Supernova Network
Supernova Network is to a platform for a cross-disciplinary collaboration between Nordic and international artists, art educators and researchers in the fields of contemporary art, visual culture and critical (art) pedagogy. We engage in a dialogic developmental process to devise practices and strategies for our collaborations between and across the Nordic countries and beyond.
Collaborative work
Our first academic collaborative work is a paper about our joint NoVA studies “SuperNoVA: Intra-folding Identities in A Hybrid Education Setting”. You can read the paper here (p. 733). We presented the paper at the international congress MAKING | INSEA 2019 organised by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
The Supernova Network Members
Our Nordic network participants are:
Alexandra Stroganova, Finland / Russia
Allen Damzel Centina, Finland / The Philippines
Anton Krohn, Sweden
Eija Mäkivuoti, Finland / Sweden
Jennifer Skriver, Denmark / US
Jie Zhao, Finland / China
Matilda Löytty, Finland / Namibia
Minjin Chung, South Korea
Solip Park, Finland / South Korea
于子彧 (Ziuy Yu), Sweden / China
Our international network participants:
Myrtò Theocharidou, Cyprus
Aina Bexell, Portugal / Sweden
The Network’s Members / Biographies
Alexandra Stroganova: Multidisciplinary Artist / Art Educator.
Alexandra Stroganova (born 1990 in Moscow, Russia) is a Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education Master student at Aalto University, School of Art Design and Architecture, Department of Art (Helsinki, Finland). Besides, she is currently undertaking a Visual Culture Curating and Contemporary Art minor at the same school.
Alexandra has a background in Fine Arts, Set Design and Art Education from Moscow City Teachers’ Training University (currently known as Moscow City University). She has about 5 years working experience as an Art Teacher and School Theatre Set Designer in several different types of schools both in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Before starting her studies at Aalto University, she was employed with the Cambridge International School in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Alexandra Stroganova is a multidisciplinary artist and art educator, working individually and in collaborations. In her artistic practice she uses different artistic medias and techniques, working in a various contexts and situations. In addition, Alexandra is a self-taught photographer, preferring to use different analogue cameras and films in her experimental photographic practice.
At present she is working on her master thesis investigating the case of the small Russian town Vyborg through arts based methodologies. The study is grounded in personal narrative and lived experience and draws on the frameworks of poststructural philosophy, emphasising embodied knowledge and imagination as a basis for creative action in the world.
Anton Krohn (born 1992 in Karlskrona, Sweden) is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher. He has a deep and long lasting interest in ”flat onto-epistemologies” like posthumanism, new materialism and more. His work centres around ways of making these theories felt and what happens when they become tangible. This interest started during when doing his bachelor thesis project Temporary Islands - together with the sea in material-discursive practices wherein he and Daniel Petersson questioned the anthropocentric role of the designer by engaging in material-discursive plays with the sea. This formed an artistic partnership and the duo has since exhibited in various places in Sweden, Poland and Finland.
Currently, Anton is finishing his MA thesis Re-turning - diffractive fabulations with site for the Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education program in Konstfack. The thesis investigates and experiments with non-anthropocentric approaches to site. This involves various forms of visiting, walking, writing and photographing that takes into account the world as an ongoing enactment of more-than-human and human forces. Anton and Daniel is also planning to start a new project based on sites, performativity and distance.
Jie Zhao: Graphic Designer / Art Teacher.
Jie Zhao is a graphic designer and art teacher. She had six years of teaching experiences at Shanghai Institution of Visual Art and worked as the project manager in design studio SH TYPE (www.shtype.org) for three years. Currently, she is running an art education project about learning from nature, called Forestworkshop.
She got her master degree in visual communication from China Academy of Fine Art in 2006, and Nordic Visual Study and Art Education from Aalto University in 2018.
Myrtò Theocharidou: Visual Artist / Researcher.
Myrtò Theocharidou is a visual artist and researcher. She is currently an MSCA Ph.D. fellow student of Multimedia and Graphic Art Department at the Cyprus University of Technology. Her research interests include art and museum education with an emphasis on participatory practices and methodologies. Myrto received her MA in Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education from Aalto University at Helsinki (FI) and her BA in Visual and Performing Arts in Painting from Academy of Fine Arts of Venice (IT).
Eija Mäkivuoti: Visual Communication Professional / Cultural Worker / Photographic Artist / Visual Artist / Artist-Researcher.
Eija Mäkivuoti (born 1972 in Haparanda, Sweden) is a Helsinki-based visual communication professional, cultural worker, photographic artist and an artist-researcher. She works with non-commercial long-term non-fiction narratives from a critical, ethical and socio-culturally sustainable approach. She calls this practice as being a poet as a documentarian. Above all she is a multi-disciplinary cultural worker, with experience in working in different cultural institutions. She has years of experience in working in different international, Nordic cultural and Finnish cultural institutions, dealing with a vast variation of tasks within communication, information as well as project coordination, production and management etc.
Eija holds a MA level degree from the Master's Programme in Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education (NoVA) from Aalto University. She also hold a BA level degree in visual communication and photography from the Lahti Design Institute (Lahti University of Applied Sciences) and are previously trained as a visual artist (photography & media art focus).
She is a member of the Photographic Artists' Association in Finland and are active in Tjaldur - the friendship society between Finland-Faroe Islands since 2011 and have been the chair of the board since 2015. She has been working in the Faroe Islands since 2008 with different art projects. She is a part of a network of artists and culture actors who have a passion for the Arctic (and the neighbouring areas close to the Arctic regions) called artArctica. They organise a culture festival with the same name. She is a member of the interdisciplinary artist group Mikropaliskunta. We make explorations into contemporary cultures in a sustainable way.
Matilda Löytty: Contemporary Artist / Visual Culture Specialist.
Matilda Löytty is a contemporary artist / visual culture specialist from Finland. Löytty started her career as an experimental mixed media painter, but she has since been involved with environmental art and installations. Lately, in addition to her more traditional art practices, she has been involved with participatory public art and urban interventions. She is interested in cross-cultural discourses and the intersection of art and society.
Löytty has been exhibiting and working on artistic projects and research across borders in Finland, other Nordic countries, Portugal and Namibia. Currently she lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. She graduated with an MA degree in Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education from Aalto University, her thesis, Art of the Intangible History – Negotiating the possibilities of arts-based research for learning processes in Finnish-Namibian Museums, investigated learning, cross-cultural museums, history and post-colonial theories through art as a platform.
Solip Park: Comic Artist / Entrepreneur / Researcher.
Solip Park is a comic artist, entrepreneur, and researcher with a strong interest in technology, culture, games, and most of all, learning. She is currently publishing her own a web-comic series on Finnish and Korean gaming history; A Brief History of Digital Play, as well as serving as a co-founder of Finnish startup; Forethink Oy. She is also involved with several government-funded external case studies in Korea regard Finnish education reform and student-led ecosystem.
Solip was one of the founding members of Nexon Computer Museum, the first permanent museum with the concentration of digital computer and game history. She received Master of Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University and currently pursuing her second master at Aalto University, Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education.
Contact Supernova Network
If you want to contact us, please write email to supernovacollective [ ] gmail.com.