Postdoc in Practice-based Artistic Research

The School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University invites applications for a postdoctoral position in decolonial practice-based artistic research. The postdoc position is affiliated with the research project Playing with ghosts – affective ambivalence in decolonial art practices (2022-2025), funded by the Aarhus University Research Foundation.

The postdoc position is a full-time position lasting 23 months. The position begins on 1 April 2023.

The School of Communication and Culture is committed to diversity and encourages all qualified applicants to apply regardless of their personal background.  

Project 

Art continues to play a significant role in decolonial endeavours that fight colonial structures, racist practices and legacies that continue to haunt contemporary societies, because art opens the way to sense new futures and bring them to live in the here and now. Playing with ghosts looks into whether decolonial art could work against polarisation in creating playful encounters and possibilities of co-habitation between different and diverse minority and majority groups in affectively ambivalent spaces on the basis of the assumption that colonialism is inherited through structural asymmetries. The project will 1) generate knowledge about playful practices, modes and moods in contemporary art and activism from former and contemporary colonised spaces, in particular the U.S. Virgin Islands and Kalaallit Nunaat; 2) develop a digital artistic intervention with local artists and citizens; and 3) test this interactive artistic work on particular groups in order to conduct reception studies and detect the concrete transformative and empowering impact that engaging in critical-playful artistic practices may have on different groups. Playing with ghosts will be a significant contribution to postcolonial and decolonial studies in spelling out the capacities of practice-based artistic interventions in a-symmetrical and conflictual social environments for paving ways forward with a view to living together differently.  

Postdoc position 

We are looking for an applicant who is able to collaborate closely and effectively in a small interdisciplinary project group which connects perspectives from classical qualitative methods in the humanities with digital art-based prototyping as a visual methodology. Applicants are expected to be artists and/or to have a PhD degree in, for example, visual ethnography, cultural studies, media studies, interaction design, anthropology, migration and critical race studies, or another relevant discipline. Experience of various qualitative methods will be an advantage. Previous experience of doing research and art-based interventions in the postcolonial and decolonial field is essential. The research produced by the project is to be written in English, so applicants need to be able to understand, communicate and write in English.

In conjunction with your main tasks, you will be expected to  

• be responsible for the development and testing of the digital prototype on the basis of the knowledge gathered in the case analysis from Kalaallit Nunaat and the U.S. Virgin Islands in close collaboration with the other participants 
• be the first author of at least one research article 
• be responsible for the public dissemination of the artwork at the end of the project 
• take an active part in developing and fulfilling the different processes, meetings and events related to the project in close collaboration with the project participants  

Deadline 

09 February 2023  

Read the full job description and apply at the university homepage 

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