The Royal Institute of Art is expanding with a newly established institution for research and further education
1 September 2021 marked the launching of the Royal Institute of Art’s new institution for artistic research and further education in Fine Art and architecture. The institution, which brings together the university’s artistic research and further education programs for professional artists and architects, is part of the extensive development pursued since 2017 for creating an art academy of the future.
Directing the institution is Petra Bauer, who assumed the role as Head of Department and Research in September. Petra Bauer works as a freelance artist and researcher, and was until recently Professor Specializing in Moving Images, and Area Head of Mindepartementet, the Institute’s department for moving images, photography, performance and sound.
A first step in the creation of a research environment at the Royal Institute of Art is the establishment of a higher seminar in artistic research, where researchers, postgraduates, teachers, students and invited guests address current issues that emerge out of their artistic research processes. Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Professor of Fine Art, specializing in Sculpture, called to a joint discussion, held at the first seminar on 24 November at Magazine III Museum of Contemporary Art, surrounding vulnerability and violence in the artistic process. Also contributing was author Mara Lee.
Vice-Chancellor Sara Arrhenius regards the establishment of the department as historic:
–Our artistic research and further education programs are facets of the university that are currently seeing a strong development, having become dynamic and expansive areas both at the Royal Institute of Art and in the broader field of art. That Petra Bauer, with her role in establishing our innovative operations at Mindepartementet and with a robust ground in her own influential practice as freelance artist and researcher, will lead and build operations is also fantastic for the Royal Institute of Art.
Petra Bauer, Head of Department and Research, envisions a trend where education, research, artistic production platforms, laboratories and public activities work in parallel to create an expansive and innovative art school and art institution:
–I feel proud and honored to have been commissioned to head the Department of Research and Further Education in Fine Art and Architecture. I look forward to working with colleagues to strengthen and support artistic research at our school. Imagine how we might develop an exciting and influential research environment based on art’s premises and possibilities. I will promote research projects that challenge and cross over, and create space for and enable new methods and approaches in art and its relation to the outside world, while ensuring that we foster and nurture what we already have. In order to successfully create sustainable structures for researchers, projects and audiences, we will need to be responsive, interactive and, not least, curious.