Staal is an artist whose work deals with the relation between art, democracy, and propaganda. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing). Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing), and with human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook (2020-ongoing). With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (2021-ongoing) and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union.
Introducing the Senior Guest Researchers of Fall 2025
Jonas Staal
Liv Bugge
Bugge is an artist whose practice explores how societal mechanisms are internalized, shaping normative ethics and dichotomies such as life and non-life, human and nature. Grounded in queer and feminist perspectives, her work employs sculpture, moving image, and installation. Bugge studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Belgium, completing her PhD The Other Wild: Touching Art as Confrontation at Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2019, where she is now Professor of Fine Art. From 2012 to 2020, she co-ran the platform FRANK with artist Sille Storihle.
The Looking-Glass Dialogues: Lisa Tan and Lisa Torell on Art in the Academy
Stockholm, 1 October 2025
The world of the art academy and the art world appear to be divided by a set of mirrors rather than a simple threshold. The confusing perspectives that result beg several important questions for the field, especially given the increasingly central role of artistic research in both worlds. How does the art world perceive the academy, and what do those within it see when they look out?
In the Looking-Glass Dialogues, the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm) brings together artists with an extensive background in practice-based artistic research at art academies. The series will stage a dialogue about the past, present and future of artistic process within institutional academic frameworks.
Secure your seat by emailing: contact@capim.se.
Studio Practice: On Affordances
Gothenburg, October 6-10
Emerging from the ongoing collaboration between Stefano Harney, Professor of Transversal Aesthetics at KHM Cologne, and Dr. Valentina Desideri, a Researcher at CAPIm, this course considers the relation between affordances and study, as well as their relationship to study and the organization of the senses.
For Desideri and Harney, the basic premise is that study is a way to attune to affordances, and affordances are a way to think about our being outside of ‘inter-personal relations’. Rather than naming a relation between two bodies, affordances constitute the very shifting surfaces of what might be called “body” and thus allow us to think without relations. Immersed in a field of offerings (existing, possible, and virtual ones), we may think about study as a practice of tuning in with affordances, of sensing the yet unattended offerings that may host ways of existing that would not be thinkable or possible otherwise.
Facilitated by: Stefano Harney and Valentina Desideri
Event: The First Annual CAPIm Symposium
The first Annual Symposium of CAPIm took place on 28-29 August 2025 with a diverse range of contributions. This included Maria Galindo’s celebratory and performative keynote and her final sharp provocation from the floor, with regard to colonial dispossession: “You cannot give back the land so you can at least give up your ’concepts’!” Throughout the two days there was a lively exchange of projects, perspectives and questions that interrogated constructions of the political, the imaginary, and the meaning of different organizational strategies and ‘prefiguration’. Jonas Staal and Liv Bugge, the two senior guest researchers joining CAPIm, introduced their current research agendas to be developed over the next few months at CAPIm.
Keynotes: María Galindo and Stefan Jonsson.
The symposium marked the release of CAPIm’s inaugural Annual Report (2024).
Welcome to CAPIm
The Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary is committed to interdisciplinary practice and research in the meeting between contemporary art and the future of politics. Based at two institutions of higher education in art: HDK-Valand and Kungl. Konsthögskolan, the Centre’s aim is to facilitate connections between research and education through an engagement with experimental approaches. It is the first Swedish Centre of Excellence in the field of Artistic Research.
The activities of the Centre are organised around four conceptual strands guiding the construction of innovative educational and research frameworks. Climate Imaginaries engage with radical ecological change and environmental futures. Historical Imaginaries addresses decolonial approaches to collective memory and nationalist representations, as well as non-aligned movements and intensifying globalisation. Democratic Imaginaries takes its point of departure from the polarisation of the public sphere and emerging forms of illiberalism. Technological Imaginaries is focused on the interactions between art and technological developments and their resulting projections of possible futures.
The Pedagogical Programme
CAPIm’s activities are designed to nourish the curriculum of the PhD program at HDK-Valand and in the MA program at KKH. CAPIm also provides national and international access to educational opportunities informed by the latest developments in artistic research and the study of political imaginaries. Some courses are designed specifically by CAPIm faculty and guest researchers, while others are affiliated based on thematic overlap.
Artistic Research
CAPIm functions as an infrastructure to support new research initiatives and aggregate existing research in the field. Associated research consists of both projects led and executed by CAPIm staff and collaborations with those external to its core faculty.
CAPIm Advisory Board
The advisory board meets four times annually to provide external perspective on the Centre’s thematic investments, strengthen its collaborations both nationally and internationally, and contribute with their own research through participation in CAPIm’s annual conference.
Register for Upcoming Events
Visit our events page to learn more, stay updated, and register for our upcoming events.
