The Elasticity of Research through the Sensorial

8th Nida Doctoral School 2023:
The Elasticity of Research through the Sensorial

21–26 August

Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts
E. A. Jonušo g. 3
Nida LT-93127

The ethos of the 8th Nida Doctoral School (NDS) foregrounds practice in the development and process of research. The aim of this week-long programme is to invite PhD candidates to explore their research through interactive propositions and to further their research enquiry through interdisciplinary exchanges initiated from their own artistic practice. The programme takes inspiration from the idea of “mid-stream”. Firstly, as a way of commencing conversations from the current place in each candidate’s research enquiry and their own artistic process. Secondly, candidates will be introduced to sonic, tactile and sensory prompts designed to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions about how different entry points might elasticise, expand and energise their research and the creative processes of their research topics.

Through peer-driven exchanges, thinking-making, using conceptual propositions and sensorial prompts, participants at the doctoral school will work through individual and collaborative exercises to explore their PhD topics further. One objective is to focus on practice in artistic research by addressing modes of enquiry, sites of knowledge production and to facilitate dialogue on methods. A further objective is to address how writing serves to reflect on research processes, the sharing of methods and how the practice of writing itself impacts the dissemination of research and the artistic project(s) undertaken during the PhD.

The tutors of the summer school, each with their own artistic practices, have developed a keen interest in pedagogy as a practice in which political commitment and aesthetic expression serve to advance shared learning that constitutes an artistic practice itself. In this sense, the practice of pedagogy takes inspiration from the experiences and words of Maxine Greene:

“To learn and to teach, one must have an awareness of leaving something behind while reaching towards something new, and this kind of awareness must be linked to imagination.”
– Releasing the Imagination (1995)

The concept and structure of NDS 2023 is developed by Jyoti Mistry (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University) in close collaboration with the NDS 2023 working group: Nduka Mntambo (Netherlands Film Academy), Rūta Spelskytė (VDA), and Egija Inzule, Director of NAC.

Over the last decade, NAC as a site and infrastructure has established itself as a productive, hospitable venue that creates opportunities for conversation on the relationship between research, practice and pedagogy. This year the summer school brings this objective further by focusing on sensorial approaches to artistic research.