University of the Arts Helsinki

As platforms for dialogue, art-science collaborations hold the potential to cross disciplinary boundaries to better understand and engage the public in addressing sustainability challenges. Moving beyond documenting outcomes, this study details how researchers and composers combined science communication and artistic expression to co-produce performances as part of the Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab. Drawing on insights from a joint reflection process, we recount our motivations for participation, provide insights on the co-production processes of six researcher-composer pairs, and share our experiences of the performances. We highlight openness to other ways of working, different perspectives and opinions, and emergence as well as collaborative skills, including listening, communication, and problem-solving skills, as key enablers for crossing disciplinary boundaries in art-science collaborations. As answers to the question on how, why, and in what ways platforms for dialogue can turn into platforms for learning, we discuss opportunities for designing safe-enough spaces, working towards a shared goal while embracing the unfolding nature of a process, and engaging in reflection to follow up on and make sense of one’s learning. Through this study, we hope to provide guidance for those who wish to engage in art-science collaborations to co-produce pathways towards sustainable futures together.

Imagining the peasant at the piano: folk music aesthetics as an expansion of pianistic expression The piano has not traditionally been considered a folk instrument, and its broader use in folk music contexts emerged only in the early 1990s alongside the development of folk music education. This article examines the artistic process behind a 2023 concert performed with a violinist specialised in Finnish pelimanni music. Employing practice-based and artistic research methods, I explore how the stylistic and aesthetic qualities of pelimanni violin playing can be applied to piano expression. Through my artistic work, I developed practical techniques for translating traditional violin features into piano expression, revealing that such adaptation extends beyond technical solutions to a holistic approach to folk music aesthetics. The study offers insights for pianists engaging with folk music, and opens perspectives on aurally based music-making practices in contemporary musical expression.

Artikkeli keskittyy yhden tšuktšin, poromies Etiljanin minulle laulamiin lauluihin, jotka äänitin kenttämatkallani pohjoiseen Kamtšatkaan vuonna 2008. Tutkimusaineistonani ovat kaikki 11 Etiljanin laulua sisältävää äänitettä. Niiden välityksellä tutkin Etiljanin laulannan musiikillisen kudoksen muodostumista ja sitä kautta hänen musiikillista ajatuksenjuoksuaan. Viitekehyksenä on ennen kaikkea taiteellisen tutkimuksen lähestymistapa musiikkiin, mutta myös Siperian alkuperäiskansojen musiikkiin perehtyneiden etnomusikologien tutkimukset musiikin olemuksesta ja rakenteesta sekä alkuperäiskansatutkimus. Tutkimusmenetelmänä olen notaation ja analyysin ohella käyttänyt laulujen pohjalta improvisointia. Pyrkiessäni ymmärtämään Etiljanin musiikin rakentumista, laulujen tarkasteleminen ja musiikin hahmottaminen pelkästään äänitallenteen perustella ei yksin riitä, vaan tapaamiseni hänen kanssaan ja kaikki ne hetket, kun hän lauloi, ovat voimakkaasti jääneet muistikuviini ja yhtälailla vaikuttavat käsitysteni muotoutumiseen. Siksi otan huomioon myös musiikin kokemiseen vaikuttavat seikat, kuten tilanteet, joissa hän lauloi, oman läsnäoloni vaikutuksen hänen laulamiseensa, ja sen, kuinka kokemus paikan päällä vaikutti omiin havaintoihini. Artikkelin teemakuva: Tšuktši-poromies Etiljan koillisesta Kamtšatkasta 15.2.2008. Kuva Pia Siirala.

This study explores how higher music education institutions position themselves in relation to wider social and political forces and the expanding professional responsibilities of musicians in increasingly complex Nordic societies, which in this study includes Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. By asking how the political—including various local and global social-ecological values, relations and power structures—is manifested in contemporary higher music performance study programs, the study aims to identify the challenges and possibilities of institutional change within higher music education in the Nordic context. Theoretically, we engage with Gert Biesta’s understanding of public pedagogy as an intrinsic part of educational endeavors that engage with the political and societal, thus promoting and serving as a catalyst for transformative change within higher music education. The data consists of five focus group interviews ( n = 13) and a questionnaire ( n = 29) addressed to the teachers and leaders of music performance programs in four higher music education institutions. We identified five emerging change identifications in the Nordic higher music institutions: (a) changing teacher roles, (b) students as change agents, (c) artists and/as citizens, (d) aesthetic and epistemic paradigm shifts, (5) negotiating institutional boundaries. The findings suggest that although the concept of public pedagogy is not yet fully established within these institutions, all three forms, (a) pedagogy for the public, (b) pedagogy of the public, and (c) pedagogy of publicness, are emerging. However, resistance to change could hinder higher music education from staying relevant amid current societal challenges and turbulence. By integrating public pedagogy into the daily practices and discourse of higher music education, both the necessary adaptation to political upheaval and the pedagogical and artistic identities of teachers and students could be strengthened.

