Research Through Art and Design - course
The course introduces a variety of approaches, methodologies, issues and concerns in ‘research through practice’.
ARTISTIC RESEARCH HUB
Artistic research hub gathers the School of Arts, Design and Architecture´s departments and their research groups, people and doctoral programmes involved in artistic research. It brings together researchers who work with materials, processes, performances, and artefacts as ways of generating knowledge, often across traditional disciplinary boundaries. In artistic research, the roles of the practitioner and of the researcher are deeply entwined. In Aalto, we expand from this standing, and research includes a variety of forms and practices.
The hub serves as a shared entry point for students, researchers, collaborators and anyone interested in how artistic practices and research are entangled at Aalto.
Courses and Activities
Art of Research Conference
Biennial conference series promoting dialogue between art and design research practices.
The 21st Century Art & Science Lab - Course
A practice-based master's course, open to doctoral students, at the intersection of art & science, building from wet-lab practice to artistic production.
AREA - Doctoral School
Artistic Research Doctoral School of Aalto (AREA)
Research Catalogue
The Research Catalogue is an international platform for artistic research, used at Aalto to document, publish and share research through practice.
Events
Public defence, Design, MA Emilia Tikka
Design in between worlds. Bioscience imaginaries and living relations of reindeer worlds
Public defence in Design, MA Leonardo Hidalgo Uribe
Colours also grow from the land: rethinking dominant textile colour practices through ethnographic research on bio-based dyeing crafts.
Public defence, Photography, MA Sheung Yiu
Hyperimage: Photography Beyond The Human Scale
Public defence in Contemporary Art, MFA Abdullah Qureshi
Mythological Migrations: Imagining Queer Muslim Utopias—Artistic and Curatorial Strategies of Collaboration, Collective Resistance, and Coalition Building (title of the thesis).
AREA Lunch Talks on Artistic Research // April 2026
AREA is launching a new series of informal lunch talks dedicated to artistic research at Aalto ARTS.
Public defence, Visual Communication Design, MFA Laureen Mahler
Making/Space: A Holistic Approach to Designing through Interdisciplinary Practice
Doctoral Thesis
Public defence in Design, MA Noora Yau
Shimmering Wood – Experimenting with Nanocellulose-Based Structural Colour (title of the thesis).
Public defence in Design, MA Emmi Pouta
Layered Approaches: Woven eTextile Explorations through Applied Textile Thinking (title of the thesis)
Defence in the field of Design: MA Julia Valle Noronha
"Becoming with Clothes" explores paths to more active relationships between people and the things they wear. It offers reflections on a matter that touches us all: the ways humans and clothes interact.
Faculty
Doctoral Researchers
Riikka Latva-Somppi
