New profile professor: Petra Bauer

Petra Bauer is trained in fine art, but has always worked with photography and moving images. She took her master's degree in fine art at Malmö Art Academy, did her doctorate at Konstfack, and in 2016 she became Professor of Moving Image at the fine art programme at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. For the past three years, sha has been head of the Department for Research and Further Education in fine art and architecture at the Royal Institute of Art.

What does one do as a profile professor and why did the assignment interest you?
– Together with my colleagues, John-Paul Zaccarini, Kent Olofsson, Rebecca Hilton and Hanna Husberg at the Research Centre, we are responsible for the doctoral studies at SKH. We are also tasked with facilitating, supporting and encouraging current and future research at the school and, not least, building stronger links between research and education.

As a profile professor, I also have responsibility for the area of Art, Technology and Materiality. I am very much looking forward to contributing my knowledge to that area, and to continue to explore, experiment and develop the relationship between art, technology and materiality together with colleagues and students.

As an individual artist, filmmaker and artistic researcher, I have long been interested in how aesthetics condition the political subject, i.e. what the image and the narrative – its materiality – is able to do at a certain time and in a certain place. I always work with existing communities and networks in civil society, and my practice can be described as being at the intersection of film, socially engaged art and activism.

What is your research about?
– For many years now, I have been working on a major project in which I revisit the character Jeanne Dielman in Chantal Akerman's film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles from 1975. At its completion the project will consist of four films. The first two films are made in collaboration with the London-based feminist organization Southall Black Sisters and the sex worker-led organization SCOT-PEP in Edinburgh. The latest film in the series, fifteen zero three sixteen january two thousand sixteen, which I made with Marius Dybwad Brandrud and activist Carolina Sinisalo, explores how everyday routines and gestures are transformed when a mother loses her child in the violence impacting the outskirts of the cities in Sweden since the early 2000s. The film depicts how a home can hold both mourning and resistance. We are currently touring the film to various community centres and cinemas for discussions about images, mourning, hope and shared responsibility.

What are you looking forward to here at your new workplace?
– There are so many things I'm looking forward to, but I'll try to describe some of them:

I am an artist working with and in film in the context of contemporary art. My work is mainly shown in museums, art galleries and biennials, although I also flirt a little with film festivals and cinemas. One of the things I most look forward to is getting to know new colleagues and also new fields and scenes – in addition to film & media, also the expressions that can be related to performative practices such as theatre, dance, choreography, mime and acting, circus, opera and other traditions that exist at SKH. I am curious about what can arise when different expressions meet and interact with each other. My conviction is that in the encounter with different elements, in the glitch that is created, new expressions can arise. And although I myself do not work with VR and AI, I am very interested in participating in and facilitating critical discussion about how we as artists, filmmakers and practitioners can relate to these new technologies, explore its limitations, potentials, and not least its political framework.

From the set of ”Nothing about us without us”, 2017. (Photo: Frances Stacey)