Symposium: bodies as institutions as bodies

Curated as a series of performance, film and installation events programmed alongside seminars, conversations, and panel discussions, bodies as institutions as bodies unfolds the term ‘institute’ as both a verb - to set in motion, to generate, to actuate - and a noun - a university, an alliance, a group. Addressing concepts and practices of institutionalisation via doctoral and supervisory, individual and collective, disciplinary and interdisciplinary artistic research perspectives, the symposium explores how we institute and are instituted in the field of artistic research, and how this plays out in our bodies, and in the various institutional bodies, contexts and conditions we work, research, perform in, and create.

The symposium, hosted by the academic context of Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH) and the community context of Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus, will take place from 22-24 October 2025 in Stockholm, Sweden.

Shorts bios of presenters can be found on our conference page.
 

Program of the symposia

DAY ONE: bodies as institutions as bodies

Wednesday October 22

11:00-12:30
What: Welcome and lunch 

Meet the context and other participants and enjoy lunch prepared by chef and researcher Daniel Israelsson Casta of Vår Lokal & Allas Kafé fame.

Hosts: BODIES facilitators Rebecca Hilton, Hanna Husberg, Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh
Where: cafe area @ SKH Acting, 193 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

13:00-16:00
What: an SKH Wednesday Research Seminar, part of the Ways of Doing series:
On summer schooling: why, when, where, who, what and how does it institute? 

Opening with a framing introduction by Mick Wilson this Wednesday Research Seminar critically unfolds the institution of the summer school. Viewed and discussed through the lenses of three recent artistic research summer schools: Summer Academy of Artistic Research (SAAR), Doc­toral Su­per­vi­sors’ Sum­mer School and For a Justice to Come summer school organised by the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm), this seminar explores how, why, when, where, who, and what exactly do summer schools institute? 

Guests: Petra Bauer, Maria Lind, Natasha Marie Llorens, Ilse van Rijn, Sher Doruff 
Introduction by Mick Wilson
Host: Hanna Husberg
Where: D-teatern, 189 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

16:30-18:30 
What: Release for VIS #14: The Heart of the Experiment (and the art of failure)

The official launch of issue #14 of VIS – Nordic Journal for Artistic Research, edited by Michael Francis Duch and co-edited by Tale Næss. This issue pays particular attention to experimental art practices, to artistic research where experimentation is the heart of the practice and in which the specific outcomes of the process are not yet known. What constitutes experimentation in artistic research and how best to institute it? There will be snacks, drinks and expositions.

Host: Anne Gry Haugland and Heidi Möller
Guests: journal contributors (tbc)
Where: Bion, 189 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

18:30-20:00
What: Soup dinner 
Hosts: Rebecca Hilton, Hanna Husberg, Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh, 
Guests: food created by Daniel Israelsson Casta 
With: sound curated by FutureBrownSpace
Where: cafe area @ SKH Acting, 193 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

DAY TWO: institutions as bodies as institutions

Thursday October 23

10:00-10:30
What: coffee and gathering
Where: cafe area@SKH Acting, 193 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

10:30-12:00 
What: Film screening and conversation
Bodies, technologies and institutionalities

A screening of Hito Steyerl, How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (15:52 mins) will be followed by a discussion regarding bodies of many persuasions: visible and invisible, animal and technological, environmental and institutional. Transdisciplinary artist, researcher and SKH Professor Emeritus Sher Doruff (irl) in conversation with artist and researcher Hito Steyerl (online).

Host: Rebecca Hilton
Guests: Hito Steyerl (online), Sher Doruff
Where:  D-teatern, 189 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

12:00-13:30
What: Lunch 
Concurrent with: Super subjective institutional tours

Eat lunch prepared by chef and researcher Daniel Israelsson Casta and take the opportunity to meet our institution via a super subjective institutional tour - a 5-10 minute, one on one encounter with an SKH student or staff member. Take one tour or several!

Host: Rebecca Hilton
Guests: various SKH staff and BA, MA and PhD students
Where: cafe area @ SKH Acting, 193 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

13:30-15:30 
What: Panel discussion
On the inside and from the outside: alumni, institutions and artistic research 

With a framing introduction from Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh, this panel discussion views institutions from insider and outsider perspectives. How are institutions serving their alumni, teachers and senior researchers once they have left the context? What is the view from the outside, and how does it differ from being on the inside? How can we create a culture of reciprocity? Can institutions identify sustainable ways to support students and colleagues who have moved on and in doing so, benefit from closer connections to current discourse and practice, and to society more broadly? How can institutions become more porous, more relevant, more connected? 

Host: Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh
Introduction by Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh
Guests: Ester Martin Bergsmark, Taru Elfving, Eva Weinmayr,  Saul Garcia Lopez (La Saula), Rudi Loewe 
Where:  D-teatern, 189 Valhallavägen, 115 53 Stockholm

15:30-17:00
What: walk and talk to Östermalmstorg T-bana station, take the red line towards Fruängen, get off at Hägerstensåsen and walk 5 minutes to 
Where: Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus, Riksdalervägen 2, 129 32 Hägersten

17:00-19:00
What: Seminar, practice sharing and panel discussion:
Thoughts on scale: instituting collectives and collectively instituting
Host: Sebastian Dahlqvist

With a framing introduction by Sebastian Dahlqvist, this seminar addresses collective practice and practicing collectively via sharing thoughts on scale, value, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, unfolding how bodies work together to create other bodies. Does resisting one kind of institutionality simply generate another kind? And what do we think and how do we feel and what should we do about that?

Guests: Kultivator, Kopparbergs Folkets Hus, IFÖ Center, FutureBrownSpace
Where: cafe space at Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus, Riksdalervägen 2, 129 32 Hägersten

18:30-20:00
What: The carrier bag seminar, a practice based artistic research performance event

The carrier bag seminar is inhabited by twelve artistic researchers from SKH and elsewhere, a performed series of very temporary institutions happening altogether and all at once in the nooks and crannies, corners and corridors of Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus. You can choose to attend an oral presentation, watch a video, experience a dance, read or be read to, soak in a sound bath, engage in a conversation, help prepare dinner etc. - be prepared to stay in each situation for just as long as you like.

Host: Rebecca Hilton
Guests: John-Paul Zaccarini, Kent Olofsson, Stacey Sacks, Sher Doruff, Ilse van Rijn, Harm Coordes, lambert, Chrysa Parkinson, Marcia Nemer, Savas Boyraz, La Saula, BamBam Frost (tbc)
Where: foyer, library, cafe, hallway and stairwell spaces at Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus, Riksdalervägen 2, 129 32 Hägersten

18:30-21:00
What: dinner

As a final togethering practice, led by chef and researcher Daniel Israelsson Casta of Vår Lokal & Allas Kafé fame, join us to prepare, cook, and eat dinner together in the kitchen and cafe area of Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus. 

Hosts: Sebastian Dahlqvist, Rebecca Hilton, Hanna Husberg, Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh
Where: cafe area Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus, Riksdalervägen 2, 129 32 Hägersten, Sweden

* Friday October 24

9:00-12:00
What: Annual irl EARN meeting
Hosts: Henk Slager, Mick Wilson
Where: loftet @ T35