Artists, researchers, conference speakers and colleagues from across Finland, Scandinavia, Europe and beyond started arriving earlier this week at KUVA (Kuvataideakatemia / Finnish Academy of Fine Arts) in Helsinki in preparation for Tables of Thought the international exhibition and conference on artistic research.

The exhibition and programme have been organised by Jan Kaila and Henk Slager and begins with keynote speaker Denise Robinson (Curator, Writer and Lecturer, London) presenting “On Susan Hiller including the Screening of The Last Silent Movie“, so that a work of art also inhabits the place of the ‘keynote address’. This opens two days of dialogue on the paradoxical tension within current debates on artistic research between the urge for disciplinary knowledge and the constant subversion of this by artistic thinking. The exhibition and symposium programme of Tables of Thought plays both with the taxonomic impulse integral to disciplinary practices and with the mercurial and destabilising flows of artistic thinking and research.

Over the two days of the event speakers,respondents, and moderators will include: Jan Kaila, Henk Slager, Denise Robinson, Roger Palmer, Janine Marchessault, Sami van Ingen, Susan Pui San Lok, Nina Stuhldreher, Gertrud Sandqvist, Lars Wallsten, Tuula Narhinen, Jeremiah Day, Johan Thom, Daniel Jewesbury, Ekateria Degot, Paivikki Kallio, Mika Elo, Kimmo Sarje, Anette Arlander, Mick Wilson, Maria Finn, Michael Stevenson, Mika Hannula, Lauren O’Neal, Terike Haapoja, and Tim Stott.

Accompanying the conference and providing the basic framework for dialogue there is the exhibition Tables of Thoughtwhich includes works by Maria Finn, Daniel Jewesbury, Susan Pui San Lok, Katrin von Maltzahn, Lauren O’Neal, Michael Stevenson, Nina Temporaer and Lars Wallsten.

For a PDF of the schedule of the conference go to www.kuva.fi
This project is in part funded by the EC-EACEA Culture 2000–2007: Artist as Citizen project.