The doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts emphasise artistic work of high quality and artistic research in an associated field.
Recipient of the Merita award Ilya Orlov seeks radically abstract art.
The purpose and goals of the Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts
Doctoral studies pursued at the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki provide the means and opportunity to engage in the independent and creative activity of artistic research. Artistic research is multidisciplinary research grounded in the artists and their art. The doctoral programme at KuvA produces artist-researchers specialised in fine art.
Artist-researchers develop and renew the arts and their practice, research and instruction. They engage in pluralistic and critical dialogue with the various actors in society. As specialists in their respective fields they practice art and produce knowledge, skills and comprehension based on art practise that can be utilised and applied in both the arts and other areas of society. Doctoral studies at Uniarts Helsinki develop the artist-researchers' ability to apply the proficiency he or she has obtained as an artist, researcher, pedagogue and specialist.
Since 1997, it has been possible to complete a postgraduate degree, Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA), at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts.
The Academy of Fine Arts seeks to create and provide the necessary framework for conducting and developing research in the fine arts that follows the above aims and principles. It offers doctoral students and researchers a network that supports their research and career in many ways. It creates conditions for discussing, comparing and interaction between different research configurations. The Academy of Fine Arts is an international artistic and academic expert community that enables critical evaluation and unbiased development of artistic research. It is a community of discourse in which divergent informational, social and artistic frameworks can be developed to respond to the challenges and problems arising in the field of contemporary art. The Academy of Fine Arts is a collegial community of artists and researchers, the operating principles of which are transparency, critical thinking, democracy, equality, pedagogy, and respect and support of the work of others.
A visualization of the doctoral research at the Academy of Fine Arts, including doctoral student projects and finished theses, has been published in the Research Catalogue. The page also contains links to research descriptions.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Screen Surface and Narrative Space: Narration and Construction of Meaning in Moving Image Installations (Valkokankaan pinta ja kertova tila: kerronta ja merkityksen rakentaminen liikkuvan kuvan installaatioissa).
Simo Alitalo: Mitä kuulemalla tietää? Taiteellinen tutkimus äänitaiteesta.
Niran Baibulat: Kävellen kuvailtu, koettu paikka.
Erick Beltrán Flores: The reading machine as model of edition. Laocoön and the Katabasis as an engine of ideological social psyche in image flux.
Bruno Caldas: The poetics of autopoiesis: Artificial intelligence and art.
Matthew Cowan: The lessons of folklore. Utilising the carnivalesque origins of folk ritual in contemporary art practice.
Jack Faber: Asymmetrical Cinema: Filmmaking, Art Activism and Public Spaces in the Drone Age.
Miklos Gaál: Dialectics of Contradiction Reflected upon Jena Romanticism.
Terike Haapoja: Kohtaamisen mediat – teknologia suhteena tuntemattomaan.
Henna-Riikka Halonen: Throws of Dice: Between Experience and Explanation.
Minna Heikinaho: Saa sanoa! Kohtaamisia kaupunkitilassa.
Flis Holland: Surface Attachment Devices.
Leena Kela: Dialogues: The Language of Performance Art in the Interaction of Materiality and Corporeality.
Anni Laakso: Yhteiskunnallisten teemojen esiintuominen työssäni.
Henna Laininen: Kokeellisen elämän käsikirja – luova yhteisöllinen kirjoittaminen vastauksena ympäristökriisiin.
Liisa Lounila: Oh! You Pretty Things – On Rebellion and Alternative Youth Culture as Elements of Art.
Susanna Majuri: Valokuvallinen fiktio tunteiden kohtaamisen paikkana.
Orla Mc Hardy: Nitefeedz – instants of animation / the art of interval.
Stephanie Misa: Of Bastard Tongues and Ghosts in the Archive.
Salla Myllylä: Paikan rajaus ja rajauksen paikka.
Maija Närhinen: Kokeita kuvaamisen tavoista.
Christoph Oeschger: How to take a picture of wind?
Lauren O'Neal: Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency.
Ilya Orlov: Artwork: Its Definition, Concept and Subject.
Kukka Paavilainen: Through Painting – Painting as Research.
Pilvari Pirtola: Demoskene – luova digitaalinen alakulttuuri. (Demoscene – Creative Digital Subculture).
Anssi Pulkkinen: Tilanteen syntyminen tilallisessa teoksessa.
Merja Puustinen: Plug In – Action. Down and Out in the Institutional Framework with Interactive Art.
