At Iméra, the research conducted by several residents—artist Josune Urrutia Asua, anthropologist and photographer Carole Baudin, and anthropologist and illustrator Aina Azevedo—explores the potential of artistic mediums, such as drawing and choreography, as epistemological tools with diverse socio-professional communities (including researchers in cancer and immunology, anthropologists, dancers, choreographers, labor experts, winemakers, illustrators, etc.). These communities, sometimes far removed from the artistic field, consist of curious individuals and occasionally creative researchers who engage in interdisciplinary approaches.
Carole Baudin, Josune Urrutia Asua and Aina Azevedo : an interdisciplinary exhibition at Iméra
The joined exhibition will take place at Iméra’s Maison des Astronomes, beginning on June 3rd for Carole Baudin and June 10th for Josune Urrutia Asua, until June 14th. If you want to visit the exhibitions from June 10 to 14, please contact Carole Baudin directly at: carole.baudin.n@gmail.com and Josune Urrutia Asua at: josunene@gmail.com
A place for interdisciplinary exploration
At this stage of the research, the goal is to experiment by creating opportunities for dialogue with academic, artistic, and professional communities through workshops where participants draw, dance, share knowledge, perspectives, and methods, and through more informal meetings in each other’s workspaces : research laboratories, hospitals, city dance studios, a workshop set up at Iméra, vineyards, etc.
These research processes and the co-construction of epistemological tools, where dance or drawing play a crucial and catalytic role, are shared in these two exhibitions. One is associated with the roundtable “Sensitive Transitions: Gestures of Work and Dance” organized by Carole Baudin, and the other with the open studio of Josune Urrutia Asua and Aina Azevedo.
Engaged in bodily practices or in regular or occasional dialogue with an artistic practice, reflecting on their own systems of capturing and conveying the sensitive aspects of their research objects, the participants are invited to look at their disciplines, practices, and fundamentals differently, considering their social impact on concerned human groups or the reception of their work by a broader audience.
In any case, returning to the interdisciplinary and undisciplined projects presented in these two exhibitions, they demonstrate that these co-constructed epistemological tools can humanize scientific data in the medical field and better grasp and convey the sensitive dimensions of the evolving world of work. In both cases, the body and its transformations are central to the research of these two residents, as these two fields particularly lend themselves to an embodied approach.
The Emergence of Epistemological Tools: An Ambition of Iméra’s Arts and Sciences Program
Sometimes, drawing has even been a long-time companion of a discipline, as is the case with ethnographic drawing practiced by Aina Azevedo, also a resident at Iméra, in her role as an anthropologist. She aims to highlight the multitude of possibilities and contexts that have been too little explored to date, despite their development since the 19th century.
Considering these intersecting practices at Iméra, one might wonder: what if the epistemological tools emerging from these research residencies became institutionalized and gained intensity through their appropriation by other researchers beyond those currently experimenting with them?
Obviously, this potential can primarily develop within a collective framework, combining artistic, scientific, and diverse professional expertise. The goal would be to transmit these tools in projects not necessarily initiated by a drawer or an anthropologist who is also a photographer or illustrator, but which would call upon these skills and those who develop them.
This ambition is fully supported by Iméra’s “Arts and Sciences: Undisciplined Knowledge” program, whose outcomes can benefit all the institute’s programs, and even support the research of residents not necessarily hosted within it. The reflection on the contribution of art to knowledge and understanding, through all mediums, has flourished at Iméra since its inception and thrives in close contact with other research fields supported there, reinforced by its very transversality.
Indeed, each of the chairs that constitute it is also integrated into one of the institute’s other three programs: “Mediterranean,” “Necessary Utopias,” and “Interdisciplinary Explorations.” Thus, while the research-creation supported by Iméra benefits from structured institutional engagement through a dedicated program, the results they generate can be shared within an extended interdisciplinary community.
For more information on the projects of Carole Baudin and Josune Urrutia Asua, visit their resident pages by clicking below :
