Research Pascal Gielen

Abstract

Mapping Cultural Semi-Public Spaces will develop a methodological toolbox that can be activated by cultural and citizens organizations to map their social infrastructures and impact. Cultural semi-public spaces are in between the private and the public spaces and have the potential to induce meaningful political participation between strangers. Cultural semi-public spaces, which can be seen as spaces that are constituted by cultural practices (EmpowerCulture proposal, 2024), can catalyze political empowerment and participation. Innovative and meaningful ways of political participation are much needed because, in a time of multiple crises, citizen engagement in various forms contributes to the robustness and quality of politics and society. Although governments often initiate citizen participation, many initiatives are exclusive and tokenistic, leading to even more alienation and distrust (Wolf & Van Dooren, 2021), as well as discontent and detachment (Fernández-Martínez et al., 2020). Cultural semi-public spaces can offer new forms of political participation and engagement. They combine the security of the private sphere with the responsibility towards strangers, which is a core element of the public sphere. The artistic nature of cultural semi-public spaces offers a re-imagination of the roles of citizens away from classic forms of participation (Elstub & Escobar, 2019). Cultural semi-public spaces allow for experimentation with agonistic democratic participation because, in these spaces, consensus is not put forward as the ultimate goal. Cultural semi-public spaces are places where contradictions can be shown and fought out (Gielen, 2023) in a productive manner. This taps into the appeal of political theorists such as Mouffe (2013), who claim that not providing enough room for contention is one of the reasons large groups within society are not heard and are dissatisfied. It also resonates with recent policy conflict scholars such as Wolf & Van Dooren (2017), who brought attention to the productive and generative capacities of conflict needed within democratic policymaking. Subjective mapping is an approach to situated cartography that maps places from the perspective of lived experiences, by communities with a shared interest or needs. The mappings are developed during participative workshops with local communities who visualize their environment through graphs, maps, drawings, and photography — based on particular questions around the use and impact of a space. The production process supports people in mapping their environments from the inside out, starting from a placebased understanding grounded in lived experience. The resulting alternative cartographies provide insight into realities that are mostly excluded from dominant standardized maps. Through participatory mapping processes and the dissemination of alternative mappings, it contributes to the empowerment and the democratic relevance of their communities. In the Mapping Cultural Semi-Public Spaces research a senior researcher post-doc in the arts develops and tests the artistic toolbox and a predoc researcher in political science analyzes and evaluates the workshops. Through participant observation and interviews with participants, we will study, analyze, and evaluate how semipublic spaces can be mapped, what this process does, how it is used, by whom, and what it can do in terms of meaningful participation. We will examine if and how these semipublic spaces indeed provide space needed for other sorts of meaningful political participation with room for dissensus and conflict in empowerment processes.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Co-promoter: Van Dooren Wouter

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Within the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), ZorgKunstZorg is a knowledge cluster that focuses on the interrelationship of art and health. In collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Antwerp, we join forces to collect, deepen, share and apply knowledge. ZKZ stands for a holistic approach to health, which embraces physical, mental and social resilience. At ZKZ we investigate and support the interaction between art and health from two perspectives: how can care improve the artistic work and well-being of artists and creative professionals? And in what ways does art contribute to the well-being of individuals and society? Our mission is to contribute to greater well-being in society through research and collaboration with artists and scientists.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The Mottolese Archive is an artistic research project aiming to constitute a video archive never made public: the fifteen-years long documentation of the local environmental struggles created by 70-years old former worker of Taranto's ILVA Piero Mottolese. The largest steel-plant in Europe, ILVA was declared a case of environmental and health disaster1 and since 2005 it is the object of a civil society engagement of great complexity. The project connects with the case of the Hoboken e-waste recycle plant in Antwerp. It looks at it under the lens of its historic identity of processing metals for the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga while currently embodying some core issues of the energetic transition. The research questions the relationship of counter-archiving with the local environmental justice struggles vis-à-vis the global ecological crisis, and different video documentary forms set in a dialogue. It is based on the dialectic between a participative platform, the counter-archiving of different past and present video material and exchanges with the fields of Environmental Justice and Political Ecology - exploring the correlation between local and global environmental critical matters. The research project's outputs will include a series of collective SESSIONS, a WORKSHOP, a SYMPOSIUM (in Taranto and Antwerp), a DOCU-SERIES and the CONSTITUTION of an online permanent video archive. It will involve about twenty local organisations and a number of international academics, artists, activists and researchers. The project finds reference in Expanded Public Space artistic practice, Art and Activism, Counter-archiving and experimental video documentary forms while responding to the vision and mission of the ARIA Program to foster the collaboration between art and science.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Polarisation threatens the transformative capacity of cities at a time when collective plans for a more sustainable and resilient urban future are needed. The typical answer to polarisation has been to strengthen consensus building among stakeholders, but such approaches are known to lead to alienation, tensions with existing democratic institutions, and an increasing gap with legal practice. CONTRA explores how institutionalising productive conflict can increase the transformative capacity needed in the transition towards more sustainable cities. Through a comparative study of urban planning law and practices focused on climate transition in 4 countries (Belgium; Netherlands; Norway and Poland), we study how conflict is handled and investigate the connection with political and legal institutions to determine whether conflict is suppressed or actively used for sustainable transformation. We also test new ways to handle conflict. CONTRA pioneers a new model of living labs (Drama Labs) that uses theatre-based methods to experiment with productive conflict. Combining empirical investigations with action research through the Drama Labs, CONTRA responds to topic 2 and 3 of the call by building capacities for urban transformation grounded in urban liveability, inclusivity, and active community engagement, as well as improving non-physical infrastructure such as governance and regulatory processes.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Van Dooren Wouter
• Co-promoter: Coppens Tom
• Co-promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Co-promoter: van Zimmeren Esther

