International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 163
Submission ID: 215
Submission UUID: 045db37b-324f-4e14-bc44-74d651076b9d

Created: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 - 11:28
Completed: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 17:29
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:22

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Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

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Given name Vytautas
Surname Michelkevicius
Email vytautas.michelkevicius@vda.lt
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Title Sauna as Epistemic Device: heated discussions and circulation of minoritised knowledges, languages, steam and sweat
Format Experimental format
Main language English
Abstract I propose to approach the sauna not as wellness, but as an epistemic device — a space where knowledge is enacted rather than communicated. Alongside my work in artistic research as a researcher, educator, practitioner, and administrator, I practice as a certified sauna master trained at the Lithuanian Bath Academy. I propose small-group sauna rituals as situations of knowledge production. Within intensified sensory conditions — heat, breath, rhythm, bodily proximity — language gradually loses its regulatory authority. Meaning emerges through embodied negotiation, attention, and affective attunement.
Rather than speaking about knowledge, participants inhabit its formation. The sauna becomes a temporary epistemic infrastructure exposing the limits of discursive regimes dominant in academia. It asks whether artistic research can exist as an event rather than representation, and whether knowledge may circulate without stabilising into language (5G metaphor).
The proposal also engages traditional knowledge embedded in bathing cultures across Northeastern Europe, where collective sauna practices remain alive from Lithuania to Finland and from Eastern Poland to Ukraine. In much of the Western world, such traditions have largely vanished, historically displaced by religious and scientific rationalities.
Situated conceptually between Lithuania and Ireland — two small-language cultures marked by histories of linguistic marginalisation and asymmetrical power relations — the proposal reflects on the fragility and politics of language itself. Against this backdrop, the sauna ritual operates as a micro-political experiment: a setting in which minoritised, embodied, and often delegitimised forms of knowledge can surface without being immediately captured by explanatory frameworks.
The sauna thus operates as a laboratory for epistemic disorientation, where knowledge appears as process: circulating, dissolving, reconfiguring — contingent, sensory, and shared.
Image IMG_2684.JPEG
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius is a professor, curator, writer and senior researcher (principal investigator) as well as head of the Doctoral program in the arts (since 2019) and head of Photography, Animation and Media Art Department at Vilnius Academy of Arts. He has been supervising doctoral candidates since 2016 and 6 have already completed.
    He is member of various networks (SAR, EARN) and editorial boards of journals (JAR, Acoustic Space (Riga), Landing (Vilnius), .able journal (Paris), etc.).
    Lately, his work has engaged with the intersections of somatic practices, the forest, traditional cultures, and art. Vytautas is capable of performing site-based sauna rituals.
    Writings
    https://vilnius.academia.edu/VytautasMichelkevicius

Previous presentations or iterations of the research One of the sauna sessions in the art conference iterations were made in umede.lt post-media art festival in 2025. However, it was tested only as a format but not a container of artistic research project. Some of the starting thoughts were published in my recent book “Songs of the Cuckoo. On Knowledge, Practice and Impact of Artistic Research” (with Aldis Gedutis, 2025, VDA Press).
This proposal is going to be premiere of its kind.
Additional information I have organized a dozen artistic and academic conferences and symposia and I have learned that during them there is always energy to exchange informally on conference topics but at the same time the programme is so dense that we stay locked inside conference venues and loose ability to interact. During some of them I have already tested my method and it had very impressive outcomes. You need a special dedication to dare to escape the “main conference programme” (also due to FOMO) and gather in sauna to engage in deep and heated informal discussion on conflicting questions. I will also use old technique of whisking (moving hot steam and massaging with branches of trees and herbal bouquets). I have gathered herbs since childhood, influenced by my mother, a herbal pharmacist, and integrate these practices into sauna rituals. The sessions are conceived as sites where suppressed, vernacular, and experiential knowledges may surface without immediate translation into institutional discourse.
Spatial and technical requirements I have come across Powersaunas https://powersaunas.ie on Silverstand beach which is around 6.5 km walk from the Galway university. They offer 55 min sauna sessions and we can accommodate up to 12 persons in one session for accessible price (17 Euros). I would love to extend this session twice as long and have 110 min sessions for discussions on conference topics. I will forage alone or with participants needed herbs. These sessions could be scheduled both as evening or parallel programme.
Potential risks or ethical concerns People will sign in with their own will, knowing that event will happen inside sauna and they have to wear either towels or bathing suites. Everytime before sauna sessions I ask if people have any difficulties staying in hot environments and give advice how to do it safely.
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