Today, EV PhD student Meryem Saadi “nailed” her PhD thesis: it is now announced and handed over to the university library.
This thesis examines how three rural artist-run organisations in Sweden mobilise vulnerability to generate artistic, curatorial, and pedagogical practices that resonate with their local communities, the Swedish mainstream art world, and institutional funders. Through a multiple-case study analysis, the thesis unpacks how each self-organised group develops distinct practices, methods, and tactics that enable it to survive within a Swedish funding system not suited to the needs of artist-run initiatives. The study approaches vulnerability not as a condition associated with helplessness, disempowerment, or lack but as a set of relations that can produce new opportunities, audiences, and formats. The thesis argues that the studied organisations allow the vulnerabilities they encounter to inform and shape their practices, methods, and tactics instead of ignoring them. It demonstrates that by recognising vulnerability, taking responsibility for it, and mobilising it as a generative force for production, the three platforms address broader ontological forms of vulnerability in their practices while simultaneously negotiating their own vulnerability as artist-led initiatives.
Meryem’s public PhD defense will take place on June 13, in room 6-1023, Geijersalen, Engelska Parken, and begins at 10.15 a.m.
