RUUKKU 6 Call:
Change and Artistic Research
Our theme, change, refers to political aspects of art, to a space where social themes are discussed with the help of artistic research, all the while searching for new, alternative interpretations for them. Different kinds of social changes are in progress all the time. Changes can relate to discursive spaces, concrete interventions, experiential aspects, or marginal ways of expression, for example. Some of the changes are sudden, while some are predictable, such as climate change.
The concept of politics does not merely refer to institutional and public politics, but also to politics on a micro level and in one's own personal life. The theme also concerns the active roles of different people and communities in shaping meanings and ways of seeing things. Therefore, the focus of the theme ‘change' is also on power relations and on presenting and commenting on these relations through art. It is interesting to consider what kind of a stance an artist-researcher wants to adopt in relation to change and what is acknowledged as being political in the first place. What is the role of an artist-researcher as a political agent? Does art have to be political? Today issues such as representations of gender, ethnicity and sexualities, as well as animal rights have risen to the center of contemporary political art. Other themes have been diaspora, nationalism, and climate change, for example. There has also been discussion on the political role of an artist-researcher, and one of the questions has been whether an artist-researcher should look for and bring on change.
Our special issue invites artists and researchers from various fields to take part in the search for change and the battle between meanings, and to reflect on social themes, conflicts, and the plurality of voices with the help of artistic research. Our special issue entices to new openings and fresh perspectives in terms of content and form, where modes of expression are borrowed and expanded to new realms. Our special issue also welcomes experimental presentations and cross-border research.
Research expositions may discuss the following issues, for example:
How do artistic expressions and means of expression challenge change or challenge to change?
Change and socially engaged art?
Transformation and mutation?
Ways of questioning?
What is ‘change' an answer to?
What does change challenge and how does it challenge it?
What is the new that change proposes?
The intimate and change?
The personal and the political?
Form, language of expression and politics?
Form as summon to change?
What is recognised as political?
The role of an artist-researcher as a political agent?
*
We invite artist-researchers to submit theme-related research expositions and shorter texts called voices for the sixth issue of RUUKKU. The issue is edited by Mari Mäkiranta and Eija Timonen.
Established in 2013, RUUKKU is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal for artistic research. It is published on Research Catalogue (RC), an international publication platform and database for artistic research that enables multimedia elements. RUUKKU is published in Finnish, Swedish and English. Visit http://ruukku-journal.fi/ .
We ask you to write your proposals or drafts for research expositions in the RC catalogue at http://www.researchcatalogue.net/ Note! The catalogue requires user rights and registration (see ‘register'). Please submit your proposals via the RC catalogue (‘publish', ‘submit', and ‘Ruukku') no later than 29 February 2016. We also ask you to send the abstract in advance by email to mari.makiranta@ulapland.fi and eija.timonen@ulapland.fi no later than 10 December 2015.