Research team(s)

• Politics & Public Governance

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In 'Connecting the dots', the challenges connected to the contemporary dualistic profile of the classically trained performing musician will be explored and addressed by developing a model for musical praxis which structurally integrates traditional and non-traditional artistic and meta-artistic skills and competences. In the 19th-century formalist perspective, a perfect rendition of a score was the ultimate goal for a performer. Generally and for a long time, this met the expectations of the audience - to be awed by virtuosity -, and of composers, for whom the performer served as a medium of transmitting their work in the most accurate way . Yet, expectations have shifted, and for the last decades, this traditional construct has been under pressure. This poses a fundamental urgency: to adapt classical music practice to today's requirements, without losing the quality, values and history of the profession. This doctoral research project focuses on the possibilities, opportunities and difficulties this process of reprofiling presents, and aims to design an integrated model which combines the traditional and non-traditional artistic and meta-artistic skills and competences. Contrary to the formalist approach, the socio-cultural concept of music regards music as a functional praxis within a specific social-cultural situation, an embodied and highly diverse social praxis within an integrated network of socially situated music-makers and listeners. In this research project, artistic creations in non-traditional settings are developed as an exemplary context where conventional and innovative practices and expectations meet. The interactive processes of creation, rehearsal and performance are investigated in order to determine the degree and intensity of participatory sense-making activities that take place between the different agents, how they are perceived and interpreted, and what the artistic consequences are. This brings us to the research question: What model(s) of musical praxis that reconcile(s)traditional performative practice and métier with contemporary requirements can be designed by investigating the processes of participatory sensemaking in non-traditional artistic creations? The research will be situated in a set of projects over the course of four years. Each project serves as an experiment in which practice led research takes place. The artistic practice represents a discourse with certain (implicit) meanings, shaped by artistic actions. During the creative process, artists constantly fill in these meanings by (undeliberately) setting artistic goals, making choices, taking (re)actions. In order to identify, analyse and connect individual actions and their impact, they need to be pulled from an implicit, intuitive level into a level of recognition and understanding. Observations of the artistic practice provide material, of which fragments are selected for stimulated recall and discussion in semi-structured interviews. This way, answers are searched inductively and participatory on the questions on what(artistic goals, choices, actions, repercussions...?), how (did this emerge and develop?) and why(were choices made, etc?). The collected information will be coded, analysed and processed through discourse analysis. Integrating this reflective layer into the creative process enhances the possibility to make substantiated choices, integrate these into process and content, and increase the intensity of the sense-making relationship. The findings for each project will be processed into a report, and used in the next. The results will further be used in the design of a creative-performative process-description model for musical praxis, appropriate for both traditional and non-traditional practice.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The Flemish Government appointed Pascal Gielen as curator of Cuture Talks - Commons. A conference in preparation of a commons proof cultural policy for Flanders. The conference zooms in on economic, digital and spatial commoning practices.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Today, socio-cultural work in Flanders is coming under increasing pressure. At lower levels of government, socio-cultural policy is being phased out and at other levels questions are being asked about the discretionary space and the roles of socio-cultural work. Support Center Socius requires scientific substantiation of the current value of socio-cultural actors. It is about gaining insight into the external perspective on socio-cultural work: what values do market players, governments and other civil society players attribute to socio-cultural work today? Hiva (KU Leuven) and ARIA (UAntwerp) are working together in this 1.5-year study.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Co-promoter: Oosterlynck Stijn

