Great interest in the SKH’s artistic research conference

– Since we all have been so affected by Covid we wanted to reach out to see what was out there. What is going on within the field of artistic research in the aftermath of covid? The response was massive. We encountered both positive and negative experiences in the proposals, new formats for sharing research practices online, different ways of approaching sustainability, and the question on where to go now. What stood out in Alliances and Commonalities 2022 was the urgency in sharing in a sometimes more personal and intimate tone than we earlier have met in a zoom context. A clear and strong need to connect to one another and to other fields of research was also very present and the curiosity for, the potential of and the belief in the field of artistic research, says Cecilia Roos, Professor of Artistic Practices, Vice-Rector for Research.

We met live on the web again
Holding a digital conference made it possible for SKH to reach international participants and to share and learn from people all over the world. On the web platform, the participants met online. Out of 166 submitted proposals, SKH selected more than 30 artistic researchers from around the world, of which ten from the SKH research department. All in all, the participants could choose out of 36 acts the program offered over the three days.
 
This year, SKH also opened up the 5th Room, a live broadcast that ran throughout the conference. The 5th Room was a joint reflection space that was open before, between and after the program hours – a fika, a moment of joint silence or complex discussions. With the 5th Room, SKH encouraged everyone to reach out to one another, share experiences from the day and other things on their mind.

– When we started to plan the conference in 2021, the Covid situation was still so uncertain that we decided to keep it just digital. We didn’t dare to suggest live presence. There are advantages to a digital format, such as accessibility and of course climate reasons since people then travel less. What we lose is the immediate encounter where all your senses are activated. The zoom format doesn’t really offer that. On the other hand, the zoom format challenges your imagination. You need to imagine how you would have experienced this movement, sound, smell, body, texture if we all had been in the same physical space. But some experiences can’t be transmitted through the screen, so for the moment we plan and hope for Alliances and Commonalities 2024 to be a hybrid format, both live and digital, says Cecilia Roos.

250 participants from six continents
This is SKH’s third conference in the series Alliances and Commonalities. This year, Alliances and Commonalities has more than 250 participants and all parts of the world were once again represented.

– We have really reached out again in a way we could never imagine. Via the conference Alliances and Commonalities, we are expanding our network of contacts and new ideas for research methods. We are already looking forward to the 2024 conference, concludes Cecilia Roos.

Watch the closing speech on Alliances and Commonalities 2022 by Cecilia Roos. 
In the video: Cecilia Roos, John-Paul Zaccarini, Peter Mills, Eleanor Bauer, Ellen J Røed, Sher Doruff, Stacey Sacks.