(Your) room for ped­a­gog­i­cal de­vel­op­ment with Katri Kauppala

9.11.2021 1 Like 0 kommenttia Angela Aldebs

Welcome to investigate personal subjects in an online practice session of choosing the artistic core.

Katri will facilitate the second session of the (Your) Room for ped­a­gog­i­cal de­vel­op­ment series on Saturday, November 13th, at from 9.00 – 10:30am (Finnish time, UTC/GMT +2:00 hours). Participation on the sessions is free of charge.

Sign up to the online session by sending an e-mail to: nora.varga@uniarts.fi. You will receive a link to the session to your email.

What is art like that we really choose to make? Let’s explore that question and more on the border territory between safety and jeopardy. In the practice session the aim is to sense and search which subjects that hit a personal chord can be used as material of art. No matter which discipline you represent, there is a common core where art is made through our minds, our bodies, our eyes or our hands and for the most part it is directed to the public eye and meant to be shared. In the session we focus for a while to name the things in our personal core and try to define the lines between mine-ours-to art. How does the core of self differ from the core of the artist? If we are able to choose the elements of our artistic core, we can also be flexible about it and choose to make it different as we move on in life and in art as well as in atmospheres and communities.

About Katri

My present work relates to my PhD about the ethics of pedagogy when the subjects of sexuality are present in performing arts. I am interested in using personal matters in a way that does not impact the professional self. I am looking for the lines between safe and jeopardy to understand how we as artists can be brave in our vulnerability and at the same time maintain our professional core and stay mentally and bodily safe. And how do we then as pedagogues push artists towards this and how do we make sure no one is pushed over the edge. Is there interesting art in safety? Is the jeopardy zone always wise to keep out of the arts? Or do you find the only place you should go is one or the other.

I am an artist and a pedagogue. A nomadic soul in a furious but gentle search for perspectives on human connections, on how we make our artistic statements and how we are understood. I directed my first play 26 years ago and I have been a teacher of various practices for more than twenty years. Before my Masters’ at Peda I studied performing arts, music and travelled to become a singing teacher in Denmark. After my master’s life took me by the hand and led me to study the body. And my philosophy of teaching deepened as I became a professional sports coach in climbing. 

I tell my stories in contemporary theater or within the realm of performance. I crave layers both in life and in art. I have a deep love for poems, visual art, sound, and the body, and connecting them is often present in my work. My own practice is many times collecting fragments with meaning and my process feels like an intuitive search from the unconscious, logic mind and the body to the art at hand.