INVITED LECTURE  at Per/forming Futures

What do we mean by artistic research? Some Nordic perspectives on artistic doctorates
Annette Arlander | UniArts Stockholm

In this talk I describe some experiences of artistic doctorates in the Nordic context, especially Finland, and to
some extent Sweden and Norway, trying to reflect on the various takes on and trajectories of the development of
artistic research, from a personal point of view. Although we sometimes speak of a Nordic model of artistic research,
there is actually a whole variety of approaches depending on institution and artistic discipline, spanning from
artistic excellence as an equivalent for research to artistic research as one form of research among others. A
common denominator for most of the doctorates in art is nevertheless an insistence on artistic quality and on
contributions to the art field in question. With this perspective as a starting point I will look at the relationship
between artistic research and performance as research or practice as research, and end by discussing the question
of artistic research and interdisciplinarity.

Annette Arlander, DA, MA, is an artist, researcher and a pedagogue. She was professor of performance art and
theory at Theatre Academy Helsinki (2001-2013), professor of artistic research at University of the Arts Helsinki
(2015-2016) and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Arts at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2017). At present
(2018-2019), she is professor of performance, art and theory at Stockholm University of the Arts and visiting
researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. She is the PI of the Academy of Finland
funded research project How to do things with performance? and the artistic research project Performing with
Plants funded by the Swedish Research Council. Her research interests include artistic research, performance-asresearch
and the environment. Her artwork moves between performance art, media and environmental art. For
publications and works see https://annettearlander.com.