Creative Practice Showcases
Collective Aesthetics: Exploring Alternative Human-Nature Aesthetics for More Sustainable Ways of Living
Creative Practice Showcase Clemens Thornquist
Humans express their existence in many ways, one of which is through their ways of living and dwelling. Aesthetics of living can also be understood as symbolic systems that, in return, affect and induce people's ways of existing. The aim of this work is to explore alternative aesthetics of dwelling with potential for more environmentally friendly human behaviors and resourceful relationships with nature. The exploration is carried out from a textile art and design perspective. The method of the research is practice-based. Artistic experimental textile design was used to explore and realize full-scale shelters for living in the woods. The exploration was conducted by visually examining a collective of different individuals – at the Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås – building their own shelters in the Swedish woods for a few days of living, using only materials at hand, waste materials, and secondhand products for the constructions. The potential of the results was analyzed and is presented through a series of self-referential and self-institutional visual systems of the documentary photographs. The results demonstrate the aesthetic potentials and challenges of multi-faceted aesthetic dwelling based on adaptability, hybridity, variation, and differentiation, rooted in non-hierarchical structures, while still being part of interconnected organizations. The findings support the need for further exploration and development of alternative aesthetics of living and dwelling to enable more collective and sustainable ways of living.
Future Campus Master Planning: Showcasing a History of Hospitality
Creative Practice Showcase Ghazal Deilami, Glenn NP Nowak
2000 acres being transferred from the Federal Government to a University for future campus development provides an opportunity for this showcase to shine a spotlight on an academic process that emphasized the importance of balancing multiple stakeholders’ interests. The inclusive process sought to capitalize on the institution’s strengths in hospitality along with the surrounding community’s economy built on the entertainment industry. This real world experience put graduate students in position to practice inclusivity through studying the needs/wants of future students, faculty, community partners, and more to potentially influence future RFPs for this enormous project. Of particular note in the showcase is the design team’s assertion and the administration’s apparent agreement that the University’s land acknowledgment statement could be elevated from words to action in the design of the future campus.
Snared: Getting Caught Up in the Art of Education
Creative Practice Showcase Joshua Graham
The question of how a creative practice can be a pedagogical practice is increasingly relevant as cultural institutions welcome an educational turn in contemporary art. We must ask, are there limits to this hospitality? I argue it is the teachers, who “unspool” their curricula, intentionally twisting it around their creative practice, who are left outside this cultural embrace. I will demonstrate how my artistic practice curls in and out of the classroom, ensnaring people, sites, ecosystems, and ideas in a reciprocal tangle of conceptual art. In May 2024, I was invited to a remote corner of Northeastern Nevada to participate in the Montello Foundation artist-in-residence program. Each morning, I began the day by walking. Wading through the sagebrush ocean, I learned the language of a thriving community no taller than my socks; an ankles-high ecosystem. I often followed the only visible trace of humans, a barbed wire fence-line, and gathered pieces of errant wire caught in the brush. In essence, I partnered with the landscape to create an invisible miles-long contour drawing. The retrieved wire was used to create a large 25’ x 10’ drawing installed on the studio wall. When I reflect on the entanglements of my creative practice, I examine the snares. What gets caught up? What methods do I employ to interrogate these complex knots? What happens when I resist the urge to straighten out (or up?) and embrace the idiosyncratic methodologies that bend and twist in an interwoven gesture of reciprocity, the gift of making art.
The Queer Art Practice of Reconstructing Space: A New Creative Strategy to Validate Desire
Creative Practice Showcase Yufeng Wu
Firstly, this study mentions queer theory and its particular relevance to the Chinese context as the background and points out that when using queer images and symbols in the art commodity system of queer capitalism. It should be in favour of emphasizing the diversity and fluidity of queer and desire rather than excessive abuse of straightforward symbols and stereotypical queer bodies. Secondly, the research briefly introduces the concepts of heterotopia and non-place while critically discussing several artists' works, therefore, as a means of highlighting the importance and possibilities of space as a creative medium for queer desires and contemporary art. Finally, the author summarizes and analyzes the results of his practice, proposing analysis, deconstructing and creating space and place as directions and more possibilities for queer art creation method and research from the perspective of artistic practice, and encouraging the use of stereotypical memories to reconfigure spatial materials, adjust the function of objects and objects, let desire flow freely, and create non-functional spatial installations that challenge the isolation of rigid masculism society and structures.
Anti-Propaganda: Artistic Resistance to Brainwashing and State Control
Creative Practice Showcase Leila Moosavi
In an era of mass media saturation, authoritarian regimes and political movements continue to exploit propaganda to manipulate public perception and manufacture consent. Throughout history, totalitarian systems have weaponized art to glorify ideologies, dehumanize opposition, and solidify power. This study explores how art, once co-opted as a tool of control, can be reclaimed as a means of resistance—an educational and subversive force to expose manipulation and empower critical thought. Rooted in both practice and theory, my work examines the psychological techniques of brainwashing—repetition, fear, hero-worship, and controlled narratives—and translates them into visual language through fine art, video, and installation. Drawing from my personal experiences as an Iranian artist raised in a politically repressive environment, I argue that visual art holds a unique capacity to challenge the mechanisms of indoctrination. While propaganda simplifies and polarizes, critical art can provoke complexity, reflection, and awareness. This research-based presentation addresses the urgency of equipping societies with tools to recognize and resist manipulation. As global conflicts and populist regimes grow, understanding how influence works is no longer optional—it is essential. Art becomes not just a mirror, but a method: to unmask systems of control, to foster dialogue, and to restore autonomy of thought.
