Artist in residence 2026-2027
During the academic year 2026–27, the Centre for Medical Humanities will host an artist residency, inviting an artist to collaborate with researchers in medicine or related fields. This residency is organized in collaboration between the Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH), the Public Art Agency Sweden, and Akademiska Hus.
The purpose of the residency is to create conditions for artistic and scientific practices to meet through an open and exploratory approach. By allowing art and research to enter into dialogue and pose critical questions around a shared theme within the broadly defined field of medical humanities, the aim is to generate new questions and insights that enrich both processes and open up unexpected connections.
Two phases: mapping phase and residency
As preparation for the residency, three artists will be invited to undertake a mapping engagement at Uppsala University. The aim of the mapping process is, with support from CMH, to give the artists access to relevant researchers and research environments at Uppsala University, as well as the opportunity to establish contact and identify potential collaborators ahead of the residency. After the mapping phase, the artists will present their proposals for an artistic inquiry to be carried out during the residency period, along with proposed collaboration partners within the university. One of them will then be selected as the artist-in-residence.
During the residency period, the selected artist will, in collaboration with researchers at Uppsala University, explore a theme related to medical humanities. The outcome of the residency will be presented publicly at the end of the residency. As part of the artistic inquiry, the artist will also conduct activities with researchers and/or students focusing on the questions and knowledge generated through the work. The purpose of these activities is to discuss how artistic and scientific practices and knowledge traditions can complement one another.
Curatorial vision
This artist residency aims to create conditions for artistic and scientific practices to meet through an open and exploratory approach. By allowing art and research to enter into dialogue and pose critical questions around a shared theme within the broadly defined field of medical humanities, the goal is to generate new questions and insights that enrich both processes and open up unexpected connections.
Researchers and artists often engage with similar themes, but from different starting points and guiding principles. Their methods and outcomes are usually radically different, yet they can also overlap, cross‑fertilize, and clash in constructive ways. The aim of this artist-in-residence is for researchers and artists - by exploring a shared theme through their respective methods, engaging in conversation, and exchanging experiences and perspectives - to learn from one another in ways that are fruitful for both practices. Through this collaborative work, researchers and artists may also develop new questions and ideas about how their shared interests can be explored through new methods.
Within medical humanities, there is a long tradition of incorporating art and literature into medical education to illuminate patient experiences and promote a holistic understanding of the patient as a subject. Such elements are often valued and of great importance, but they also build on the idea that art has healing properties or possesses a particular ability to generate empathy, reflection, and understanding. Growing criticism of art as an ‘empathy machine’ has led to a shift toward allowing art to enter into dialogue with researchers and students to jointly pose critical questions about practice, clinic, or knowledge. The starting point is therefore not to place art in the service of science, but to allow art and research to meet through an open and experimental approach that generates new questions and perspectives for both parties.