This article analyzes the work of Fr. Elias Friedman, whose legacy of theological work on Jewish identity and Jewish conversion to Catholicism serves as the foundation of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, of which he is the founder. Friedman frames his work as a sensitive approach to Jewish identity and Catholic faith, but as this paper demonstrates, his work reveals a reiteration of some of the most entrenched and historically devastating tropes of Christian anti-Judaism, as well as racial antisemitism. This article presents three main arguments. First, it demonstrates that Friedman’s work evidences a theological anti-Judaism characteristic of Catholicism prior to the Second Vatican Council, which he maintained firmly even after the theological revision of Vatican II rejected such views; and furthermore, that his work also expresses an antisemitism that reflects the modern racial antisemitism adopted by the Nazi regime. Second, this article examines the positive reception of Friedman’s work, as evidenced not only in the revered position he holds within the Association for Hebrew Catholics, but also by the nihil obstat and imprimatur on both of Friedman’s monographs, that is, the official stamp of ecclesiastical approval within the Catholic Church, which declares that the work is “free of doctrinal and moral error.” It proposes that these factors evidence the uncritical reception of his work not only within the Association of Hebrew Catholics, but also on behalf of the institutional Catholic Church. Third, it raises the question of the extent to which Friedman’s identity as a Jewish convert to Catholicism is relevant in the analysis and reception of his work. It argues that his Jewish identity makes his concoction of religious anti-Judaism and racial antisemitism particularly potent, rendering anodyne even the most virulently antisemitic of his statements.

This article is based on the four-year project Conservatory Cultures, and was written by all five researchers in the project, based in four different European countries. The aim of the article is to review higher music education (HME) institutions’ actions in handling power and taking responsibility regarding issues of bullying and harassment in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary. All of the institutions discussed in the article had procedures and organisational bodies for handling such cases. The article presents and analyses four cases with experiences of incidents related to bullying and harassment and macro structures aimed at preventing such issues. The research questions asked are: What are the challenges for HME in becoming a genuinely supportive and safe environment? And how can these challenges be met? The article is based on a collaborative feminist method where the authors investigated their own experiences. Previous studies of bullying and harassment in music education, and Ahmed’s (2021) work on complaint, are the theoretical starting points. It concludes with providing recommendations to HME institutions on how to develop their work in handling bullying and harassment.

Animal teeth were amongst the most common materials utilised for personal ornament production during the Stone Age, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. The hunter-gatherer cemetery site of Zvejnieki (Latvia) (7500–2500 cal. BC) is a clear example of this, with more than 2000 animal teeth excavated from grave contexts. Animal tooth pendants from the site have received significant scholarly attention, largely focusing on their faunal identification, type of use, placement within graves, as well as aspects of their production. Considerably less attention, however, has been given to the process of extracting teeth and the corresponding physical traces this might leave behind. This is true for Zvejnieki, but also for teeth extraction for the purposes of personal ornamentation across early prehistory more generally. To address this gap, we have employed experimental archaeological methods to critically evaluate possible Stone Age techniques of tooth extraction from key ungulate species, assessing the diagnostic traces created on the tooth itself and on the skull or mandible. The results suggest that several different methods of tooth extraction are viable, but cooking animals using boiling or a pit method is highly efficient. These methods lead to high extraction rates with no tooth damage, while also rendering the meat from the skull edible and the bones usable for other applications, such as tool production. Our research provides insights into the relationships between different spheres of hunter-gatherer life and death at Zvejnieki, specifically the acquisition of game animals, their treatment, and how this interacts with the extraction and processing of materials for craftwork and food preparation.

ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to research on the awareness of grammatical variability through a study of variation in reflexivity marking in Mano under the influence of Kpelle, both indigenous languages of Guinea. The speakers of these languages are found to be sensitive to contact‐induced grammatical variation in reflexivity, which manifests via variation in comprehension patterns and, more specifically, in form‐to‐meaning correspondence, across different communities. We explain the patterns by hypothesizing that variation in comprehension is at least partially based on language experience in a particular environment and does not necessarily reflect a difference in grammatical representation. Such explanation underscores the importance of sociolinguistic considerations for employing acceptability judgments in syntactic analysis.

Artikkeli on taidekasvatuksen tutkimuspedagogiikan kontekstissa tapahtuvaa seminaariohjaajan työn tutkimusta. Tutkimuksen aiheena on usein esitetyt kysymykset opinnäyteseminaarin alussa. Käytännöllisenä tutkimustehtävänä on tiivistää seminaaritilanteessa syntyneitä vastauksia ja siten tukea tällä tekstillä opinnäytetyön alkuun pääsemisessä. Samalla tavoitteena on kuvata ja jäsentää tutkimuspedagogiikan erityispiirteitä pedagogisena praktiikkana suhteessa esimerkiksi korkeakoulupedagogiikan ja aikuiskasvatuksen konteksteihin. Keskeisenä menetelmänä on omaan muisteluaineistoon perustuva dialoginen vertailu. Työtään tekemällä tutkivan opettajan aineistona on vuosien aikana karttuva työkokemus, toistuvat opiskelijoiden kohtaamistilanteet, oman työn tueksi tehdyt muistiinpanot ja opetuksen suunnittelu. Tulkinnallisen ja vertailevan analyysin avulla tunnistetut kysymykset vastauksineen tulee ymmärtää tutkimusaineiston, analyysin sekä tutkimustulosten yhteenkietoutumina, joista tulevilla opinnäyteseminaarilaisilla olisi käytännössä hyötyä.

This text presents talking with trees as a method of generating material for artistic and other research purposes based on conversations with pine trees recorded in May 2022 on Örö Island in southwestern Finland. Addressing one pine tree a day for six consecutive days as part of the project Pondering with Pines was an experiment that resulted in video works and podcast episodes. The perspective was human centred and subjective while also subjectifying the trees. In this context, the focus is on talking with trees as an undisciplinary method adaptable to other circumstances.