PhD defense: Steinunn Knúts-Önnudóttir

On September 27th it is finally time for Steinunn Knúts-Önnudóttir disputation. Taking place at Bryggeriteatern, Steinunn will defend her research project "How Little is Enough? Sustainable Methods of Performance for Transformative Encounters" before an audience.    

In her artistic research project "How Little is Enough? Sustainable Methods of Performance for Transformative Encounters", Steinunn explores how the performing arts can respond to the current environmental and social challenges, by investigating the affordances of relation specific performances through methods such as performative encounters and porous and embracing dramaturgy through the prism of existential sustainability.    

The thesis can be accessed through an online exposition on Research Catalogue and is presented in three categories; a performance archive, research publications, and method development. As a part of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School, an interdisciplinary research initiative at Lund University, the project focuses on existential sustainability and investigates how performance can enhance participants' sense of meaning and motivation for adopting sustainable lifestyles and increasing sustainable awareness. The four performance works of this artistic research are: No Show (2020), Island (2020), Strings (2022), and Pleased to Meet You (2022/2023).   

In connection to the disputation, the project will be presented through a mixed media exposition containing photos, texts, video, audio, manuscripts and a do-it-yourself-performance at IAC (Inter Art Center). 

See details about the exposition here. 

External opponent: Rebecca Hilton professor from Stockholm University of the Arts   

The disputation is open to the public. 

About Steinunn Knúts-Önnudóttir   

Steinunn Knúts-Önnudóttir, born in Malmö in 1965, is a performance maker and artistic researcher based in Iceland. She has worked as a director, writer, dramaturge, and performer in Iceland, the UK, Scandinavia, and beyond, with her work playing in Reykjavik, Malmö, New York, Vienna, online, on television, and radio. Steinunn was a dramaturge at the City Theatre in Reykjavik and a lecturer and dean at the Iceland University of the Arts. In her work, she focuses on existentially sustainable, relation- specific performances and performative encounters. Steinunn is also a mother of three, a theologian, life coach, and pottery maker.   As part of the project, Knúts-Önnudóttir is releasing a book containing a concluding essay called ”Testimony of a Pilgrim”, and the manuscripts from her performances.    

Read more about the project here.