📍 Tallinn University, room M-328
This workshop will be conducted in English.
The workshop on performative writing emphasizes the embodied, agential and sensuous nature of text and materiality. It equips participants with a creative tool for enhancing academic and non-academic writing through improvisational exercises that help explore writing from different angles for researchers in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
The workshop is aimed at doctoral researchers in the humanities and arts and their supervisors.
The workshop is carried out by the Danish-Norwegian novelist Kirstine Reffstrup, and Laima Nomeikaite who is a cultural geographer, physical improvisor and Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Agder, Norway.
Kirstine Reffstrup is acclaimed for her novels exploring themes of identity, history, and human resilience.
She holds a Master’s degree in Literary Composition from the Art Academy Valand in Gothenburg. Her debut novel I, Unica, a fantasy portrayal of the German artist Unica Zürn, was published in Norway and Denmark in 2016 and nominated for several literary prizes, including the Montana Prize. Her second novel, Iron Lung, was released in 2023. In the same year, she was awarded Stig Sæterbakken’s Memorial Prize for her literary work that has been translated to several languages.
Laima Nomeikaitė is Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development and Planning at the University of Agder, Norway. Her research focuses on the intersection between heritage, arts, the city and space/ place. She is co-editor with Professor Michael Haldrup of the book Arts, Heritage and Performative Politics (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025). Her work has contributed to the development of the research field on street art, heritage and more-than-representational approaches.
10:00 – 10:45 Introduction. A theoretical introduction to performative and creative writing, including examples from literary and art history.
10:45 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 13:00 Writing techniques. Participants will be familiarised with the different techniques of performative and creative writing (e.g. performative embodied research, freewriting, etc.) and will experiment with these through different exercises.
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 Writing in the city. With instructions to focus on their senses, participants are encouraged to freely wander in the selected urban space to collect materials, ideas and inspirations for their writing. The materials can be remains from the city (leaves, stones, papers etc.) as well as sensual impressions, using all of our sensual registers: sounds, smells, tastes, touch, visual imaginary. Cameras and sound recorders can also be used. The sensuality and materiality of the city will act as an agent for performative writing.
15:00 – 16:00 Compositional work. Building on previously introduced techniques, participants will create textual and material compositions out of the urban materials and sensual inspirations they will have gathered during the walk. The writing does not need to be done through written words, it can also consist of gathering and composing photography, videos, sounds, material compositions of city remains, or anything else.
16:00 – 16:15 Coffee break
16:15 – 17:15 Participants’ presentations and concluding remarks. We will finish by sharing our writings and discussing how this creative process can be of value for participants’ research.
Register HERE. The registration is open until March 20, 2026.
The maximum number of participants is 15. Participants will be selected based on the order of registration.
In case of questions, please turn to Eva Kruuse, eva.kruuse@tlu.ee.
Estonian Doctoral School for Humanities and Arts.
