Doing Research in Art and Science
Research techniques are part of the craft not only of scholars but also, and for quite some time now, of artists—especially in the independent performing arts. They find expression, among other things, in documentary, autofictional, or investigative forms of theater.
The panel will discuss how artistic production changes when it begins with a research-oriented interest in knowledge. How are the academization and institutionalization of the independent performing arts interconnected? How is the relationship between art and research—or art as research—currently shifting? And how can the humanities and the arts support one another in times of legitimacy crises?
- Speakers: Azadeh Ganjeh (performance artist and professor of social performative arts at HKS Ottersberg), Eva Meyer-Keller (choreographer), Matthias Warstat (professor of theater studies and co-director of the Collaborative Research Center “Intervening Arts,” Freie Universität Berlin)
- Moderator: Marie Rosenkranz (cultural sociologist)
- Format: Panel Discussion
- Spoken Language: German, English
- Interpretation: English, German, German Sign Language (DGS)
- Location: HAU1, Stage
In Conversation
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Azadeh Ganjeh
Performance artist and professor of social performing arts at HKS Ottersberg
© Mayra Wallraff
Azadeh Ganjeh
Performance artist and professor of social performing arts at HKS OttersbergAzadeh Ganjeh is a Theatre and Performance Studies scholar, Professor of Performative Arts in Social Contexts at the University of Applied Arts and Sciences in Social Contexts (Hochschule für Künste im Sozialen) Ottersberg, Germany, and a performance artist. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Bern, Switzerland. Since 2006, she has been a member of the research and performance art collective Rebel-IST-hah!, grounded in Tehran, Iran, and based in Germany since 2022.
Her artistic and scholarly practice encompasses narratives and politics of the stage, the performativity of protests and public interventions, the performative engagement of body and space, the aesthetics of performativity and politics of space, and activism in performance art and academia. Her work explores how bodies, spaces, and collective practices can become sites of negotiation, resistance, and social transformation.
Together with Rebel-IST-hah!, she develops participatory research practices in which research is not only a means of producing knowledge but also becomes the foundation for artistic creation. Their processes engage with communities, lived experiences, and everyday encounters, transforming research into performative situations that can unfold on stage while also allowing the work to continue living through encounters in everyday life and public space.
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Eva Meyer-Keller
Choreographer | Berlin
© Barbara Dietl
Eva Meyer-Keller
Choreographer | BerlinEva Meyer-Keller lives and works in Berlin.
She works at the intersection of performing and visual arts. Before completing her four-year degree in dance and choreography at the SNDO in Amsterdam, she studied photography and visual arts in Berlin (University of the Arts) and London (Central Saint Martins, King’s College).
Eva Meyer-Keller’s performances and video works are characterized by the meticulous attention paid to detail. She uses everyday objects from her immediate and immediate surroundings—things she finds at home, at the supermarket, or in her hobby room. This choreographed crafting unfolds an obsessive domestic aesthetic. Even in the various constellations of her collaborative projects, Meyer-Keller’s working method remains characterized by a constructive disregard for the genre boundaries between visual and performing arts.
Her numerous works include, among others, the performance *DEATH IS CERTAIN*, which has been performed at more than 250 venues worldwide since 2002. Her works from the past three years include: *TURN THE P/AGE* (2025), *CERTAINLY UNCERTAIN* (2021–24), *OUT OF MIND* (2023), HORA LABOR – OBJECTS THAT SURROUND US (2023), NON-LIVING MATTERS – PLASTIC BAG STORIES (2023), GIVE ME YOUR BONES (2022), and QUEST (2022).
She is currently working on a new piece offering a feminist perspective on the history of evolution, *BITCH, I EVOLVED* (premiere March 2027).
Eva Meyer-Kellers develops her performances either on her own or in collaboration with other artists. She has worked with Uta Eisenreich, Sybille Müller, Kate McIntosh, and Agnes Meyer-Brandis, among others. In addition to her own projects, she has participated in works by Baktruppen, Jérôme Bel, Juan Dominguez, Christine De Smedt / les Ballets C de la B, and W.I.S.P. (women in Swedish performance art).
Since 2010, Eva Meyer-Keller has taught continuously in various degree programs across Europe: the University of Hildesheim (visiting professor), BA and MA programs at the Inter-University Center for Dance (HZT/UdK) in Berlin, the MA program THE AUTONOMOUS ACTOR and DOCH (Circus och Dans Högskolan) in Stockholm, as well as ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). -
Prof. Dr. Matthias Warstat
Professor of Theater Studies at Freie Universität Berlin
© Juergen Morgenroth
Prof. Dr. Matthias Warstat
Professor of Theater Studies at Freie Universität BerlinMatthias Warstat has been a professor of theater studies at Freie Universität Berlin since 2012. From 2008 to 2012, he held the chair in theater and media studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is a project leader in the DFG Collaborative Research Centers 1171 “Affective Societies” and 1512 “Intervening Arts,” as well as a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Research interests: political theater, the theatricality of society, 20th-century theater history, aesthetics of contemporary theater. Publications include: *Interventions of Political Theater*, Berlin: Theater der Zeit 2025; *Contested Diversity: Affective Dynamics of Institutional Diversification* (edited with H. Dilger), Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus 2021; *Social Theatricality: The Staging of Society*, Paderborn: Fink 2018.
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Dr. phil. Marie Rosenkranz
Cultural sociologist | Berlin
© Sascha Schlegel
Dr. phil. Marie Rosenkranz
Cultural sociologist | BerlinDr. phil. Marie Rosenkranz is a cultural sociologist who works at the intersection of cultural and social theory. Over the past six years, she has taught and conducted research on art-activist practices and the politicization of the art world at Humboldt University in Berlin, Zurich University of the Arts, the University of Helsinki, and the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. She is co-editor of the journal Artis Observatio and co-spokesperson for the Working Group on Sociology of Art within the German Sociological Association.