"Art/Sensation is a nomadic curatorial platform working in the so called 'affective turn' within art."
What we do
Art/Sensation is a nomadic curatorial platform that emphasizes the importance of emotions. We enrich established knowledge in the art world by highlight feelings surrounding art. We collaborate with institutions in the form of lectures and curatorial hubs.
Art/Sensation works in relation with art and artists in exhibitions, texts and meetings. We aim to curiously investigate new aspects of how how the viewer can relate to art, rather than solely attribute meaning. We collect, explore and listen to situations and investigate how emotions can be rewritten and conveyed. Art/Sensation experiences and describes what emotions and bodily affect can be in and around art.
In 2021 Art/Sensation launched first exhibition with Tim Høibjergs work Hard Feelings in Cube, a virtual 3D exhibition space, focusing on activating the artist and artworks with sounds, lights and connections with social media. Art/Sensation has during 2022 been colobarationg with Index — The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation in Cube c/o Index, showing Linnea Hansander’s exhibition, TRAGEDY. I CAN’T LIVE IF LIVING IS WITHOUT YOU and with Cube c/o Nitja Center of contemporary art showing parts of “No Death, Just Respawn”.
The Art/Sensation archive includes articles on the research of emotions and publishes works and texts by artists and curators who are working with the way in which feelings play a role art. The archive is an area for inspiration as well as a source of knowledge in the field of affect studies for writers, institutions, schools, artists and future research in humanities. The initiative is a collective act with contributions from artists, curators, writers and researchers.
Susanne Fessé is the founder and artistic leader at Art/Sensation, wich also involves Elin Mejergren as creative director and Caitlin E. Littlewood as text editor. We have an advisory board consisting of researcher Vendela Grundell Gachoud, artists Lundahl & Seitl, and curator Ashik Zaman.
Talking and writing about emotions in art and culture is one of the contemporary subjects around the world that is part of the so called “affective turn”. Art/Sensation works in the field of affect theory in art, which is at the forefront of research in postcolonial, feminist and queer studies, as well as in other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, technology and economics. Affect theory can highlight emotions and bodily affect in and around art and culture.
Connect with Art/Sensation
Art/Sensation invites institutions, museums and schools in the field of art and culture to collaborate in the form of exhibitions, meetings, lectures, and critique classes.
If you work as a researcher in the field of affect studies in humanities, are an artist applying emotions in your work or you are a curator with a special interest in feelings, you may have the opportunity to contribute to our research archive.
Collaborations, talks and lectures
Cube c/o Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art
No Death, Just Respawn
08.10.2022-06.11.2022
“No Death, Just Respawn” is curated by Monica Holmen. The exhibition will take place at Nitja and online. The virtual exhibition is realized in collaboration with the digital platform ArtSensation c/o Cube and Untold Garden. Co-curator is Susanne Fessé.
Artists: Petra Szemán, Tim Høibjerg, and the artist group The Gaming Department (Thomas Udomrat Hostrup, Jeppe Jørgensen, Taika Louhivuori, Dina Lundvall Nielsen, Ruben Ostan Vejrup, Oscar Yran).
The exhibition is produced by Nitja Centre for Contemporary Art with generous support from Viken County Municipality, Arts Council Norway, The Nordic Culture Fond, Nordic Culture Point, and Fritt Ord.
Art/Sensation receives operating grants from Swedish Arts Council.
3 November 2022 at Nitja Center for Contemporary Art, CONVERSATION: VISUAL ART IN DIGITAL SPACES
Tim Høibjerg and Susanne Fessé. The conversation is led by Monica Holmen, curator of the exhibition.
Västernorrlands museum used Cube in the exhibition “Gråt inte över spilld mjölk” 29 april – 28 maj 2023
Västernorrland museum c/o CUBE
From museum site:
In collaboration with the digital exhibition platform CUBE, Västernorrland's museum is testing a new format to make art accessible outside our physical rooms. In this extension of the exhibition, anyone, anywhere can watch and listen to video and audio works from "Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk". Olof Marsja's work "eNAN" (2020) is shown only in the digital space, while others are represented in both.
Artists: Birt Berglund, Susanne Fagerlund, Olof Marsja, Malin Lin Nordström, Tora Wallander och Queenning Zhao.