Welcome to CAPIm
The Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary is committed to interdisciplinary practice and research in the meeting between contemporary art and the future of politics. Based at two institutions of higher education in art: HDK-Valand and Kungl. Konsthögskolan, the Centre’s aim is to facilitate connections between research and education through an engagement with experimental approaches. It is the first Swedish Centre of Excellence in the field of Artistic Research.
The activities of the Centre are organised around four conceptual strands guiding the construction of innovative educational and research frameworks. Climate Imaginaries engage with radical ecological change and environmental futures. Historical Imaginaries addresses decolonial approaches to collective memory and nationalist representations, as well as non-aligned movements and intensifying globalisation. Democratic Imaginaries takes its point of departure from the polarisation of the public sphere and emerging forms of illiberalism. Technological Imaginaries is focused on the interactions between art and technological developments and their resulting projections of possible futures.
The Pedagogical Programme
CAPIm’s activities are designed to nourish the curriculum of the PhD program at HDK-Valand and in the MA program at KKH. CAPIm also provides national and international access to educational opportunities informed by the latest developments in artistic research and the study of political imaginaries. Some courses are designed specifically by CAPIm faculty and guest researchers, while others are affiliated based on thematic overlap.
Artistic Research
CAPIm functions as an infrastructure to support new research initiatives and aggregate existing research in the field. Associated research consists of both projects led and executed by CAPIm staff and collaborations with those external to its core faculty.
CAPIm Advisory Board
The advisory board meets four times annually to provide external perspective on the Centre’s thematic investments, strengthen its collaborations both nationally and internationally, and contribute with their own research through participation in CAPIm’s annual conference.
Register for Upcoming Events
Visit our events page to learn more, stay updated, and register for our upcoming events.
Introducing the Senior Guest Researchers of Fall 2025
Jonas Staal
Staal is an artist whose work deals with the relation between art, democracy, and propaganda. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing). Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing), and with human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook (2020-ongoing). With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (2021-ongoing) and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union.
Liv Bugge
Bugge is an artist whose practice explores how societal mechanisms are internalized, shaping normative ethics and dichotomies such as life and non-life, human and nature. Grounded in queer and feminist perspectives, her work employs sculpture, moving image, and installation. Bugge studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Belgium, completing her PhD The Other Wild: Touching Art as Confrontation at Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2019, where she is now Professor of Fine Art. From 2012 to 2020, she co-ran the platform FRANK with artist Sille Storihle.
The Looking-Glass Dialogues: Lisa Tan and Lisa Torell on Art in the Academy
Stockholm, 1 October 2025
The world of the art academy and the art world appear to be divided by a set of mirrors rather than a simple threshold. The confusing perspectives that result beg several important questions for the field, especially given the increasingly central role of artistic research in both worlds. How does the art world perceive the academy, and what do those within it see when they look out?
In the Looking-Glass Dialogues, the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm) brings together artists with an extensive background in practice-based artistic research at art academies. The series will stage a dialogue about the past, present and future of artistic process within institutional academic frameworks.
Secure your seat by emailing: contact@capim.se.
Studio Practice: On Affordances
Gothenburg, October 6-10
Emerging from the ongoing collaboration between Stefano Harney, Professor of Transversal Aesthetics at KHM Cologne, and Dr. Valentina Desideri, a Researcher at CAPIm, this course considers the relation between affordances and study, as well as their relationship to study and the organization of the senses.
For Desideri and Harney, the basic premise is that study is a way to attune to affordances, and affordances are a way to think about our being outside of ‘inter-personal relations’. Rather than naming a relation between two bodies, affordances constitute the very shifting surfaces of what might be called “body” and thus allow us to think without relations. Immersed in a field of offerings (existing, possible, and virtual ones), we may think about study as a practice of tuning in with affordances, of sensing the yet unattended offerings that may host ways of existing that would not be thinkable or possible otherwise.
Facilitated by: Stefano Harney and Valentina Desideri
Event: The First Annual CAPIm Symposium
The first Annual Symposium of CAPIm took place on 28-29 August 2025 with a diverse range of contributions. This included Maria Galindo’s celebratory and performative keynote and her final sharp provocation from the floor, with regard to colonial dispossession: “You cannot give back the land so you can at least give up your ’concepts’!” Throughout the two days there was a lively exchange of projects, perspectives and questions that interrogated constructions of the political, the imaginary, and the meaning of different organizational strategies and ‘prefiguration’. Jonas Staal and Liv Bugge, the two senior guest researchers joining CAPIm, introduced their current research agendas to be developed over the next few months at CAPIm.
Keynotes: María Galindo and Stefan Jonsson.
The symposium marked the release of CAPIm’s inaugural Annual Report (2024).