Stitching Tracks – exploring the spatial experience of  the border

In his research Jaakko Ruuska is studying the possibilities for art to participate the production of the public space in self-motivated ways.

In his postdoc project Stitching Tracks, Jaakko Ruuska continues his research on the spatial experience, which he calls off-connection. The subject of this site-specific project is the border region between Russia and Finland. In the analytic framework of the off-connection, the site of the border appears as the intersection between actual and virtual, utopia and memory, and discursive and non-human space.

As a concept, off-connection is based on the thesis of Ruuska’s Doctor of Fine Arts (2024), in which it articulated the interplay of the absent in the spatial experience. In his postdoctoral research Ruuska continues his exploration by studying the performativity of text in the spatial experience.

For this research project, Ruuska convened the Disconnected Space research group, that included the documentary photographer Hanna Koikkalainen, visual artist Pavel Rotts, the playwright Mikhail Durnenkov, dancer-choreographer Kati Korosuo and performance artist Timo Jokitalo. The first public presentation of the artistic research conducted by the research group was shown at the contemporary art biennial called M_itä? held in Joensuu Art Museum between the 13th of May until the 17th of Sept. in 2023.

The postdoctoral project will compile the group’s artistic research into a book, which is due to be published by the end of the year 2025. Additionally, Ruuska will organize a Research Retreat to the Russian Border, a traversing symposium, which will be part of the 6th Uniarts Research Pavillion to be held in the summer of 2025.

Project name

Stitching Tracks – exploring the spatial experience of  the border

Time

01/2024-12/2025

Lead organisation

Kuvataideakatemian tutkimustoiminta ja tohtorikoulutus

Contact

  • Jaakko Ruuska

    Visiting researcher, Artistic research Academy of Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts
    jaakko.ruuska@uniarts.fi