Highlights Fine Arts

[Translate to English:] Collage
[Translate to English:] Collage

    «Art and research come together especially when it is a matter of meaningfully discussing the challenges of our time and initiating negotiations.»

    Dr. Marcel Bleuler, Head of the Institute for Contemporary Art Research (IFCAR)

      Scientific, Artistic and Creative Output and Impact

      Besides their wide range of publications, through which IFCAR researchers actively engage in international discourses, in 2022 they also increasingly made their research processes accessible in exhibitions. For example, parts of the «Latent Spaces» project (headed by Prof. Felix Stalder) were presented in the exhibition «Can you see me now?» at AIA Awareness in Art, Löwenbräukunst Zurich, while the project «Hands-On» (headed by Christoph Schenker) peaked in a final exhibition titled «On Observing the Printing» at the ETH Zurich’s Graphic Arts Collection. Particular success was also achieved by Julia Weber, whose dissertation «Herumlungern?! Begegnungsräume an urbanen Orten» (ZHdK, Linz University of the Arts) was awarded the Austrian Award of Excellence.

      → Overview «Scientific, Artistic and Creative Output and Impact»

        Promotion of Talents and Careers

        In 2022, the IFCAR took important steps towards promoting emerging researchers. For example, the PhD in the Arts programme at the Salzburg’s Mozarteum University was secured as a new cooperation partner for the implementation of artistic PhD projects. Furthermore, IFCAR relaunched its internal start-up funding and the promotion of «risky projects». This new funding format for process-oriented and collaborative projects enables emerging researchers in particular to deepen their research experience and develop innovative approaches at the interface of art and research.

        → Overview «Promotion of Talents and Careers»

          Cooperation and Internationality

          International cooperations are central to IFCAR research. In view of the global political situation, in 2022 the institute increased its cooperation with partners in Eastern Europe. «Contemporary Art, Popular Culture, and Peacbuilding in Eastern Europe» (headed by Jörg Scheller), a project conducting research in Poland, Moldova and Armenia over a period of three years, is in contact with various cooperation partners. In addition, the partnerships with the Academy of Fine Arts Prague (CZ) and the Center for Contemporary Art in Tbilisi (GEO) were further expanded with a collaborative contribution to the Tbilisi Triennial (GEO).

          → Overview «Cooperation and Internationality»

            External Funding

            In 2022, IFCAR achieved further success in terms of third-party funding with Jörg Scheller’s SNSF-funded project. Together with the SNSF projects directed by Felix Stalder («Latent Spaces»), Hannes Rickli («Listening to Data Flows»), Michael Hiltbrunner («F+F 1971») and Kris Decker («Academized Artists»), a total of 15 artistic researchers and PhD candidates can conduct in-depth research thanks to third-party funding.

            → Overview «Research Projects»

              Reading Tips

              In their co-edited volume «Trading Zones» Barbara Preisig, Laura von Niederhäusern and Jürgen Krusche present camera-based practices at the intersections of artistic and ethnographic research that critically examine their own production means and social embedding. In collaborative practices such as field recording, post-production editing and forms of presentation, the camera is understood as an actor. How does it engage with the invisible and reveal what the camerawoman cannot see? How do films, videos and photographs provide access to vulnerable knowledge and what forms of presentation can extend linear narration?

              Book cover Trading Zone

                Event Highlight

                Felix Stalder and his team presented works from their SNSF project «Latent Spaces: Performing Ambiguous Data» for the first time in the exhibition «Can You See Me Now?» at the Zurich art space AIA. The show focused on «The Infrastructure of a Migratory Bird», a diagram that captures ecological, social, technical and informational elements and their different temporal-spatial scales to create a new foundation for wilderness. The work is a collaboration between artists Gordan Savičić, Vladan Joler, and theorist Felix Stalder.

                Diagram Infracstructure of a Migratory Bird

                  Noteworthy

                  Artist and researcher Ji Yun Park is the first Visiting PhD at the DFA. As a PhD student at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, she works with various orchid species native to Hong Kong, seeking to visualise their ecosystem from a plant-centred point of view. Central to her artistic research is the film «(Welcome to) The Planet of Orchids», which brings into dialogue research from the fields of multispecies ethnography, orchid conservation biology and ecocinema. The film features orchids as protagonists and presents their multispecies relationships in plant-centred visualisation and storytelling.

                  Commerical