Heli Rekula: Poissaoleva ruumis – tekijän näkökulmia esitettyyn ja lavastettuun valokuvaan.
Juha Rouhikoski: Valotaiteen aika – ajan ja paikan näkemisen arvoitus.
Jaakko Rustanius: The Makings of Meanings in Painted Pictures. A reconstruction project in contemporary painting towards the beyond of the representation / non-representation dichotomy.
Jaakko Ruuska: Tunnistamaton toiseus – Valtasuhteet ja empatia.
Mireia Saladrigues: BUGS – Behaving Unconventionally in Gallery Settings.
Tülay Schakir: Valo, havainto ja oleminen taiteena.
Mia Seppälä: Kokeelliset järjestelyt kauppakeskuksessa.
Katja Tukiainen: Tyttöarmeija – kerronnallinen maalaus tilassa.
Markus Tuormaa: Osallinen maisemasuhde nykytaiteessa.
The Open access archive of the published doctoral theses can be found in HELDA.
2018 Johanna Lecklin: Esitettyä aitoutta. Osallistavasta taiteesta ja sen etiikasta.
2017 Elina Saloranta: Laatukuvia ja kirjallisia kokeiluja
2017 Pekka Kantonen: Generational Filming. A Video Diary as Experimental and Participatory Research
2017 Markus Rissanen: Basic Forms and Nature. From Visual Simplicity to Conceptual Complexity.
2016 Timo Heino: Aineen olemuksesta materian muuntumiin.
2016 Tuula Närhinen: Kuvatiede ja luonnontaide. Tutkielma luonnonilmiöiden kuvallisuudesta.
2016 Paul Landon: Intersecting travelogues. Wandering through practices and archaeologies of space, place and time.
2016 Itay Ziv: Disabled Art. Escapism as Artistic Tactic.
2015 Stig Baumgartner: Virhe abstraktissa maalauksessa. Tekijän paikka maalauksen rakenteessa.
2015 Shoji Kato: Place of Geometry.
2014 Silja Rantanen: Ulos sulkeista. Nykytaiteen teosmuotojen tulkintaa.
2014 Pekka Niskanen: Taide identiteettien politiikan rakentajana.
2013 Jay Koh: Art Led Participatory Processes: Subject to Subject Communication within Performances in the Everyday.
2012 Petri Kaverma: Tyhjä piha – häiriö ja hiljaisuus (nyky)taiteessa.
2012 Sami van Ingen: Moving Shadows – Experimental Film Practice in a Landscape of Change.
2011 Irene Kopelman: The Molyneux Problem Five backstage stories – and a map of why and how.
2011 Marjatta Oja: Kolmiulotteinen projisointi – tilanneveistos katsojan ja kokijan välissä.
2010 Denise Ziegler: Poeettisen piirteistä. Kuvataiteilijan mimeettinen työskentelytapa.
2008 Jan-Erik Andersson: Life on a Leaf – Tila ikonina. Taloni arkkitehtonisena taideteoksena.
2006 Tarja Pitkänen- Walter: Liian haurasta kuvaksi -– maalauksen aistisuudesta.
2005 Jan Kenneth Weckman: Seitsemän maalauksen katsominen ja Maalaus maailman osana.
2005 Teemu Mäki: Näkyvä pimeys – esseitä taiteesta, filosofiasta ja politiikasta.
2002 Jan Kaila: Valokuvallisuus ja esittäminen nykytaiteessa, teoksia vuosilta 1998-2000.
2001 Jyrki Siukonen: Uplifted Spirits, Earthbound Machines, Studies on Artists and Dream of Flight 1900–1935.
The Doctoral Programme at the Academy of Fine Arts at Uniarts Helsinki arranges every year a public event called Research Days. During the days the public will have an opportunity to participate in discussions about art and research generated by talks and performances by KuvAs Researchers and Doctoral Students as well as guest speakers they have invited.
The Doctoral Studies Programme is the home of doctoral training and research in the Academy of Fine Arts at University of the Arts Helsinki. It delineates and implements the research-oriented basic function of the Academy, which is to train artists and artist-researchers working in the field of art, and to conduct research in the field of the fine arts. The term ‘fine arts’ here refers to the areas of contemporary art that are represented in the Academy of Fine Arts. The research community in the Academy of Fine Arts is an academic community that comprises the doctoral students, teachers and researchers involved in the programme, along with administrative personnel. The Academy of Fine Arts conducts artistic research as well as research of contemporary art.
