elena cologni

Through my research I develop dialogic and situated artistic strategies for observing, recording and stimulating an awareness of experiences of the everyday. Within this context, I create instruments to facilitate: the sharing of insights, the location of situated knowledges and the arising of new questions from within our relations with one another, place and the environment. This is done through an interdisciplinary approach where artistic research intersects with environmental psychology, care ethics, philosophy, and gender studies.

Subject Specialism: Fine Art (site specific, art in the public space, dialogic, performance, sculpture, drawing) as interface in society (psychology and sociology, gendered cognition, care ethics, dialogism), memory studies (cultural and communicative memory, memory and presentness), interdisciplinary approaches to research, art research methodologies (art as research as art). I welcome relevant PhD proposals.

CURRENT RESEARCH

My current practice research project aims at tracing a geography of difference through caring. and was built on previous investigative presentations, and conference papers  (CAA Chicago, Moleskine Foundation and Scali Urbani, Ars Electronica  , 2020) and exhibitions. The ongoing research has been presented in 2021 through, including: the solo show ‘Elena Cologni. Pratiche di cura, o del cur(v)are‘, curated by Gabi Scardi, and the series of site specific interventions  The Body of/art Work, which premiered at the Italian Pavilion, at the 17th Biennale of Architecture, La Biennale di Venezia  (2021) and other iterations. A panel discussion at the same Italian Pavilion included contributions by: Valeria Facchin, Gabi Scardi, Elke Krasny, Margherita Vanore, Helena Reckitt, Natalie Rudd, Merel Visse, and the curator of the Pavilion Alessandro Melis.

I co-lead the series Art & Care including examples of best practices from fellow artists, curators, academics and activists, impacting society, through the lens of creative research and care ethics, with Dr. Merel Visse, Director Medical and Health Humanities at Drew University (US) and Associate Professor at the University for Humanistic Studies in The Netherlands. This collaboration stems from previous relevant research you can read about here . We also offer the opportunities for candidates interested in Art & Care to join us through a PhD program based at the Cambridge School of Art in collaboration with Drew University

On methodology: My most recent publication Cologni, E. (2020). Caring-With Dialogic Sculptures. A Post-Disciplinary Investigation into Forms of Attachment. PsicoArt – Rivista Di Arte E Psicologia, 10(10), 19–64. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2038-6184/11444 discusses the ‘art practice as research as art’ approach adopted to investigate through dialogic art how identity formation is linked with micro-social experiences and place. This is introduced by the brilliant Caterina Albano (Reader at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design UAL)

RESEARCH BACKGROUND

• PhD Researcher (1999/2003) title: The Artist’s Performative Practice within the Anti-Ocularcentric Discourse (2004) University of the Arts London (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Scholarship). In it, I proposed the ‘performative’ in my work as an alternative to our visual-centric cultural context (Martin Jay), while reviewing the relationship between Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Gaze , and the Merleau Ponty’s concept of chiasm/intertwining (through Amelia Jones’ reading of it) within two areas of investigation: the self and strategies for its engagement with the external world. This finds correspondences in the practice in the continuous communication shift between artist and audience. Pioneer of art practice research, I contributed to the very first project on creative practice methodologies PARIP (2001/2006) with an interest in the paradoxical nature of performance documentation as a tool for research. This strategy has been adopted since in works such as: Ancora Cerca 1999, National Portrait Gallery, London; Morning Toilette, Tate Modern 2001, Tracing, Bologna, 2003 and Pollen Forecast, Anemofila, Istanbul 2006.
• Post Doctorate Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2004/06), where I conducted the project ‘Present Memory And Liveness In Delivery And Reception Of Video Documentation During Performance Art Events’, in collaboration with Psychologist Tomas Suddendorf. This was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, from which the Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding series, 2005-2006 was presented internationally.
• Research Fellow at York Saint John’s University (2007/09), during which time the book Mnemonic Present, Shifting Meaning (Mercurio, Turin 2009) was published, with texts by texts from Amelia Jones, Kelina Gotman, Andrea Lissoni, Helena Blaker. Through the series of performances Mnemonic Present, Un-Folding, a relationship is sought between liveness, present and memory, through a correspondence between the memorization by the audience and the creation-use of the video document that occurs during the performances themselves. Further developed related projects include Re-Moved at Glasgow international 08 Biennale 2008, and Geomemos, Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2009.
• Research Artist in Residence at the Faculty of Experimental Psychology University of Cambridge (2011/13), in collaboration with Prof Lisa Saksida. This developed through investigative public workshops (1 and 2) under the umbrella project Rockfluid (awarded with two Grant of the Arts, Arts Council of England, and Escalator Visual Art Retreat at Wysing Arts Centre, Escalator live art, Colchester Arts Centre). An attempted to investigate perception and memory in relation to place has informed a number of subsequent body of work, including: Spa(e)cious (Wysing Art Centre, Galleria Artra Milan, MK Gallery Milton Keynes, Philosophy and performance group, performance Studies international and Kingston University Art Research Unit, Bergamo Scienza).
• Associate of Creativities in Intercultural Arts Network (Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 2013/2016), where I also taught on the Arts, Creativities Education and Culture Mphil course. I supported the organisation of the  Conference
• Artist Fellow Homerton College (University of Cambridge) 250th Anniversary (2018). Outcomes include the exhibition  Care: from Periphery to Centre, and accompanying events, based around material from the College archive. The exhibition and site-specific installation were developed in response to the history of the College, through research in the archives, and in consultation with the 250 Archive Working Group. This group includes Archivist Svetlana Paterson, historian of science Dr Melanie Keene, and educationalist and social historian and Emeritus Fellow Dr Peter Cunningham, and in collaboration with the Harlow Art Trust.