The seminar Artistic Research explores what constitutes research in the arts. It brings together practitioners, invited theorists, and researchers from within and beyond the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art to present and discuss diverse approaches to artistic research.
At its core, artistic research positions artistic practice as central to both the research process and its outcomes. At the same time, it extends beyond traditional artistic formats and modes of exhibition. It may involve interdisciplinary methodologies, the application of artistic strategies within non-artistic contexts, or the development of entirely new approaches. As such, artistic research encompasses a wide range of meanings and methods.
If practice is understood as a mode of thinking, the seminar asks: how does thinking occur through making and doing? Artistic research is approached as a dynamic process of creating, articulating, revising, reflecting, and sharing. Each project is individual and process-oriented, combining intellectual inquiry with a hybrid set of methodologies and critical tools.
Activities such as sketching, writing, reading, prototyping, fieldwork, travel, conversation, and experimentation—including failed attempts—are treated as integral to artistic inquiry. These elements help situate the work within a broader context and offer insight into the artist’s intentions and processes.
The seminar Artistic Research is mandatory for all MFA1 students enrolled in Advanced Artistic Work 1. Participation is also strongly encouraged for MFA2 and BFA students.
Teaching Formats:
- Lectures
- Working groups
- Public discussions
- Practical exercises
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the seminar, students are invited to:
- Situate their practice within a broader context, informing artistic decisions and motivations in their artistic practice
- Develop a framework for discussing and engaging with artistic research within their own practice
- Demonstrate awareness of diverse methodologies in artistic research
- Identify artistic research methods within their own thesis work
- Critically discuss and evaluate how artistic research—both their own and that of others—can intervene in various processes and engage with society at large
Schedule:
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27TH
Morning
10.00 start
Warm up exercise: Conceptual speed-dating
Lecture 1: Suzana Milevska – Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Ethical and Aesthetical in Artistic Research
Afternoon
13.00 start
Seminar led by Suzana Milevska
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH
Morning
10.00 start
Lecture 2: Alex Murray-Leslie — Ready to Foot: Decolonising the feet through Demaking High Heeled shoes for audiovisual theatrical performance and a new location of knowledge
Lecture 3: Edvine Larssen — Doing doubts and doubting doing/Close looking as a compass
Question harvesting: Preparing discussion themes for afternoon work groups
Afternoon
13.00 start
Work groups and discussion
Conversational Method: world café circles, graphic recording
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH
Morning
10.00 start
Lecture 4: Raphaël Grisey — Figuring Fallow Time
Lecture 5: Annett Busch — Predicates moving out of place, Electronic Textures, Women On Aeroplanes.
Reflections on Setting-Up, Framing, Not-Knowing, Sideways, Collaborating
Question harvesting: Preparing discussion themes for afternoon work groups
Afternoon
13.00 start
Work groups and discussion
Conversational Method: world café circles, graphic recording
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH
Morning
10.00 start
Practical Exercise: Make a drawing of your project and place where you are in it. What is your research? Where are you in relation to your research project? Who is your targeted public? What is your role towards the subject matter?
Lecture 6: Henrik Karlstrøm – Exploring Artistic Research Data
Afternoon
13.00 start
Lecture 7: Florian Schneider — The Artistic Self and Academic Divisions of Labor
Final summing up and discussion
PRESENTERS
Edvine Larssen
Edvine Larssen is a Norwegian artist and researcher working on the thresholds between various fields through architectonic installations, durational performative works using directing as both material and method, and various publications. All her works are site-bound and are to be experienced, through spending time while moving inside of, and as part of the works, often led by performers. Her passage works are using both time and space as active material components.
Edvine Larssen has trained as an artist in England (Ba. Honours 2001), Norway (Mfa 2005) and Japan (Diploma 2007). She holds a Doctorate degree from the Norwegian Programme for Artistic Research at KIT/NTNU from 2018, where she has been researching the Japanese concept of [Ma] through both qualitative research methods and site related art-practices involving physical presence in various ways. Edvine Larssen has been commissioned to make site bound works for places like: Tromsø Kunstforening, SALT, Trondheim international festival for performative arts, Kunstnernes Hus, TSSK and Nordenfjeldske museum for art and design. She currently holds a two year work grant for artists from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and is working towards new solo works in collaboration with Rake and LevArt.
Suzana Milevska
Suzana Milevska is an art historian and curator from Skopje, Macedonia. Her curatorial interests include postcolonial critique of representational regimes of hegemonic power, gender difference and feminist art; construction of visual memory in photographic imagery and archives; art in postsocialist and transitional societies; collaborative, participatory and activist art practices. Currently she is Principal Investigator, Polytechnic University Milan (TRACES, Horizon 2020). From 2013-2015 Milevska was the first Endowed Professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna and she taught Central and South Eastern European Art Histories. In 2004, she was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College London. Her project The Renaming Machine (2008-2010, in collaboration with P74 –artist run space in Ljubljana) focused on the politics of renaming and overwriting memory in art and visual culture. She curated several exhibitions of contemporary art by Roma artists, including Roma Protocol, the Austrian Parliament (Wiener Festwochen), and Call the Witness, BAK Utrecht (the basis for Roma Pavilion – Call the Witness, collateral event at the 54 Venice Biennale, 2011). Milevska is the recipient of the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory and the ALICE Award for political curating (2012).
Alex Murray-Leslie
Dr. Alexandra Murray-Leslie is an academic pop-artist and co-founder of the art band Chicks on Speed. She’s currently guest researcher at Animal Logic Academy, Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, The University of Technology Sydney and Research Affiliate at CCC (Critical Curatorial Cybernetic Studies), HEAD, The University of Art and Design, Geneva. Her practice-based research focuses on the design and development of somatic wearable musical instruments, with a focus on computer enhanced foot devices for on land, in air and water theatrical audiovisual expression.
Henrik Karlstrøm
Henrik Karlstrøm works as a bibliometrician at the NTNU University Library section for collections and digital services, and is responsible for NTNU’s work with Open Access and publication policies. He has a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from NTNU
