Webinar: Combining “science” and “art” in planning (?)

This event will be a debate on the extent to which academic work (labelled as “scientific”) should engage more in artistic methodologies, artistic output, artistic engagement of audiences or artistic philosophies, and other alternative approaches, and do these relate to the idea of “scientism”. An important underlying assumption is that artistic methods might be more creative and therefore incentivise change – however, this is an untested hypothesis as far as we are aware. We will discuss how art can be used as a process for engaging diverse publics in planning, what art even means in such a context, what its role for inducing ‘change’ is, and how far-reaching the role of art in planning can and should be.

For the debate, we have invited:

Sofia Wiberg, a researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. She is interested in knowledge formation, collective work and decision making processes, asymmetric power relations and the limits of knowing. She has conducted research on transdisciplinary approaches to planning, including the arts, and how these are used during co-creation. + info: Sofia Wiberg’s KTH profile

Marcos L. Rosa is an architect and urban planner working as post-doctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Arquitecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo; having concluded his doctoral degree at the Technical University of Munich in 2015. He conducts research, teaching and design, with a focus on collaborative work, the editing of existing structures and the redevelopment of existing structures and situations, often in creative and collaborative ways. + info: Marcos L. Rosa’s website

Sofia Greaves is a researcher and freelance artist. She currently works as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Vigo, Spain. Her current research explores ways in which art and science collaborations can encourage more holistic policy making and knowledge production within scientific institutions. Part of this work is focused upon urban development frameworks and postgrowth planning. + info: Sofia Greaves’ website

Raine Mäntysalo is Professor of Strategic Urban Planning and Head of Department of the Built Environment at Aalto University, Finland. He is an expert on planning theory and communicative planning, most notably in the areas of strategies, boundary crossing, institutions, democracy and power in spatial and land use planning. + info: Raine Mäntysalo — Aalto University’s research portal

The event is organised by:

Susa Eräranta is a Professor of Practice at Aalto University, Finland, and works simultaneously in practice. She has a background in urban planning, sustainability and organizational sciences. Her research interests are in exploring the complex dynamics of diverse living beings in the practices, processes and networks of planning. + info: LinkedIn

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Kim Carlotta von Schönfeld, MSCA-post-doctoral research fellow at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), in Bergen, Norway, and collaborating member of the Centre for Research on Transport, Territory and Environment at the University of Porto. Her research interests include Planning, Governance, Sustainability, Mobility, and Public Space, especially with an international perspective. She is especially interested in links to socio-economic history, development and philosophy, in the search for socially as well as economically sustainable worldwide change (see e.g. ‘degrowth’). In doing so, she attempts to create interaction between academic and artistic worlds (e.g. film, literature and photography, among others). + info: LinkedIn

Please sign up via Eventbrite. If the event is fully booked when you try to book it, please contact Kim via: kimvs@hvl.no