The programme for the international scientific conference “Liminal Practices in Contemporary Academia: Between Artistic Research and Research in the Arts”, organised as part of Baltic Drama Forum 2026, has been published.
The conference will take place on 5 – 7 November 2026 in Riga at Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music and Latvian Academy of Culture (Theatre House Zirgu Pasts), bringing together international scholars, artists and researchers to discuss the evolving relationship between artistic research and academic inquiry.
How is knowledge produced, communicated and transformed at the intersection of artistic creation and academia? How do artistic practices challenge established academic frameworks, and what happens when artistic experimentation encounters institutional expectations? These questions inform the conference's exploration of liminal practices that emerge between artistic research and research in the arts.
The programme features contributions from three distinguished speakers representing different approaches to artistic practice, performance and knowledge production.
- Jelena Novak (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal) will present “Becoming Elastic: Curating Knowledge in the Garden of Academia and Beyond”, exploring the possibilities of curating knowledge within and beyond academic frameworks.
- Diāna Zandberga (Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, Latvia) will present “Challenges of the Choreomusical Performance: The Relationships between Music and Dance at the Performance of One Artist”, addressing the relationship between music and dance in performance.
- Piersandra Di Matteo (PerLA | Performance Epistemologies Research Lab, Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy) will present “Viscous Traffic: Art, Theory, and Sweaty Concepts Under Institutional Demands”, examining the tensions and exchanges between artistic practice, theoretical reflection and institutional expectations.
Together with a range of scholarly presentations, these contributions will provide a platform for discussing the boundaries of academic knowledge, the challenges of institutional frameworks and the possibilities of artistic research as a way of thinking, creating and producing knowledge.
The conference is part of Baltic Drama Forum 2026, taking place in Riga from 5 to 8 November, and is organized in collaboration with the Culture Crossroads (Kultūras krustpunkti) conference organized yearly by Latvian Academy of Culture.
Researchers, artists, doctoral students and everyone interested in artistic research, contemporary performance and the changing relationship between art and academia are warmly invited to attend.
The full conference programme is now available on the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music website here.