The Dialogues Podcast Project

Drawn from a one-hour conversation with artist Nina Mangalanayagam, this podcast collects excerpts on narration, self-positioning, passing, the everyday performance of identity, and more. Nina Mangalanayagam is an artist, researcher, and teacher at HDK-Valand, who works with photography and film. To quote from her website, “[she] explores themes of belonging and hybridity, often using a semi-autobiographical approach. Her research analyses the shifting points of identification she experiences as a mixed heritage subject, to explore the dichotomy of black and white notions of identity.” I’m Shunda Wan. I moved from China to Sweden almost three years ago. I work as a line cook and study in the MFA program at HDK-Valand. My research looks at re-enactment—redoing fellow immigrants’ lived experiences together with them—as a way to explore immigrant life in Sweden and to situate myself through and within what anthropologist Biao Xiang calls the “nearby,” the spacial, social, and cultural sphere around us. ———— For Nina’s works, please visit her website https://www.ninamanga.com/ The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

This conversation moves through how artistic practice and artistic research might open ways of describing our own work, and what making art can hold. What if practice itself is a way of thinking-with, of finding language for what art can hold? Our guest Ram Krishna Ranjan is an artist and filmmaker at HDK-Valand whose work moves between essayistic, documentary, and performance, working at the intersections of research, pedagogy, and his own filmpractice. Fey is an artist and researcher whose practice lingers on questions of legibility, opacity, and discomfort, the quiet work of making sense through art. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

A mine can bring jobs and opportunities to local communities but also changes and destruction to the landscape. This episode is about mining with a particular focus on whether, and if so, how, local communities should be compensated when a new mine is established. This is a shortened version of a two-hour conversation between Johan Sandler and Anton Löf. Johan Sandler, trained architect and student at HDK-Valand's master's program in fine arts. Anton Löf, mineral economist and mining policy expert with a focus on the international mining industry, control over resources and production, as well as trade in metallic raw materials. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

This episode on atmospheres is an excerpt from a longer conversation between Nils Karlsson and Ola Sigurdson on the topic of spatiality, as in aspects of spaces and what they do to us. Nils Karlsson is a student in HDK-Valand's master's program in Fine Arts. He is a painter and researcher with a special interest in spatiality. Ola is a professor of systematic theology at the University of Oslo. He has previously researched and written on the topics of embodiment and subjectivity. Currently, he is on a decade-long enquiry into spatiality. He has already written two books on the theme, one on atmospheres and one on thresholds, with a third, soon to be released, on the subject of places. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

In this podcast graduate students from the MFA program in Fine Arts at HDK-Valand University of Gothenburg speak with artist, writer, and researcher Anna Nygren. The discussion delves into a range of exciting and current topics, including neuroqueerness, the materiality of language, and Nygren's creative practice, encompassing her project "I Hope You Become a Fish." Nygren talks openly about Zlatan, their cat with artistic interests, the literary significance of whales, and examines the potentialities and ethical dilemmas in human-nonhuman relationships providing a thought-provoking exploration of these interconnected themes. Short bios: Anna Nygren (researcher) Anna Nygren (Sweden, 1990) works with language-based art as a writer, poet, playwright and textile artist. They are teaching literary composition at Gothenburg University and are doing their PhD in literature at Åbo Akademi. Nygren is part of the research project "Autistic Writing. A Mother Tongue", financed by Vetenskapsrådet. Their interests lie in the materiality of language, animals in literature and language-based art for children. Bubbles Taboo Bubbles Taboo coexists with plants, animals, red wine and white wine. Sebastian Lavin Sebastian Lavin is working with dissemination of care and practical work, ceramic relay work, weaving and questions of disguised work and value. Kent Grundberg Kent Grundberg is interested in mycelia, mutual aid, collectivity and queer euphoria. Rikke Bogetoft Rikke Bogetoft (1995) explores queer and non-human death, mapping the performance of necropolitical strategies in western hegemonies and developing queerfeminist counter tactics of resistance The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

