After the high
season in Venice, the third Research Pavilion continues in the form of an
extended research presentation and concluding seminar in Helsinki, as well as a
special issue of RUUKKU – Studies in Artistic Research.
Research
Pavilion #3 in Venice (May 9–August 28, 2019) was a meeting place, a catalyst
of emerging co-operations, and a generator of new artistic thinking. It brought
together manifold topical practices of artistic research in a jointly agreed
form. The participating artist researchers—operating in six different research
cells—engaged in various modes of creative thinking in parallel processes of
exhibiting, performing, exposing, discussing, and articulating material
encounters and related forms of critical reflection. Spurred by a general
ecologization of thinking, Research Pavilion #3 set the agenda for
ethico-political statements on the level of shared practices. In our current
decade marked by devastating ecological, economic, and social developments,
potential ends of the world have become an urgent issue. We desperately need
another distribution of metaphors and sensitivities, as well as novel fictions
and imaginaries to address configurations of the present and to restate
speculations concerning directions in the future.
In this situation,
artistic research is challenged to articulate its idiosyncratic modes of
thought ever more vehemently and to address the present global environmental
crisis while taking historical responsibilities into account and creating
sustainable interconnections between research practices and their
environments—in short: to articulate research ecologies. By linking the two
concepts of research and ecology—or rather, by placing these two concepts as
two focal points in an ellipse—their contours and conditions could become
decisive for the current situation and direction of artistic research
discourse. Research Pavilion #3 not only called attention to these urgent
themes, but also explicitly took the form of a process-oriented Lab for testing
and negotiating ecologies of practice. The Research Pavilion is an ongoing
project created and hosted by Uniarts Helsinki.
Publication
RUUKKU –
Studies in Artistic Research special issue, ‘Ecologies of Practice’
A further
output of Research Pavilion #3 will be a peer-reviewed artistic research
publication that re-situates various dimensions of the discussions initiated
and generated by the project. Editors Mika Elo, Tero Heikkinen, and Henk Slager
expect to release this issue in spring 2020.
Extended Research Presentation
Research
Pavilion #3 Info Lab, October 25 – November 17, Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki
Research
Pavilion #3 has transformed the series of Research Pavilion editions into an
ongoing project that will continue in the form of different modules after the high
season in Venice. The first follow-up module is organized in Helsinki, at
University of the Arts Helsinki’s Exhibition Laboratory. Here, in the form of
an interpretation of the proven info-lab model, the research cells will present
the outcomes of the project and add new, perhaps reflective, performative and
speculative dimensions to their research.
Concluding Seminar
October 26,
from 11.00 – 16.00, Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki
Research
Pavilion #3 uses a different kind of curatorial logic. The project did not
start with a well-defined narrative. Instead, the narrative was articulated and
developed during a series of Assemblies in which members of the cells
participated. In this concluding seminar, the research cells will critically
evaluate their ecologies of practice and the cellular method of the Research
Pavilion #3 project.
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