Public Colloquium 2025

Public Colloquium of the Artistic Research PhD Programme (PhD in Art)

Convened by Miya Yoshida

We are living in the Age of Light—an era in which time and space are continuously measured, merged, and shared at the speed of light. Light has become both a catalyst and a controller of contemporary life. Our episte-ontology moves and dances toward a new grammar of the world—a world and way of world-making shaped by light.

In this moment of profound transformation, what does it mean to engage in both doing and thinking within the context of artistic research? How can one fully inhabit their own practice while also critically reflecting on it—finding a personal language, vocabulary, and form of articulation? How might we frame and give context to the ephemeral, fluid, and sensitive states of artistic activity? What kinds of processes can lead us toward knowing, toward giving shape to what may ultimately be considered (non-)knowledge?

The Public Colloquium 2025 presents twenty works-in-progress by doctoral candidates from the PhD in Art program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Their artistic research—ongoing, exploratory, and deeply situated—will be shared within the vibrant framework of the ZFF, inviting open exchange and collective reflection.

In response to these presentations, our four invited guests – Eva-Maria Stadler, Imogen Stidworthy, Margarete Jahrmann, and Simon Bayly – will offer reflections, critiques, and discussions. Together, they will explore the research questions, chosen methodologies, and the artistic and academic strategies involved. The public colloquium will be documented through photography and drawings by the artist Xiaopen Zhou.

The colloquium fosters thoughtful exchange, creative inspiration, critical imagination, and realisation among all participants.

Participants: Andrew Champlin, carrick bell, Conny Zenk, Corç George Demir, Imani Rameses, Jo O’Brien, Johanna Bruckner, Joseph Leung, Jošt Franko, Judit Navratil, Konstanze Stoiber, Lilla Szasz, Margit Busch, Marie Reichel, Olga Staňková, Oscar Gardea, Sanja Anđelković, Tamara Antonijević, Wolfgang Konrad, Žarko Aleksić

Guest critics: Eva-Maria Stadler, Imogen Stidworthy, Margarete Jahrmann, Simon Bayly

Drawing Artist: Xiaopeng Zhou

Guest Critics

Eva Maria Stadler is a curator and professor for Art and Knowledge Transfer. She is head of the Institute of Art and Society at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she also served as vice-rector from 2019 to 2023. Stadler has taught at the University of Fine Arts Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, and the State Academy for Fine Arts Stuttgart. Her previous curatorial roles include director of Galerie der Stadt Schwaz (2012–2013), director of the Grazer Kunstverein (1994–2005), curator in residence at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2006–2007), and curator for contemporary art at the Belvedere Museum Vienna (2007–2011).
She lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Imogen Stidworthy is an artist whose sculptural sound and video installations explore different forms of voicing, communication, and their impact on subjectivity and social realities. Her work often engages with people for whom verbal language is unstable, inaccessible, or challenged—due to trauma, aphasia, autism, or cultural and linguistic difference. Stidworthy completed a PhD in artistic research at Lund University in 2020 with the dissertation Voicing on the Borders of Language. She is currently Reader in Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores University. Her work has been exhibited at major international exhibitions including Documenta 12 (2007), Bergen Assembly (2013, 2019), São Paulo Biennial (2014), Suzhou Biennial (2016), and Survival Kit, Riga (2020). Solo exhibitions include Museum Dr Guislain (2022), Netwerk Aalst (2019), and Württembergischer Kunstverein (2018). She has also curated exhibitions at the Tapies Foundation, Barcelona (2012) and M HKA, Antwerp (2008).

Margarete Jahrmann is an artist and researcher working at the intersection of ludic art, neuroscience, and political imagination. She is Professor and head of the department Experimental Game Cultures at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 2024, she launched the Austrian Science Fund project The Psycholudic Approach: Exploring Play for a Viable Future, focusing on ludic cultures and non-human agencies. Jahrmann’s practice spans installation, performance, AI, and roleplay-based works, often addressing democratic, ecological, and cognitive challenges.
Her artistic research project ROBOPSY (2025–) investigates the intersections of robotics, psychopolitics, and play. She has exhibited internationally at venues including Biennale Habana, Kunsthalle Ulm, re:publica Berlin, and AIL Vienna. Her accolades include the Prix Ars Electronica, transmediale, and the 2020 Media Art Prize of the City of Vienna.
More: margaretejahrmann.net

Simon Bayly is an academic and writer whose work explores performance in its broadest social and philosophical contexts. He is co-leader of the Postgraduate Research Programme at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, supporting over 70 doctoral researchers across music, theatre, live art, and art therapies. Bayly’s research focuses on socially engaged art, intentional communities, protest and performance beyond traditional venues, and the intersection of performance with philosophy and psychoanalysis.
His book A Pathognomy of Performance was published by Palgrave in 2011. Recent projects include co-editing the “On Meeting” issue of Performance Research (2024) and contributing an essay with Ira Brand to Rethinking Roland Barthes Through Performance (2023).

Xiaopeng Zhou is an artist working across drawing, video, and installation. His practice is rooted in long-term observation and daily interactions, reflecting on human and non-human relations, particularly the ethical and visual implications of interactions with geological materials and ecological systems. Zhou seeks to connect lived experiences across different contexts through subtle, attentive forms of witnessing.
He currently lives and works between Berlin and Guangzhou. His recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Kunstverein Friedrichshafen (2024) and group shows at Para Site, Hong Kong (2024), Taipei International Video Art Exhibition (2023), West Den Haag (2023), He Xiangning Art Museum (2022), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (2021), and Kunsthaus Dresden (2021).