Public defence in Scenography and Costume Design, MFA Monica Raya

The title of the thesis: Unimagined Spatial Performativity in three scenographic assemblages

Doctoral student: Monica Raya
Opponent: Dr. Nebojša Tabacki
Custos: Prof. Sofia Pantouvaki, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Film

My dissertation puts together more than ten years of artistic research actions and it is based on my knowledge and experience as a female scenic designer. It is also combination of joyful procedures that include my own thinking as a practice of singularity, and the fortune of playing with a stage as a spatial laboratory. I am presenting a collection of photographs and a retrospective analysis of my short and sweet encounters with the unimagined aesthetic potential of my own scenographic work. During my research process, I was able to experiment on three scenographic devices that helped me observe, provoke, and record spatialities which I could have never imagined in advance. It is relevant to say that my research work was mainly produced by surprise, serendipity, playful actions, and good luck, but above all, by trusting my own intuition. By addressing the “unimagined”, I point at the aesthetic potential found in the construction-rehearsal processes of scenography and in the most ordinary, incidental encounters between human and nonhuman bodies. 

Through my study, I insisted on analysing scenography beyond the hierarchical practices of the theatre and beyond the gaze of a conventional public. I managed to collect visual recordings of the unsuspected spatialities provoked by my actions and constructed a personal archive of more than 4000 digital images expanding my artistic practice with the spirit of a naïve photographer. I intend to continue the practice of provoking and co-existing with scenographic assemblages that may seem to have “their own agenda” and provide opportunities that allow scenic elements to behave independently and beyond my [human] desires and pre-conceptions. My doctoral research contributes to the studies of nonhuman bodies in performance, to expand-ing scenography, to the innovative notions of post-human feminism and new materialisms, and to those fields of architecture and performance design which envision that space is a living entity and that it communicates in its own language. Finally, I will defend that my study also performs my conviction that a scenographer can act as an artist-philosopher and as a political activist as well.

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

Contact information:

Doctoral theses in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/54
Zoom Quick Guide: https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/zoom-quick-guide