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Project

Towards Togetherness: Probing as a Decolonizing Approach for Artistic Inquiry

Motivated by a strong passion for the Arctic regions and a deep respect for the indigenous peoples living there, I designed my artistic doctoral research in the favor of decolonization processes. Two art projects were realized during this PhD: Food Related, for which knowledge on Arctic food is shared on a platform, and Niva to Nenets, an interactive road-movie that questions gift-giving and aspects of the us-and-them dichotomy. For both projects I experimented with probing: an inquiring method that opens up the research practice to include ambiguous results. Departing from Gaver et al. (1999, 2004), small booklets with one or more creatively asked questions were made and put in practice at schools to explore and discuss the projects’ topics. Packages of either eight or ten creative tasks – the actual probe kits – followed these explorative booklets. After that, I further developed my probing practice into a cultural event, the Picnic-Quiz. In my experience, the creativity and artistry of probing encouraged subjective and imaginative engagement. Thus, in working with probes lies a possibility to share and collect knowledge beyond intellectuality. Both the making and the use of the probes turned inspirational and functioned as a creative bridge between the participants and the artist.

The outcomes were sometimes unexpected, mainly within the Food Related project for which they unveiled underlying needs. Probing enabled me to create favorable opportunities for combining and communicating knowledge, allowing discordant or conflicting (world) views to exist next to each other. Thus, I believe the probing method can be beneficial to a decolonizing approach during participatory art practices.

Date:31 Dec 2009 →  27 Nov 2018
Keywords:Participatory Art, Media Art, Probing,
Disciplines:Anthropology
Project type:PhD project