Bodies as institutions as bodies

Symposium overview

bodies as Institutions as bodies is 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.

Dates and locations

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

Contributors and presenters

Contributors include:

Petra Bauer, Ester Martin Bergsmark, Savaş Boyraz, Harm Coordes, Sebastian Dahlqvist, Taru Elfving, Michael Francis Duch, BamBam Frost, Saul Garcia Lopez, Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh, Anne Gry Haugland, Rebecca Hilton, Hanna Husberg, Daniel Israelsson Casta, Kopparbergs Folkets Hus, Kultivator, lambert, Maria Lind, Rudi Loewe, Heidi Möller, Tale Næss, Alexander Skantze, Márcia Nemer, Alessandra Di Pisa, Robert Stasinski, Helene Berg, Elina Koivisto, Chrysa Parkinson, Kent Olofsson, Stacey Sacks, Ilse van Rijn, Eva Weinmayr, Mick Wilson, John-Paul Zaccarini

Short bios of presenters

Main organisers

The symposium is organised by:

• Rebecca Hilton (Professor of choreography for the profile area Site Event Encounter at SKH, and lead of animal bodies)
• Hanna Husberg (assistant professor of Performative and Media-based Practices at SKH, and lead of environmental bodies)
• Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh (Head of Research Coordination, University of the Arts Bremen (HfK), and lead of institutional bodies)
• Sebastian Dahlqvist, core member of BODIES and artistic and executive director of Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus.

Support and funding

This symposium is organised with support from Stockholm University of the Arts, University of the Arts (HfK) Bremen, and thanks to funding from Riksbankens jubileumfond’s Research Initiation grant.

About BODIES

BODIES is an international group of researchers, educators and practitioners coming together from across artistic, academic, and activist contexts. Unfolding via three discrete yet interrelated working parties – animal bodies, institutional bodies, and environmental bodies – BODIES is what emerges when transdisciplinary, collaborative, practice-led research is situated in, and cared for by an artistic research environment.