Ingvill Fossheim

At the Saari Residence, I will focus on the written component of my article-based doctoral thesis “BioCostume: Experimental Costume Design with Biobased Co-Actants” (2020–) for Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Even though knowledge of fabrics and materials is a fundamental part of a costume designer’s practice, an artistic practice that incorporates knowledge of systems and investigates biobased material development as part of performance creation is rare. My doctoral research addresses this gap in artistic practice and academic research. A key interest of my thesis is to explore how an ecologically informed choice of materials in costume design can contribute to new perceptions and an understanding of material agency, where an ecologically responsible and accountable praxis is considered valuable with implications beyond the performance event. As such, it resides at the intersection of aesthetics and ethics. My main research question is: How can a costume designer’s development and application of biobased materials have agency and enable the emergence of new modes of artistic expression? The main method of this multi-modal inquiry is my artistic practice as a costume designer and maker, developed in relation to a theoretical framework where Costume Thinking (Pantouvaki 2020) and the concepts of Intra-Action (Barad 2007) and Extramaterial (Grosz 2017) are central. A costume holds the agency to offer alternative perspectives, entry points, from which we may engage in dialogue, discussion and reflections on issues and topics relevant beyond the context of performance and art. This research project aims to develop critical insights in the academic field of costume research, and in our understanding of what the agency of costume material and the praxis of a costume designer may look like in the 21st Century.

As a freelance artist and researcher, it is a great honour and privilege to spend two months at the Saari Residence, benefitting from its established and well-functioning resources and infrastructures. During my residency, I will work on one of the articles – or expositions – of my thesis. The case study for this work is my explorative costume colouring practice with Beta vulgaris, the common beetroot, and the impermanent and unstable qualities of its colour expressions.

Ingvill Fossheim is a costume designer and scenographer, as well as a doctoral candidate at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture. She creates designs for live performance and mediated works, including contemporary dance, opera, live- & and performance art, theatre, and audio plays; in purpose-built as well as adapted and/or reclaimed performance spaces. By exploring ways to investigate biobased materials and to incorporate systems knowledge as part of contemporary performance-making processes, she is developing new ground for her artistic praxis and contributing more broadly to the critical discourse on materiality in the field. She seeks to orient her design praxis towards a more responsible, resilient and regenerative approach to materials. She is of Norwegian, Swedish and Sámi heritage, and has been learning about motherhood since 2011. She lives and works between Tromsø (Sápmi/Norway) and Helsinki (Finland).