Doctoral Supervisors’ Summer School
The summer school’s focus will be on the doctoral supervision in the arts, specifically on questions of quality.
Theme: quality
The summer school continues the series of doctoral supervisors’ summer schools previously organised in Utrecht (2023) and Copenhagen (2024). The focus will remain on the doctoral supervision in the arts. In the Helsinki edition, specific focus will be put on questions of quality: What constitutes the quality of a supervision process in the arts? The question addresses both the quality of supervision practices and the challenges of aiming at high quality of the artistic and research outcomes as well as the quality of the experience of the process itself. We have invited two experienced supervisors, Sher Doruff and Gediminas Urbonas, to facilitate impulse sessions. The programme will be planned in a way that enables both informal collegial discussions and structured work in small groups. All participants will stay at the venue for the entire duration of the programme, which creates a coherent mental space for collegial exchange.
The supervisors’ summer school 2025 focuses on questions of quality. Doctoral projects in artistic research differ from each other significantly in terms of methods, themes and formats. This desired diversity brings challenges in terms of quality criteria. Artists, scholars and experts supervising doctoral projects in the arts, often come from very different backgrounds, and the level of their previous knowledge of artistic research may vary significantly. It is not unusual that even within one institution, the individual supervisors do not know much of the supervising practices of each other.
A similar problem can be observed on the international level. Universities, even those operating within the same networks, are not actively reflecting on the institutional differences that would enhance both their collaboration and their supervisors’ competences in the field of artistic research. Until today, developing criteria regarding the quality of artistic research and the coherence of the field through supervising practices tends to remain a fragmentary endeavor. More communication and exchange concerning the criteria for quality amongst the supervisors of doctoral theses in artistic research is therefore highly desirable. The supervisors’ summer school 2025 aims at tackling these challenges and sharing experiences and good practices across the different interest areas and institutions, in the name of quality.
When looked at through the lens of quality, the task of supervising artistic research doctorates appears highly demanding and multifaceted. The supervisor has many overlapping roles from a formal gatekeeper to a supportive dialogue partner and a mentor. This summer school aims to be a venue for sharing the experience of good ways of dealing with all possible roles and the delicate shifts between them as well as for reflecting on especially tricky issues and new demands imposed on supervisors by the rapidly changing technological framing conditions of art and research practices.
Issues we imagine to be worked on include
- the tensional relation between ethical reflection and evaluation
- data as profitable resource vs generous sharing of materials
- coping with the canon – politics of citing
- are we witnessing a shift from ethical reflection to ethical regulation?
- rules and responsibility
- sharing and developing of feedback methods
- practices of group supervising and supervising groups
- how to deal with AI?
Contact details for the summer school
-
Michaela Bränn
- Asiantuntija, Opintopalvelut Kuvataideakatemia, Kuvataideakatemia
- +358406313553
- michaela.brann@uniarts.fi
Theme: quality
The summer school continues the series of doctoral supervisors’ summer schools previously organised in Utrecht (2023) and Copenhagen (2024). The focus will remain on the doctoral supervision in the arts. In the Helsinki edition, specific focus will be put on questions of quality: What constitutes the quality of a supervision process in the arts? The question addresses both the quality of supervision practices and the challenges of aiming at high quality of the artistic and research outcomes as well as the quality of the experience of the process itself. We have invited two experienced supervisors, Sher Doruff and Gediminas Urbonas, to facilitate impulse sessions. The programme will be planned in a way that enables both informal collegial discussions and structured work in small groups. All participants will stay at the venue for the entire duration of the programme, which creates a coherent mental space for collegial exchange.
The supervisors’ summer school 2025 focuses on questions of quality. Doctoral projects in artistic research differ from each other significantly in terms of methods, themes and formats. This desired diversity brings challenges in terms of quality criteria. Artists, scholars and experts supervising doctoral projects in the arts, often come from very different backgrounds, and the level of their previous knowledge of artistic research may vary significantly. It is not unusual that even within one institution, the individual supervisors do not know much of the supervising practices of each other.
A similar problem can be observed on the international level. Universities, even those operating within the same networks, are not actively reflecting on the institutional differences that would enhance both their collaboration and their supervisors’ competences in the field of artistic research. Until today, developing criteria regarding the quality of artistic research and the coherence of the field through supervising practices tends to remain a fragmentary endeavor. More communication and exchange concerning the criteria for quality amongst the supervisors of doctoral theses in artistic research is therefore highly desirable. The supervisors’ summer school 2025 aims at tackling these challenges and sharing experiences and good practices across the different interest areas and institutions, in the name of quality.
When looked at through the lens of quality, the task of supervising artistic research doctorates appears highly demanding and multifaceted. The supervisor has many overlapping roles from a formal gatekeeper to a supportive dialogue partner and a mentor. This summer school aims to be a venue for sharing the experience of good ways of dealing with all possible roles and the delicate shifts between them as well as for reflecting on especially tricky issues and new demands imposed on supervisors by the rapidly changing technological framing conditions of art and research practices.
Issues we imagine to be worked on include
- the tensional relation between ethical reflection and evaluation
- data as profitable resource vs generous sharing of materials
- coping with the canon – politics of citing
- are we witnessing a shift from ethical reflection to ethical regulation?
- rules and responsibility
- sharing and developing of feedback methods
- practices of group supervising and supervising groups
- how to deal with AI?
Contact details for the summer school
-
Michaela Bränn
- Asiantuntija, Opintopalvelut Kuvataideakatemia, Kuvataideakatemia
- +358406313553
- michaela.brann@uniarts.fi