Laura Gröndahl

I am University Lecturer in Artistic Research (from 2017) and currently also Vice Dean for Research at the Theatre Academy (2024–26). Previously, I have held various positions at the University of Tampere (2014–15), the University of Lapland (2013) and AaltoArts (2006–13). Moreover, I have the title of docent in Theatre Research at Helsinki University (since 2015). My artistic background is in stage and costume design, and also my research interests centre around scenographic practices, their history and theory, as well as documentary theatre. I have written numerous scholarly articles for international and Finnish journals, served as editor-in-chief of 'Nordic Theatre Studies' 2015–17, and as an editorial board member of 'Näyttämö & Tutkimus' 2009 and 2014–16, and of the research publication 'Dokumentaarisen teatterin mahdollisuus' (University of Tampere 2017). My recent monograph 'Stage Design as Art and Occupation in Finnish Theatres. The Rise and Fall of a Professional Community' (Routledge 2024) deals with the changing artistic agency, professional identity and job description of Finnish stage designers in the everyday theatre work. When I started my part-time postgraduate studies in 1998, I had been working in the theatre field for 15 years and had no idea what research was all about. As artistic research was just taking its first steps at the time, I thought it wisest to stick to the tradition of human sciences, where I had more than enough to learn. Although I accomplished my doctoral degree at the University of Art and Design (now AaltoArts), I found my intellectual home and my own research community in Helsinki University at the Department of Theatre Studies, which flourished at the turn of the 1990s and 2000s, laying the foundations for later performance research. Shortly after completing my doctorate (2004), I was appointed as fix-term professor of Stage Design (2006–13) at a time when research studies were included to the basic training. As my students were primarily oriented towards practical work, I have ever since sought meaningful ways to combine theoretical thinking and concrete art-making in all my teaching. In other words, I have come to artistic research through my pedagogic practice. As I see it, the study of art in its current form is always based on knowledge or understanding that is generated through experience and action, and shared with other people, often without words. I have tried to open up my views on artistic research in the teaching material I have edited (https://disco.teak.fi/taiteellinen-tutkimus/en/). I hope to continue a critical debate on the subject in the years to come.

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