MA Forum in collaboration with LIO: Robel Temesgen
In this MA Forum, PhD Robel Temesgen explores artistic research through Practising Water; Rituals and Engagements, an ongoing body of work that brings together walking, sleeping, storytelling, ritual, conversation, and collective gathering as methods of inquiry.
Rather than positioning research as the production of knowledge from a distance, the project Practising Water considers how knowledge emerges through sustained engagement with people, places, materials, and cultural practices.
Through a close reading of selected works, the session examines how relationships, encounters, and participation shape artistic processes. Water serves as both a material and conceptual framework for exploring questions of memory, attention, ethics, and belonging.
Details here.
Robel Temesgen is an artist and researcher whose practice explores the relationships between people, place, material culture, and the ecological and spiritual forces that shape forms of presence and knowledge. Working across painting, installation, publication, and performance, he engages with stories, rituals, archives, and everyday encounters as ways of understanding how worlds are formed through both visible and invisible connections. His work often draws on materials such as goatskin alongside locally situated knowledge, investigating questions of memory, transmission, and cultural repatriation while remaining attentive to the agency of landscapes, water, objects, and spiritual dimensions of life. Rooted in research, collaboration, and collective forms of making, his practice brings together cultural histories, material processes, and speculative ways of imagining shared futures.
Alongside his artistic practice, Temesgen teaches at Alle School of Fine Arts and Design in Addis Ababa and has served as a guest professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) in 2024, 2025, and 2026.
Robel Temesgen Bizuayehu, Practising Water, painting performance, 2023. Photo Shimelis Tadesse
MA Forum is a seminar series on artistic research, hosted by HDK-Valand in collaboration with L’Internationale Online. Through invited guests, the series explores different dimensions of artistic research. The lectures are free and open to all.
Related contributions and publications
-
Climate Forum I – Readings
Nkule MabasoEN esLand RelationsClimateHDK-Valand -
Glossary of Common Knowledge, Vol. 2
Schools -
Glossary of Common Knowledge
Schools -
Pollution as a Weapon of War – a conversation with Svitlana Matviyenko
Svitlana MatviyenkoClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
Françoise Vergès – Breathing: A Revolutionary Act
Françoise VergèsClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
Ana Teixeira Pinto – Fire and Fuel: Energy and Chronopolitical Allegory
Ana Teixeira PintoClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand
Related activities
-
HDK-Valand
Climate Forum I
The Climate Forum is a space of dialogue and exchange with respect to the concrete operational practices being implemented within the art field in response to climate change and ecological degradation. This is the first in a series of meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L'Internationale's Museum of the Commons programme.
-
–MACBA
Where are the Oases?
PEI OBERT seminar
with Kader Attia, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Emily Jacir, Achille Mbembe, Sarah Nuttall and Françoise VergèsAn oasis is the potential for life in an adverse environment.
-
–Museo Reina Sofia
Team of Teams
This project researches citizen participation as a fundamental pillar in the creation of community.
-
–tranzit.ro
Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life
The experimental course ‘Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life’ (November 2023–May 2024) celebrates as its starting point the anniversary of 50 years since the publication of Tools for Conviviality, considering that Ivan Illich’s call is as relevant as ever.
-
–Moderna galerijaZRC SAZU
Summer School: Our Many Easts
Our Many Easts summer school is organised by Moderna galerija in Ljubljana in partnership with ZRC SAZU (the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts) as part of the L’Internationale project Museum of the Commons.
-
–MSU ZagrebVan AbbemuseumModerna galerijaZRC SAZU
Open Call – School of Common Knowledge 2024
MSU (Zagreb), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MG+MSUM (Ljubljana), ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana) and L'Internationale invite applications for the new School of Common Knowledge (SCK) to be held in Zagreb and Ljubljana 24–29 May 2024. The School of Common Knowledge draws on the network, knowledge and experience of the L’Internationale museum confederation. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world. The SCK is built on the basis laid by the Glossary of Common Knowledge project initiated by Zdenka Badovinac and Moderna galerija (Ljubljana) and continues its co-learning methodology.