Tampere Urban Research Network for Sustainability (TURNS) is a Research Platform that aims to catalyze innovative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research by bringing together urban studies, transition studies, and sustainability science. As a strategic and long-term initiative, TURNS networks experts and offers funding for research and mobility. As part of the funding decisions for year 2024, our working group concentrating on embodied knowledge in urban space received seed funding.
With the seed funding we will realize a week of intensive work in Hiedanranta in August 2024, when the working group will conduct experiments in collecting research material. These are done first in a researcher-artist working group, then with the participation of Hiedanranta’s operators and residents of the surrounding area. Experiential walks are documented on video and audio tape as well as in writing. During the week, the group discusses the scientific conceptualization of the work and builds cooperative relationships by inviting e.g. possible academics who could complement the group and support the theoretical work. Thus far in the conceptualization, e.g. Henri Lefebvre’s ideas on differential space and abstract space have proven to be useful.
The seed funding work aims at a 3-year project, which the working group has previously developed on an artistic basis and for which funding has so far been sought from the art field. The most important result of the intensive week will be a research plan, i.e. the articulation of work in the field of science, which enables applying for funding from scientific sources in the future. This is significant, because when the group has worked together on various experiments since 2021 (see e.g. here and here) , we have noticed the emergence of a new kind of knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as novel methodologies. Apart from working in a public space, our experiments have also included workshops, an open performative lecture and the publication of one method in a book.
Our collaboration moves at the interface of architecture, dance art and urban activism. The group utilizes the means of contemporary dance to tune in to one’s own embodied experience of the space, thereby activating everyone’s personal embodied knowledge. Embodied experience sensitizes not only to the characteristics of the surrounding space, but also to other beings in the space and to various cultural practices that occur in the space. These observations and experiences can help in the creation of a more socially equal public urban space and in dreaming of everyday utopias.
The working group has grown around the FEMA artist group founded in 2018 drawing on queer theory and consisting of dance artists Hanna Kahrola (MA), Anna Kupari (MA) and Tuuti Touhunen (MA). Complemented with architect, environmental policy doctoral researcher, teacher and member of the Insurgent Spatial Practices research collective Elina Alatalo and dancer-filmmaker (MA) Mia Tiihonen, the working group is mentored by choreographer (MA) and folklorist (MPhil) Jaakko Simola.
Photo by Mia Tiihonen, taken during Hiedanranta residency in May