Studio Practice Fall 2025: On The How of Making

This course will spiral in and out of collective practices of reading and writing research methodologies. On one hand, we will practice reading contemporary literature on artistic research to chart, discuss, and question the composition of the field and its assumptions. On the other, we will practice writing methodologies by focusing on the student’s practice, formulating research questions and methods that can be experimented with.  

This course proposes a social, collaborative and transversal approach to learning, which relies on the students’ active participation and initiative. Rather than teaching an array of existing research methods, this course asks us to gather in study and question what constitutes a method. If a method is a specific way of going about knowing – the “how” of making and asking questions – which artistic practices can be thought of as methods in themselves? Can specific questions and methods be derived from, or be already harboured in specific practices? Can new practices emerge from specific lines of questions and contexts? 

The course employs performative scores and embodied practices as a method to ask those questions, as they allow us to move through and attend to the physical, intellectual, emotional and ethical layers of our study.  The course wants to provide a space to critically reflect on – and get a felt-sense of – the academic discourse on artistic practices, to speculate on the methodologies employed by other artists and researcher, and to articulate the student’s own approach. 

The course-plan provided below is a basic structure that organize our collaborative study, which will nevertheless remain open to the improvisational qualities of study and can change according to the direction of our conversation and interest throughout the course. 

Session 1  

October 20, 10.00-15.00 

The first session consists of an introduction to this course, to the idea of study that informs it, and to each other’s artistic practice. The students will also share their research interests through the short texts they will have developed until then in their MA Essay course.  

Students will be assigned one text to read beforehand, two weeks before the course start, from the bibliography on artistic research below. Together we will experiment with a score to take notes that will help us to share and organize the texts. 

Session 2  

October 21, 10.00-15.00 

Using the notes from the previous session, we will share and discuss the content of the texts we each read as we make a map of artistic research in the space.  

Session 3  

October 22, 10.00-15.00 

In this session, we will engage in a collective practice of reading relevant artworks and projects. A guest artist will be invited to present their research project and their methodology. Students will also be invited to bring in example of artists and researchers that inspire them. Together we will try to articulate the methods and questions that animate the works at hand. 

Session 4  

November 3, 10.00-15.00 

In the last two sessions we will focus on the student’s work and practice. We will use movement scores to tune our attention and prepare for a practice of self-interview on one’s own methodology. We will share and perform the interviews and then speculate together on each other’s methodologies.

Session 5  

November 4, 10.00-15.00 

In this session we will focus on questions. How to formulate research questions? What are the questions already implicit in one’s practice? Is there any issue, problem, friction, unease in the practice from which a question could emerge? 

We will practice Political Therapy in pairs to formulate and discuss research questions specific to each student’s work.  

Desideri, Valentina. Political Therapy (2010)  www.faketherapy.wordpress.com/political-therapy/ 

Achari, Premjish. “What Does Art/Artist Think? Making a Case for Artistic Practice as Research.” Journal for Artistic Research, 2022, https://doi.org/10.22501/jarnet.0056. 

Borgdorff, Henk. “The Production of Knowledge in Artistic Research.”  The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia. Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2012. Pp. 140-173 

Cobussen, Marcel. “Improvising Artistic Research.” Artistic Research in Jazz, 1st ed., vol. 1. Routledge, 2022: pp. 3–14. 

Cull Ó Maoilearca. “Artistic Research and Performance.” Artistic Research : Charting a Field in Expansion. Edited by Paulo de Assis and Lucia D’Errico. Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd, 2019: 146-175. 

De Assis, Paulo and Lucia D’Errico. “Introduction.” Artistic Research : Charting a Field in Expansion. Edited by Paulo de Assis and Lucia D’Errico. Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd, 2019: 1-11. 

Emerling, Jae. “Transmissibility: A Mode of Artistic Re-Search.” Dark Precursor, Leuven University Press, 2017, pp. 437-445. 

Ferreira da Silva, Denise. Reading Art as Confrontation. e-flux journal #65, May 2015, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/65/336390/reading-art-as-confrontation/ 

Hannula, M., Suoranta, J., & Vadén, T. “Part I.” Artistic Research Methodology : Narrative, Power and the Public. Peter Lang, 2014: 3-33. 

Hedstrand, Sonia. “SVT bidrar till eskalerande konsthat” Dagens Nyheter, 10-12-1024. 

Hellström Reimer, Maria. “En historik över forskningens gränsland.” Parabol, Number 2-2025, https://www.parabol.press/en-historik-over-forskningens-gransland/ 

Hübner, Falk. “Terminology: Method, strategy, methodology.” Method, Methodology and Research Design in Artistic Research : Between Solid Routes and Emergent Pathways. First edition. Routledge, 2024: 31-39. 

Lilja, Efva. “What is Artistic Research?”. Art, Research, Empowerment: On the Artist as Researcher. Stockholm:Elanders Sweden AB, 2015: 13-32. 

Klein, Julian. “What is Artistic Research?”. 2017. jar-online.net. doi: 10.22501/jarnet.0004 

Kramer, Paula, and Stephanie Misa. “Artistic Research as a Tool of Critique.” Nivel–Artistic Research in the Performing Arts 10 (2019). https://nivel.teak.fi/adie/artistic-research-as-a-tool-of-critique/ 

Manning, Erin. “Against Method.” Non-Representational Methodologies, 1st ed. Edited by Phillip Vannini. Routledge, 2015: 52–71. 

Nevrin Klas, ”Till den konstnärliga forskningens försvar.” Parabol, Number 11-2024 https://www.parabol.press/till-den-konstnarliga-forskningens-forsvar/  

Røed, Ellen. “Konst är forskningsresultat.” Parabol, Number 1-2025, https://www.parabol.press/konst-ar-forskningsresultat/ 

Ridlen, Timothy. “Introduction.” Intelligent Action, Rutgers University Press, 2024, pp.1-23. 

Spatz, Ben. “Intro.” Race and the Forms of Knowledge, Northwestern University Press, 2024. 

Steyerl, Hito. “Aesthetics of Resistance? Artistic Research as Discipline and Conflict.” Transversal, mahkuzine 8, winter 2010, https://transversal.at/transversal/0311/steyerl/en  

Swedish Research Council. Research Review 2023: Artistic Research. 2023: 5-22.  

Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “R-Words: Refusing Research.” Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry with Youth and Communities. Edited by Django Paris and Maisha T. Winn. London: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2014: 223-248. 

Van der Meulen, Nicolaj, et al.  Manifesto of Artistic Research, Diaphanes, 2020, pp. 31-54.