Since 2020 Steinunn Knúts Önnudóttir has been a PhD student at the Malmö Theatre Academy and is now defending her dissertation project: “How Little Is Enough? Sustainable Methods of Performance for Transformative Encounters.” Part of her PhD defence is the exposition at IAC during the Malmö Gallery Weekend (26 September to 3 October 2024).
In her PhD project Steinunn has been exploring sustainable methods of creating transformative encounters with the audience through participatory and site-specific performances. Could you outline the results of your research with some examples?
To give a brief answer to a more that four years of study is hard, but I can give it a try.
The results of my research manifest in multiple ways, with the artworks themselves being central outcomes of my artistic inquiry. Throughout my PhD, I created four performance works: No Show (2020), Island (2020), Strings (2022), and Pleased to Meet You (2022/2023).
In each of these site specific and participatory performances, I have explored certain artistic methods such as „porous and embracing dramaturgy“ and „performative encounters“. These methods create a space where participants are encouraged to share their stories, perspectives, and values, fostering reflection on their experiences in relation to others, the site, and the host of the performance. Through interviews with participants, hosts and guest, I discovered that these encounters can have a transformative impact, promoting reflection and potentially inspiring more sustainable behaviors.
Also, I developed an artistic method with two complementary strands. The first emphasizes the personal and subjective nature of both art-making and artistic research, which I call the „me-thod“ – a pursuit of self-knowledge. The second strand is the „How Little is Enough?“ approach, which focuses on minimizing production and embracing environmentally sustainable practices. Together, these two strands aim to enhance the existential sustainability of the maker, ensuring that the creative process is both personally fulfilling and ecologically responsible.
The concept of existential sustainability weaves together the different layers of my artistic research. It serves as both the subject matter of my performances and the guiding principle behind the creative process.
I have shared these findings across various platforms. My thesis includes four research publications: How Little is Enough? Embracing and Porous Dramaturgies for Transformative Encounters (a video article), How Little is Enough? A Quest for Existential Sustainability (a video article), Transformative Encounters (a podcast series), and How Little is Enough? Testimony of a Pilgrim (a book). These works explore and communicate the effects of these performance methods, contributing to the broader conversation around sustainability in the performing arts.
You have chosen a quite unusual visual form of presenting your PhD thesis via the Research Catalogue, the international database for artistic research (https://www.researchcatalogue.net). Could you explain the principle and how the presentation actually works?
In addition to individual publications across various media, I have created online expositions for each of my performance projects. These expositions are rooted in the concept of the performance itself, as I aim to follow the logic and structure of the artwork in the exposition format. For example, when disseminating my first work, No Show, which was a solitary performance where a guest read letters from an absent host in a stranger's home, I analyzed the work through a series of letters in the online exposition, using the same format as the performance to present my findings. Each performance has its own dedicated exposition.
I have gathered all of my research findings, documentation, and publications into a single, online exposition on Research Catalogue, which serves as a platform specifically designed for the presentation of artistic research. As a reader, you just start from the front page, and you can navigate the different aspects of the research. I have divided the exposition into three categories, the performance archive, research publications and method development. And then you have the personal essay, where I try to give an overview of my intentions and put things into perspective.
In which way did the Theatre Academy and IAC as the Faculty’s research infrastructure helped you to successfully carry out your artistic research?
I have felt incredibly privileged to conduct my research at Malmö Theatre Academy, to be part of the Inter Arts Center and not the least to be a part of Agenda 2030 Graduate School. Being in such a dynamic and supportive environment has been invaluable to my creative and academic journey. The academy provides not only facilities that enable me to explore and realize my artistic visions but also a community of colleagues who inspire and challenge me. The sense of friendship and shared purpose within this artistic hub has been deeply motivating.
Read more about the Agenda 2030 Graduate School.
Steinunn Knúts Önnudóttir's exposition at the Malmö Gallery Weekend 2024.
Finally, how do you intend to use your research results for future projects? And what is next on your agenda?
I intend to continue my artistic research journey, building on the methods and insights I’ve developed throughout my PhD. I'm already planning a new project, set to begin in 2025, which will focus on the concept of artistic pilgrimages. I see this as a natural extension of my work in what I have been calling “relation-specific performance”. The aim is to create experiences that invite participants to engage with their environment and nurture their connections to the world around them through the act of pilgrimage, understood as a form of introspection, relationality, and sustainability. Through this project, I hope to further expand the ways in which art can foster meaningful, reflective, and transformative encounters.
Steinunn Knúts Önnudóttir, born in Malmö in 1965, is a performance maker and artistic researcher based in Iceland. She has worked as a director, writer, dramaturge, and performer in Iceland, the UK, Scandinavia, and beyond, with her work playing in Reykjavik, Malmö, New York, Vienna, online, on television, and radio. Steinunn was a dramaturge at the City Theatre in Reykjavik and a lecturer and dean at the Iceland University of the Arts. In her work, she focuses on existentially sustainable, relation- specific performances and performative encounters. Steinunn is also a mother of three, a theologian, life coach, and pottery maker. As part of the project, Knúts Önnudóttir is releasing a book containing a concluding essay called “Testimony of a Pilgrim”, and the manuscripts from her performances.
Find out more about Steinunn Knúts Önnudóttir's artistic research.