work and think.

Today, transdisciplinarity is a widespread topic of discussion within research; it is research that partly takes place in the context of applying research-based knowledge and in collaboration with organisations that are active in the context. More often than not, research of this type is motivated by national and multinational research funding pro- grammes, and the starting point is often the  objective to solve an immediate and challenging social problem. Recent criticism has, however, pointed out that, in these state-run research programmes, research questions are often quite technocratic, and the concept of problem behind the questions is underdeveloped.

While the artist-researcher does not necessarily develop the concept of problem, research-based artistic work can, at its best, be linked to societal processes in a manner that invites more complex research questions. In this sense, the artist-researcher is a transdisciplinary agent par excellence.

PROGRAM 2015 in short 

MONDAY 7.12.2015

13.30-20.00: OBJECTS OF FEMINISM
Speakers: Maija Timonen, Mona Mannevuo, Hannah Black, Josefine Wikström, Hannah Proctor, Cara Tolmie.

TUESDAY 8.12.2015

9.30–14.00: TAKING POSITIONS Avant-Garde and Common Politics 
Speakers: Margarita Tupitsyn, Jyrki Siukonen, Sezgin Botnik, Ilya Orlov. 

15.00-18.00: PANEELIKESKUSTELU ”Elohopeapisara vuoren huipulla” – tohtoriopintojen ohjaus, esitarkastus ja henkilökohtainen suunnittelu 

Kuvataideakatemian tohtoriohjelman vastuuprofessorin Mika Elon kanssa keskustelijoina professori Hanna Johansson (ohjaaja), kuvataiteilija Satu Kiljunen (esitarkastaja) ja taiteilija-tutkija  Tuula Närhinen (tohtoriopiskelija, KuvA) ja Petri Kaverma (taiteilija, tutkijatohtori, KuvA). IN FINNISH

WEDNESDAY 9.12.2015        

10:00-17.00: WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS

The symposium is a part of Henna-Riikka Halonen’s Doctorate Staging F(r)iction, Art as a strategy of world making. 

Speakers: Henna-Riikka Halonen, Amelia Barikin, Jani Ruscica, Harri Laakso, Lena Seraphin. 

17:30-20:30 The day ends with the screening of Pierre Huyghen filmi "THE HOST AND THE CLOUD" (2009), followed by a discussion.