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The Flemish Broad Reconsederation (FBR) aims at a thorough review of the various expenditure items and, where relevant, cost coverage within the Flemish Budget. This aims to improve the quality of public finances in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. An important role is reserved for scientifically based insights. These insights may consist of research that has already been carried out, but may also require new research. Moreover, cooperation from the policy areas will always be required. This communication aims to describe the governance of the VBH. In addition, be elaborated a number of accompanying measures. These measures go beyond the VBH, but are necessary to be able to carry out the screening.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This post-doc project explores the notion of 'sustainable cooperation' within the field of participatory urban design. It asks which strategies citizens, municipal planners and professional designers mobilize in order to align their interests. Phase one (exploration) consists of individual interviews with citizens shaping their own urban environment. Phase two (excavation) consists of group interviews with citizens, planners and designers. Phase three ('consolidation') seeks to disseminate the findings within the Bostonian field of participatory urban design. This project will constitute a vital, intermediate step towards the development of the 'Design Beyond Boundaries' online platform.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Fellow: Volont Louis

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The Constituent Museum is a commission from the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp to Dr. Marlies De Munck and Prof. Dr. Pascal Gielen to make the organizational structure of the museum and its relationship with society 'constituent'. That is to say, more democratic, more open and more horizontal.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Co-promoter: De Munck Marlies

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The perception of the canon of post-war western art music today is still strongly determined by a constructed dichotomy which keeps Western art music separate from evolutions and radical experiments in jazz and black American music. The very extensive oeuvre and philosophical body of thought of the American composer Anthony Braxton, what he calls his Tri-Centric Thought Unit Construct (TCTUC), can be seen as the metaphorical elephant in the room. This unique oeuvre has been ignored to this day as part of a larger canon of post-war Western art music and is rarely performed as such. This research project takes Anthony Braxton's TCTUC as a starting point to see how I, as an interpreter of Braxton's music, can contribute to a broadening of this canon. The intention of this research is to approach a wide selection of Braxton's compositions on their own terms. By putting these works as specific case studies on the agenda of relevant actors such as the conservatory, contemporary music festivals and concert series and through recordings and other media, I hope to make a canon broadening possible through my practice as an interpreter. In addition to this I will address the gaps within the existing discourse on post-war Western art music through Braxton's own writings (Tri-Axium Writings) as well as recent texts by George Lewis, Benjamin Piekut, Georgina Born, a.o. The results of this research will be presented in the form of concerts, lectures, articles, workshops and recordings.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Convoking Cultural Commons is a pilot study in preparation for a new ERC application. This research aims to (1) test the "convoking" research method (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014) by (2) one or two case studies in the cultural sector. The pilot-study proposes to analyze and evaluate the relation between scientific research and cultural practices (of creative professionals and cultural organizations) via the experimental approach of convoking cultural commons. There is often too much distance between scientific research and the cultural practice, or, more general, between universities and societies. Cultural professionals mostly do not benefit much from academic research in the humanities. The validation and credit systems of universities often do not encourage academic interest in research with useful outcomes for creative practitioners. Through the research method of 'convocation' (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014) and by experimenting with the principles of 'commoning', including creative commons, peer-to-peer knowledge exchange, and open source dissemination, the CCRL aims to explore how an academic research agenda can be more in line with research questions of the cultural sector. How can scientific research serve concrete social interests while upholding the necessary quality criteria required by scientific and artistic standards? Research professors Marlies De Munck and Pascal Gielen, in collaboration with the cultural sector, will set up actual studies and experiment with them. The researcher will design, monitor, and evaluate a model for collaborative research. Finding a balance between social interests and scientific and artistic values is the overarching aim in this. For the sake of limiting the scope of the research, this study will be about cultural organizations and creative professionals who concern themselves with commoning practices and are interested in the theoretical and empirical outcomes of the research. The results, however, will have wider relevance for cultural domains, cultural and scientific policy, the humanities, and universities in general.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Practice-based research in the field of visual arts questioning the working methods and the processes used in a body of work from individual to collective creation. My vision is to co-develop productions that both speak their experience and vision, and are art works in their own right. In this study, I want to interrogate that process, what it yields for the community and for the world of art, in the case of my three most recent projects (one sculpture, two films): 1. 'Skull3'(Moscow Biennale, 2015), an installation constructed with artists/non-artists; 2. 'The Return of the Swallows' (Brussels, 1999-2004), a multimedia project with migrant/refugees communities, 3. 'I watched the white dogs of the dawn', (Duncormick-IRL, 2015-2017), my latest filmproject where I used collective memory and the notion of 'disenchantment' of a fishing community as a base for the creation of artistic work. I will develop the following elements for my theoretical&artistic framework (these elements will intersect and resonate with each other): 1.Trauma and resilience, 2.The role of the arts in community development, 3. The artist as agent in the community. The data I will analyse are my own plans/records of the dialogic process as it developed, and the visual data of the projects themselves: therefore, I will use the autoethnographic methodology. I will investigate the work of Beuys, specially the expanded conception of art, which includes one's values, attitudes and ways of thinking and will put it in a contemporary context. I will seek to ascertain 'if' an artist can play a more engaged, active role in society where s/he becomes a "partisan of the real", where through the collective work in these projects, we can reflexively and critically disrupt individualism in all its facets, from auteurism to neoliberalism to market-driven, globalization.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

