In the next years while doing my doctoral studies at Aalto’s Art Department, through the artistic research which I have initiated from 2016, I aim to produce multiple art productions thoroughly focused on female body, identity and its complex hybridity related to migration and embodiments in contemporary art. One of my work objectives is to create spaces for experiments to alternate forms of relationships between individuals and society through contemporary art. Art can act as catharsis and transforms parts of existing realties and experiences for possible discussion with power of convertibility and mobility of the meanings in society.  My highest objective is to increase social awareness and to tackle existing stereotypical models or perceptions based on culture, gender and race which leads to discrimination and undermining minorities in our society. I expand the project A Dream That Came True? which I have started from 2016, it focuses on the reality of life of female individuals from Middle-East who have migrated to Finland a decade ago.

Main questions of the research are: How female body become politicized in societal context and in contemporary art? What is the role of contemporary art in addressing complex/difficult subjects in society and what methods it employs to address/represent concepts such as gender/cultural identity? How to tackle stereotypical, discriminative and problematic representations/perceptions by means of contemporary art and its narratives in public place? Whose voice is being heard in society and through contemporary art practices and its representations? by whom and how?

Main method will be based on artistic research and production of several artworks including video and photography series, performances and written poetry combining them in different installations, writing several articles and having public debates. Part of this artistic research will be achieved through having conversation and the production of video and photography series and in interaction with Middle-Eastern women who have lived-experience related to this research including myself. Women who belong to two different generations: older and younger. Each video will be produced with non-linear narration as a significant part of production. Personal experiences and reflections will be an important part of the research and it will go forward with identity. Other methods are based on examining the existing archives related to this subject, academic research and possible collaboration with artists and anthropologists working actively in Finland and/or in Nordic countries with the focus on migration, gender and cultural diversity. With this artistic research by addressing identity and its complexity in case of migrant women I would like to emphasis on what Stuart Hall believes, identities are about questions of using the resources of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not 'who we are' or 'where we came from', so much as what we might become, how we have been represented and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves, Identities are therefore constituted within, not outside representation. I will explore identity and its signifiers as a foreground in discussions of contemporary art, to thoroughly examine where and how concept of identity appears in it.