PRAXIS 2023

In the spring of 2023, the EKW was adapted to engage with the concerns of curators and art students at the masters level at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. As before, in this edition somatic and kinetic experimentation, theoretical readings, mapping and creative writing were part of the workshop. However, when engaging visual art students and emergent curators directly in sensorial explorations and embodied expression, the discussion prioritized perspectives on the body, movement, and affect present in performative practices and other art events. The workshop asked how different, and differently situated and abled bodies experience and negotiate embodied interaction with others, in space, with living beings, norms, personal habits, boundaries --- discussing affecting the public, being affected and becoming.

The facilitation involved somatic and movement awareness and a critical discussion of the complex relationship many of us have with our ever changing and diverse bodies, and the histories the body carries. Framed as a space for gentle exploration, the workshop tried to ask questions addressing uncomfortable tensions that cross through our embodied existence in late capitalist societies and competitive knowledge economies. The workshop was thus considered particularly fruitful to think of critical and pedagogical interactions in art spaces, with audiences and artists alike.

At completion of the sessions, each student submitted a 4-page essay connecting the lived experience of selected embodied exercises with one or two of the texts discussed in class.

Supervisor feedback

“I was sufficiently convinced by Maria’s work to commission her to lead the Embodied Knowledge Workshop for the incoming Praxis students at the Fine Art Academy in 2023 (Praxis Exhibition Studies is a two-year curatorial MA programme). I was also curious to see in practice how she works, so I took part in most of the sessions myself. I had the chance to witness how she carefully crafts her classes and presents clearly each theme at hand. She has a caring and respectful relationship with the students, leaving space for personal interpretation of each task or even for withdrawal should that feel necessary. The unique feature in her approach is the organic combination of reading, discussion and analysis of academic texts with bodily, spacial and textual exercises that personalise the content for each participant. The learning happens both on the personal and the group level.” ---Kaija Kaitavuori, Lecturer at Praxis MA

Student feedback

“Taking part in the Embodied Knowledge workshop was a really groundbreaking experience for me. The discussions and exercises in class have offered me so much valuable knowledge and ideas that I will continue to explore afterwards. Some experiences that have completely changed my thinking from before the workshop, or made me realise something crucial about me and my artistic practice. Overall, I really enjoyed being and learning in the Embodied Knowledge Workshop, and I have a lot of experiences to reflect on from there. I realise that for me, this workshop is a start for a much bigger exploration of myself and my body, its relation to spaces and others. The workshop refined my views about the body, its connection with the collective and environment.” ---Anastasia Lapteva, PRAXIS MA, 2023, Finland

“The experience of the workshop was intense and challenging but rewarding; even though bodies as knowledge creating entities was not a new idea for me, it has been --- and still is --- very difficult to recognize and experience those processes in practice. Overall, I think the course served as a tool for questioning, learning and reconnecting; it provided a huge amount of input that I can follow and develop in my own practice. Not everything was clear and easy, but then, what in the arts or world would be.” ---Silja Pasila, Praxis MA, 2023

“I would like to warmly thank Maria for this course, which was deeply reassuring, such an inspiration and felt safe. It was definitely very intense and many times taxing due to the emotional issues, trigger points and vulnerabilities it brought to the surface. But still, important realisation of oneself, body(ies), sensuous and embodied knowledge became clearer and gave so much inspiration and confirmation for the work that feels right and inviting for me. As a mother, social worker, early childhood educator and art mediator, I need to think about how I as an educator could act in such a way that others can, as Neimanis describes, ‘grow fins and learn to breathe differently and become independent of where they are’.” ---Tuija Huovinen, Praxis MA, 2023

“I had the pleasure to attend Maria Villa Largacha’s Embodied Knowledge Workshop at UniArts Helsinki, during which I absolutely fell in love with her style of teaching, skillful facilitation, and her grounding presence. It was evident how much work she had put into preparing for this course, and when I say preparation, I mean both physically and emotionally. This allows her to be both focused and flexible in her teaching, which I greatly admire. The energy she brings to lessons and to spaces in which she acts as a facilitator inspires and supports learning in a way which feels easy.” ---Iida Valme, Fine Art student, Uniarts, Finland