Curator: Karolina Aastrup
Co-curator: Susanne Fagerlund
The exhibition gets grants from Swedish Arts Council.
Cube c/o Index
Linnea Hansander’s exhibition, TRAGEDY. I CAN’T LIVE IF LIVING IS WITHOUT YOU was shown at Index — The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm 19 May - 28 August 2022. The exhibition at Index has been digitally scanned and is on virtual display from 23rd May to 4th July 2022 in Cube at Art/Sensation in collaboration with Index.
Finissage for TRAGEDY (I can’t live if living is without you) 28 August 2022, 13:00–15:00 conversation between Linnea Hansander, director Marti Manen and Susanne Fessé, founder and artistic leader of Art/Sensation. The conversation will focus on the virtual and physical aspects of exhibitional practices in relation to Hansander’s exhibitions at Index and Art/Sensation’s digital space called Cube.
Untold Garden and Art/Sensation developes Cube
Art/Sensation receives operating grants from Swedish Arts Council to further develop Cube in 2022 in colloboration with Untold Garden.
Cube is a virtual exhibition space that challenges conventional notions of how we can show contemporary art in a 3D environment, promoting interaction with the environment in order to discover the work. Sound elements are placed in different parts of the room and are activated by the visitor’s movements in the exhibition, while the light dramatizes the mood of the work. Visitors can discover more via links and create direct contact with the artists on social media or private message. Read more
Panel discussion at Uppsala Art Museum
Panel discussion at Uppsala Art Museum, 23 September with Lundahl & Seitl (Art/Sensation ad borad member), Stefan Jonsson and Devin Phillip Zuber. The conversation is moderated by Susanne Fessé, founder and Artistic leader of Art/Sensation.
Text from Facebook invitation Uppsala konstmuseum:
The artist duo Lundahl & Seitl will discuss different aspects of the newly commissioned artwork Involution. How far do we allow ourselves to get involved and how can aesthetic resistance operate today? Influenced by the theories of the eco-feminist Natasha Mayers and Carla Hustak Involution highlights evolution as originating in affective relationships between species, rather than through competition.
The legacy of Peter Weiss writing, and different implications of the piece Aesthetic of resistance will be debated together with Lundahl & Seitl, Devin Phillip Zuber, Associate Professor of American Studies, Religion, and Literature, and Stefan Jonsson, who is a Cultural Theorist with a specialism on Peter Weiss's work, as well as a Professor at Linköping University. The talk will be moderated by art historian, curator and writer, Susanne Fessé.
A System Among Others? Power, Balance, Self-reflection on and with the Photographic
Symposium arranged by The Hasselblad Foundation, The department of Sociology, Lund University and Landskrona Foto.
Susanne Fessé present work in Symposium arranged by The Hasselblad Foundation, The department of Sociology, Lund University and Landskrona Foto.
A System Among Others? Power, Balance, Self-reflection on and with the Photographic image is arranged by Landskrona Foto, The Hasselblad Foundation and The department of Sociology, Lund University. The symposium will take place on-site at Landskrona Theater, Landskrona, Sweden on the 30 September & 1 October 2021.
AICA Conference
"AICA Online International Conference 2020", AICA Turkey, November 25–27, 2020. Susanne Fessé present her study "Writing about emotions".
Susanne Fessé is invited to present her study at AICA Online International Conference 2020, AICA Turkey,November 25–27, 2020 with the tematic: Artworld, Reflexes and Alternative New Worlds.
Presentation at the international conference: Art — What is it good for? Education, mediation, criticism at Linnaeus University, in Växjö, Sweden, August 19–20, 2020.
International conference "Art — What is it good for?", Linnaeus University, in Växjö, Sweden, August 19–20, 2020. Susanne Fessé presented paper.
"Art — What is it good for? Education, mediation, criticism"
Susanne Fessé presented paper and analyze model on writing on feelings in an art discourse at international conference "Art — What is it good for? Education, mediation, criticism" arranged at Linnaeus University, in Växjö, Sweden, August 19-20, 2020.
Session 6: Communication in an expanded field of art
Moderator: Johanna RosenqvistPapers:
Max Liljefors: "Can Art History speak with the Arts and Health Field?"
Susanne Fessé: "Writing about emotion"
Katarina A Karlsson: "#metoo, violence and vulnerability in female singer's bodies"