25–26 May 2027
The international conference Artistic Research and Embodied Practices is jointly organised by the Riga Performance Festival Starptelpa, the Department of Art and Technologies, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Latvia, and the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia.
Artistic research produces knowledge through creative processes, material experimentation, sensory experience, and critical reflection. It brings theory and practice into dialogue while recognising making, performing, listening, moving, and sensing as modes of inquiry.
The conference invites contributions exploring how knowledge emerges through the body and through encounters with materials, spaces, technologies, environments, and other bodies. It considers embodiment both as a research method and as a situated condition shaped by social, cultural, political, and institutional contexts.
The conference seeks to create a space for dialogue among artists, researchers, performers, designers, architects, curators, educators, and students. It welcomes research engaging with the body as a site of experience, memory, knowledge, communication, and transformation. Particular attention will be given to the ways artistic processes can articulate tacit, sensory, affective, and situated forms of knowledge.
Possible topics include:
artistic practice as a mode of research;
embodied and situated knowledge;
performance as a research method;
sensory and affective approaches to inquiry;
movement, gesture, presence, and spatial experience;
material experimentation and processes of making;
the body in visual art, performance, design, and architecture;
sound, voice, listening, and somatic practices;
artistic research and technology;
documentation and dissemination of embodied research;
relationships between practice, theory, and critical reflection;
pedagogies of artistic and embodied research;
collaborative and participatory practices;
care, vulnerability, identity, and the politics of the body;
ethical questions in embodied and practice-based research;
curating artistic research and process-based work.
We welcome proposals for:
academic papers;
artist presentations and lecture-performances;
practice-based research presentations;
performances and performative interventions;
workshops and participatory sessions;
screenings, sound works, and experimental formats.
Proposals should explain the research question or area of inquiry, the artistic or embodied methods employed, and the contribution the presentation will make to discussions of artistic research.
Please submit:
a proposal of [250–300 words];
a short biography of [100 words];
the proposed format and technical requirements;
links to relevant documentation, where applicable.
Conference dates: 25–26 May 2027
Location: TBC
Working language: English
Submission deadline: 1 February 2027
Submission address: laine.kristberga@lu.lv
The conference encourages interdisciplinary, experimental, and practice-based contributions from established and emerging researchers and practitioners.