News

Opponent for a Public PhD Defence at University of Lapland

On the 16th January I was the Opponent in the public defence by the visual and socially-engaged artist Katja Yuhola, of her PhD project submitted under the title – International Socially Engaged Art Symposium: A Place of Creation, Shared Knowledge, and Conversational Art. Katja pursued her PhD research in the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland, and was supervised by Professor Jaana Erkkilä-Hill.

Katja’s excellent thesis contextualised her symposium series ISEAS that she has led since 2017, supported by a series of published articles, and a solid discussion of the ethics and theories of socially engaged arts practice. We were hosted very well by the University of Lapland in Rovanienmi, and the public defence was well received by the audience and the institution. It was also very exciting to be in a snowy winter landscape in January!

review of The Scores Project now online

The Scores Project presents 11 works or projects initiated between 1953 and 1975, that used scores within their realisation, their dissemination, their presentation, or their documentation. These scores are accompanied by contextualising essays and digitised copies of printed, audio, and video material in a web environment that mixes archive, essay collection, anthology and exhibition. Each key work is represented by multiple items including photographs, video clips, notebooks, correspondence, publicity materials, as well as drawings, notations, diagrams, instructions and other forms by which the score is presented.

The publication [aims] to find better ways to share and educate audiences about these complex and untidy works. These are works that in library or conservation terms involves bits of paper, cards, grainy video recordings, notes and sketches. Digital technology and an online platform allow readers and viewers to engage with these in new ways, and to encounter them in the context of framing essays and scholarship.

You can read and explore The Scores Project here: https://www.getty.edu/publications/scores/intro/

My review is available on the Leonardo Reviews site: https://leonardo.info/review/2025/12/the-scores-project-essays-on-experimental-notation-in-music-art-poetry-and-dance-1950

review of Alchemies of Theater now live online

My review of a new publication on the work of Dick Higgins, Alchemies of Theater: Plays, Scores, Writings edited by Bonnie Marranca, is now live on the Leonardo Reviews site.

Marranca’s focus is on performance theory and history, and she frames each of the four sections with a short prefatory essay. These give some historical and critical context for the works, and offer background information on productions, or publication, gathered from the archive, or through correspondence with collaborators, performers, family and friends of Higgins.

The book introduced me to works by Higgins I was unaware of and gives a sense of the range and variety of his practice. You can read the review at:

https://leonardo.info/review/2025/07/alchemies-of-theater-plays-scores-writings