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Research focus areas at the Academy of Fine Arts

The Academy of Fine Arts conducts a wide range of research related to visual and contemporary art. Our research focuses on the practices and theories of making and presenting art, as well as artistic thinking.

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Image research

What does image making tell us about worldmaking?
What do artistic processes reveal about the cultural meanings of imaging technologies?

Researchers and artists working in the focus area of ​​Image Research study the agency of images, as well as image-making techniques and visual thinking from the perspectives of art making and image theories. The monthly Image Research Seminar, organised annually, provides a thematic working context for students, artists and researchers interested in image studies. The theme of the 2025/2026 Image Research Seminar was Image Anthropology.

Externally funded research projects in the focus area of Image Research

Art and technology

The Academy of Fine Arts is involved in co-organising the Helsinki Photomedia conference, coordinated by Aalto University, every two years, as well as the Media Art Histories (MAH) conference in spring 2027.

Key words: artistic research, media aesthetics, image theory, imaging technologies

Spatial practices

What is at stake in spatial thinking and spatial politics?
How can artistic research enrich places and spaces?

Artists and researchers working in the area of Spatial Practices study the practices and theories of space and place, and site and situation specific arts and artistic research in multiple environments and contexts. Spatial thinking is approached through the perspectives of making art, experimentality and experientiality, and theories of space and place. In the academic year 2026–2027 starts a theme seminar Contested Sites, consisting of monthly study circle meetings and an experimental workshop. The first focus area seminar is led by Maiju Loukola and visiting professor Danae Theodoridou, with invited guests.

Externally funded research projects in the focus area of Spatial Practices

Key words: artistic research, city planning, experimentality, site and situation specificity, dissensus

Contemporary art research

What really matters in contemporary art?

Researchers in the focus area of contemporary art research examine current phenomena in contemporary art with the help of various materials, theoretical discourses and research settings. The current projects examine the relationships and co-agency between new technologies, art and the environment, search for sustainable materials for future art, and explore the intergenerational continuum of activism and art.

Externally funded research projects in the focus area in contemporary art research

Key words: ecology, materiality, extractivism, activism, contemporary art discourses

Artist pedagogy

What does a teaching artist have to offer?
What skills does a future artist need?

Artist pedagogy is both the ways in which artists teach artists, and research into this. Those artists being taught might be understood as aspiring artists and so most often, but not exclusively, artist pedagogies take place in post compulsory education: in academies, schools, and departments of art in universities, as well as in alternative art schools. Artist pedagogy also takes place in less formal settings in which artists interact with each other about their developing practice including in studios or during residencies. Typically, then, artist pedagogies might be framed as the intergenerational exchange of skills, knowledge and ideas between artists. But the methods have also been adapted and adopted for use in other settings informing aspects of public pedagogies and citizen engagement amongst other things.

Artist pedagogy research at the Academy of Fine Arts is a sustained investigation into different aspects of this teaching. It asks how and why pedagogical approaches are changing and developing and how these practices might be better shared with the aim of renewing teaching and strengthening our contribution to society. This has involved specific projects and areas of focus including histories of dissent; shyness as a pedagogical practice; applied non-didactic approaches to teaching; the values and assumptions that underpin that teaching; how art school prepares students for working life; and the place of artist pedagogy in ecological crisis. The research concentrates on the teaching of fine art at levels from undergraduate to doctorate, but also connects with research across the University of the Arts Helsinki through the Artist Pedagogy Research Network, and internationally through a Special Interest Group of the Society for Artistic Research.

Externally funded research projects in the focus area of Artist pedagogy

Key words: artist education, teaching methods, working life skills, artistic thinking

More information

Persons responsible

Image research: Mika Elo

Spatial practices: Maiju Loukola

Contemporary art research: Hanna Johansson

Artist pedagogy: Magnus Quaife