Invitation to propose presentations for the Symposium on Artistic Research 2022

Questions about the environment and climate are occupying an ever larger place in artistic research, often through multi-disciplinary collaborations. Such collaborations often reflect a need to investigate alternative ways of life, now and in the future. They also bear witness of the important place that artistic research occupies in such investigations.

The purpose of this year’s symposium is to open up a dialogue about the role of artistic research in societal transition. How can we develop fruitful collaborations, methods and theories to address the challenges that the future is setting for us? How can we investigate, express and shape the future using artistic means? The symposium will focus on dialogues and workshops, where these questions are asked from different perspectives and using different means.

Our today requires visions of tomorrow, seen from a multitude of perspectives. Artistic research has the opportunity to develop multi-faceted knowledge about the environmental crisis, which takes into account the complexity of the issue. This includes both analysis of existing living environments for a forward-looking purpose, and also understanding of the historical development that has led us to where we are today. We need analyses of the present time, as well as of the past. Sometimes, we must search in history to enable us to look forward.

What new relationships between humans and their surroundings will emerge? What experiences need to be reflected for us to understand how we best can meet an uncertain future? What materials and forms do we want to activate? How do we want to organise ourselves to impact the future we are creating, culturally and materially?

The symposium, which takes place on 17–18 November, is arranged by the Swedish Research Council in collaboration with Luleå University of Technology, and will be held in both English and Scandinavian languages. We welcome proposals for programme items that weave together creative practices and critical theory formation, with the ambition of contributing to knowledge development and societal change. This can relate to materials and techniques, and also understanding of life patterns and aesthetic experiences. Projects can have either an overarching character, or a more specific one.

Guidelines for abstracts

With this year’s symposium, we want to highlight the opportunities for artistic research to contribute to shaping living conditions and ways of life, in interaction with different types of techniques and ways of expression. We want to provide a special place for dialogue and conversation formats, rather than individual presentations. We welcome proposals for:

• organised workshops (2 hours), that can include interactive formats of different types, discussions and expressions. Both individual researchers and research teams can submit workshop proposals.
• panels that focus on one issue or one theme, and are composed of research teams or other collaborations
• panels that invite conversations between representatives from two or three different research projects with common interests. At the same time as the conversations illuminate the projects, they can also provide room for knowledge exchange and possible synergy effects between them.
• individual presentations that link to the theme of the symposium

Format and scope

Proposals for programme items shall include information on all the researchers included.

The proposals shall cover a maximum of 300 words.

Deadline:

Please submit abstracts no later than 15 May 2022 to transformation2022@ltu.se.

We will notify which proposals have been accepted no later than 20 June 2022.