In this podcast, we will learn more about a research project that our invited guest, Olga Sasunkevich, was involved in: Spaces of Resistance: A Study of Gender and Sexualities in Times of Transformation. Her project brought together multi-sited ethnography, digital ethnography and comparative analysis. Maxine Chionh, Julia Florentzi and Kinga Molińska with Olga Sasunkevich, Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Gothenburg explore the ways in which feminist and decolonial perspectives in gender studies intersect with their artistic research and practice. Bios: Olga Sasunkevich: Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. Olga’s research interests revolve around questions of gender, sexuality, migration and ethnicity in Eastern Europe. Maxine Chionh: Student at the MFA Fine Art programme at HDK-Valand with an art and writing practice. Maxine’s research and practice investigate the postcolonial struggle from an East and SE Asian perspective, with an especial interest in persistent coloniality, denialism and missing publics. Julia Florentzi: Student at the MFA Fine Art programme of HDK-Valand. Her artistic practice is oriented around feminist issues, love in patriarchy as well as feminist commons, friendship and protest. In her current studio practice she works with embroidering text and image. She is also into the making of an art book. Kinga Molińska: Student at the MFA Fine Art, HDK-Valand, who develops feminist, spatial, multisensorially integrated artistic methods. Her artistic practice focuses on resonating bodies and bodies in transformation as a departing point to investigate body politics, alternative knowledges (erotic, tactile, sonic, somatic), empathy and collective care. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

For this podcast episode, three fine art students from the MFA Fine Art programme at HDK-Valand reached out to one PhD student in social work, to talk about lacking a language for one's lived experience, and its consequences on one's mental health. We talk about existentialism and the body, medicalisation and over-diagnosis, and the potential of finding a new language to talk about those aspects of depression that might lie beyond society’s ready-made metaphors. Bios: Elias Tärnström is a PhD student in the department for social work at Gothenburg university. His upcoming thesis focuses on patients diagnosed with depression's experiences of lacking a language for their depression. It aims to highlight the importance of being understood from existential aspects of one's experiences of depression during treatment interactions with professionals. Vanja Qvarfordt explores her own family's archive of photographs and homemade films to investigate how mental illness has been passed down through three generations of women, and the effects of stigma and silence culture on that inheritance. Marie Bergqvist works with how the dominant narrative surrounding transnational and transracial adoption in "colorblind Sweden" fails to recognize the complex experiences of being adopted, for instance by replacing the term race with ethnicity. Jakob Niedziela critically examines the medicalising language surrounding ADHD, and its structural impact on ADHDers, on an individual and group level. In his current work, he is looking at the potential of tactility and body language functioning as neurodivergent mother-tongues. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.

The meeting, hosted by Irma Beširević, an student at MFA Fine Art programme at HDK-Valand, focused on the intersection of technology and humanity, particularly regarding surveillance, capitalism, and data collection. Dr. Jasmina Marić, a senior lecturer in Interaction Design, shared insights on human-computer interaction and user experience. The discussion included personal anecdotes about early interactions with technology, highlighting the evolution from basic devices like the ZX Spectrum to modern digital experiences. The speakers reflected on their screen time and the pervasive influence of technology in daily life, emphasizing the need for awareness of its implications on human behavior and society. Bios: Dr Jasmina Maric is a Senior Lecturer at the Interaction Design and Software Engineering, CSE, Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden. Jasmina holds a PhD in Communication and Information Science from Tilburg University in 2014. She is interested in the topics of HCI, specifically focused on user experience, design, aesthetics, art, applied gaming and social networking for real-world problem implementation. Jasmina teaches at the Interaction Design department focusing on Designing UX, UI, Methodology, and Information Visualization. Irma Beširević explores humanity's evolving relationship with technology and the ongoing technological revolution through new-media art and performance. Her work spans a wide range of materials and media, focusing on the raw, non-directed technological (readymade digital), the human body (and its digital twin), and transparent plastic, with themes of the meta-digital influenced by Fluxus through artistic research. The Dialogues Podcast Project is a podcast series produced by students from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme at the HDK-Valand Academy – Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, and published by K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.