Rehearsing the Ethics of Touch: Nordic Summer University Artistic Research | Performing Heterotopia study circle Winter (Dis)symposium (postponed due to covid)

A performative workshop in 3 parts under the thematic outline presence in showing / performing / telling within Nordic Summer University Artistic Research | Performing Heterotopia study circle Winter (Dis)symposium (postponed due to covid).
The workshop rehearses the ethics and power relations related to touching as questions in artistic practice and pedagogy. Part one is focusing on presence through silence and touch in a rehearsal where the participants are asked to draw self portraits relying on the sense of touch. The second part examines the ethics of touch through a performance by the two presenters. In the third part the emotions and questions evoked by these actions are shared in a rehearsal and discussion within the participants.
With the workshop we aim to find ways to discuss the intimacy of presence and the multiplicity of questions arising from allowing presence. How and by whom is power present and created in these situations, and how could we find ethical ways of being present.
With our performance and workshop we raise questions about what it means to be touched. Do we need physical contact to be touched? What does this mean related to art and teaching art?

Irene Kajo is a lecturer in theater pedagogy in University of Arts. In her work as an artist and a teacher she has been focusing on the questions of power, body and ethics. Currently she is writing an essay collection about ethical problems in the field art.

Minna Suoniemi is a university lecturer of art education in Aalto University and artist working with lens based practices. Her artistic work focuses on subjects such as gender roles, motherhood, family and micro histories. Her latest project examines the ageing body as material and what embodied knowledge could mean looked through hormonal change.