How can design be a vehicle for political action and solidarity? How can one engage through the act of design, in complex politicized realities and how can design practices be a way to resist oppression and form a strategy to set up sustainable positions in fractured societies? These questions have become pertinent in my practice particularly through the experiences of working in Palestine. Building upon these relations and involvements I want to define conditions to empower the social, political and emancipatory impact of design. A subquestion is how to develop educational models that stimulate such design practices, ultimately arriving at design education that reinforces and commits to the economic, political and artistic independence of designers, especially for those in marginalized positions. Combined with literature research on alternative schools and design in suppressed realities, and through a wider framing of comparable practices, I will reflect upon these exchanges and develop collaborative models in which designers, crafts and the political realm meet. Specific conditions will be developed and tested in direct collaboration with Disarming Design from Palestine, the Birzeit University in Palestine, the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and foremost the Sint Lucas School of Arts. These findings will result in a publication that shows the potential for a design-mentality that supports social resilience, solidarity and equality, and secondly to the establishment of an educational platform for design in Palestine

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The general purpose of this study is to elucidate psychological and social risk factors for low back pain (LBP) in highly physically active adolescents. Using a qualitative research design, we will explore perceived causes (psychological and social) of LBP using female pre-professional dancers as a case study. This will lay the foundation for fundamental prospective studies examining causes of LBP in adolescents. Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The prevalence of LBP rapidly increases during adolescence, especially in females. The multidimensional nature (including biological, psychological and social factors) of LBP is widely recognized in adults, but has, despite the fact that LBP during adolescence is a risk factor for spinal pain in adulthood, rarely been investigated in adolescents. Elite adolescent dancers are a model population to unravel the etiology of adolescent LBP as they are a homogenous group that is highly physically active and that is at risk for developing LBP. The novelty of our approach is the unraveling of LBP from a multidisciplinary perspective in adolescents at risk for developing LBP in a challenging period of their life. The proposed qualitative methodology will allow to explore these factors in more depth, as validated questionnaires to examine psychological and social factors in adolescent dancers are lacking. The collaboration in this project between several disciplines will allow to obtain a more detailed insight in the person as a whole, including a great part of the individual and contextual factors underlying the etiology of LBP in highly active adolescents. More importantly, the results of the project will lay the foundation for the continuation of the research in the etiology of LBP in dancers and adolescents.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Roussel Nathalie
• Co-promoter: Gielen Pascal
• Co-promoter: van Breda Eric

Research team(s)

• Movement Antwerp (MOVANT)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

In this research the relation and mediation between top-down governance and bottom-up cultural organizations is studies from a juridical perspective. The postdoc research Maria Francesca De Tullio will analyze and develop regulations that support commoning practices and regional and urban cultural policies based on principles of the commons.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

It is only about sharing research information through lectures, introductions to concerts. The research information comes from the research that Arne Herman continues in the context of sustainable creativity research.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The central question in this study is how creative workers may contribute to the urban environment and what has been called 'the commons', how creative biotopes arise and how they can be maintained in a sustainable manner by city policies. Earlier research has shown that the urban context is the most important breeding ground for creativity. This study will address the social, economic and political conditions that cities (may) generate in order to develop a sustainable creative biotope. It revolves around such questions as: How do social conditions (for instance, networks, the creative class), economic conditions (for instance, competitive relationships), and political conditions (for instance, subsidies, democratic decision-making) affect urban creative biotopes? What kind of creative processes are viable, or not, under specific social, economic, and political circumstances? This study aims to make a contribution to research on creativity both empirically and theoretically.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gielen Pascal

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA)

Project type(s)

• Research Project