Program
Conference on Artistic Practice, Research, Activism and Public Life — in Response to Climate Anxiety, Geopolitical Instability, and Shifting Social Landscape.
We warmly welcome you to the conference Worry: Art, Preparedness, Resistance at Linnaeus University in Växjö. Artists, researchers, students, and cultural practitioners — both established and emerging — are invited to join us in exploring the role of art in times of uncertainty. The conference forms the academic opening of The Småland Triennale 2026.
The conference is co-produced by:
Konstfrämjandet Småland
The Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Linnaeus University
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University
The Cultural University at Linnaeus University
About the conference:
The conference engages with perspectives on art, ecology and societal transformation in relation to contemporary conditions of crisis and change. This is a multidisciplinary gathering where contributions focus on the intersections between artistic practice, research, activism and public life—such as how art can respond to climate anxiety, geopolitical instability and shifting social landscapes, and how it can shape new forms of preparedness, resilience, and collective imagination.
The field explored within the conference spans, but is not limited to artistic research, environmental humanities, design, cultural studies, pedagogy and social practice. By bringing together diverse approaches, the conference aims to foster dialogue across disciplines and to examine how knowledge can be produced, shared, transformed and mediated through both artistic and academic processes.
The conference programme includes keynote lectures, artistic presentations, student presentations, workshops and panel discussions.
Invited speakers represent a range of perspectives within artistic research, design, and environmental humanities. This constellation reflects the interdisciplinary ambition of the conference and its focus on exploring the thematics of The Småland Triennale 2026 Oro: Konst, beredskap, motstånd as both a lived condition and a creative strategy.