Saara Särmä: Art as Public Scholarship
Saara Särmä: Art as Public Scholarship
By: Aleks Matthews
Saara Särmä:
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Saara Särmä is an activist, feminist, artist, and scholar. She has received her doctorate degree from Tampere University located in Tampere, Finland and is currently working on her postdoctoral project at the same university. She is most well known for her works; Congrats, You Have an All Male Panel, as well as her collages that tackle important global issues.
Art as a form of Scholarship:
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Särmä’s work has been particularly important in transforming the way the world views public scholarship. She produces a type of scholarship, in the form of collages and memes, that allows people to experience academia in new and more diversified ways. In fact, Särmä, herself, explains, “I think that if we want our work to be accessible to a wide audience, we need to work with issues and materials that are familiar in the everyday (e.g. various pop culture artifacts) and we need to experiment with modes of expression which could draw in different audiences” (Collage…).
Saara’s Specific Style:
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Särmä has created and expanded upon a particular style of public scholarship. She writes, “…I focus here on internet parody images as a source for studying laughter in world politics and an art-inspired methodology – collaging – I have developed for this purpose. The circulation of internet stuff and the seeming randomness of our encounters with such stuff makes it challenging to engage with such material with standard social scientific methods of inquiry” (Collage…).
Särmä uses creative forms of art to engage the world in learning about global news and politics. Particularly, in regard to her use of memes as a form of scholarship, she elaborates, “By paying attention to laughter and internet parody images and wondering what they might have to do with world politics, I have noticed that because everything circulates so fast and memes are born instantaneously, we sometimes come by a parody first and then find out what actually happened” (Collage…).
All Male Panel:
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Art as a form of scholarship allows individuals to critically think about what they are learning. Särmä’s goal is for her scholarship to function as an easy entry point to her work for those who are not familiar with academic theorizing (Junk Feminism 95). This is becoming increasingly important because most people do not have access to the academic journals that house many types of scholarship.
Through her use of memes and art to create scholarship, Särmä is able to circulate her work by relying on the spread of her graphics through the internet. For example, Särmä uses a sticker of actor, David Hasselhoff, giving a thumbs up, in her collection “Congrats, You Have an All Male Panel”. This sticker can then be circulated across the internet in order for various individuals to highlight examples of all male panels under a common tag. This is both a comedic and artistic way in which she highlights gender inequality throughout the world.
Saara’s Symbol:
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Throughout most of her works, Särmä has been working to reclaim a Finnish symbol that usually signifies female genitalia. Särmä explains, “It [the symbol] has a few names that translate directly as ‘church boat’ or ‘a spider upside down’. This figure is something that most likely young boys would rebelliously draw in their school books or as tags in various public places. In a sense, the figure I use as a prominent feature in my work can be read as a feminist symbol also to denote the communal and co-operative nature of feminist thinking and scholarship. Or rather, I have assigned it this kind of meaning through reclaiming the figure for my own use as discussed below” (Junk Feminism 92).
Särmä has been working to reclaim the meaning of this symbol (pictured above) for almost 20 years. Särmä elaborates that, “This project is similar to some feminists reclaiming the word bitch or cunt” (Junk Feminism 93). The symbol is usually the final touch that Särmä adds to her pieces and has basically become synonymous with her signature.
The Power of Laughter:
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Särmä believes that laughter is important because parody images can circulate quickly and people often come by a parody first, which leads them later to discover the true significance and meaning behind an image. Artwork acts as an avenue for access. Laughter, in particular, plays a key role in accessibility and in Särmä’s work. In fact, she states, “Laughter in its multimodal manifestations frames and constitutes the relations of ‘us’ and ‘them’. While there can be no universal definition of what is funny, it is important to pay attention to what we laugh at and how laughter is always tied up with power. Laughter can both invert and sustain power relations. Treating laughter as a political sentiment…directs attention to power hierarchies among and between political bodies in those moments when we laugh at something/someone” (Collage… 3).
Utilizing laughter, as a means of comprehending subjects (that are usually very serious), is a revolutionary technique that Särmä is legitimizing through her work. Särmä’s work contributes to a more accessible and understandable form of public scholarship. Her ideas and style embrace modern trends and help keep public scholarship relevant in today’s ever-evolving world.
Conclusion:
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Global public-scholarship can come in an array of forms and mediums. Oftentimes, when people hear the word scholarship, they automatically envision lengthy documents written by professionals that are published in peer reviewed journals. However, this is not always the case. These forms of scholarship can be inaccessible and unapproachable to a wide portion of the population.
Public scholarship encapsulates a wide range of diverse methods that can be employed to spread information through communities across the globe. Saara Särmä is a perfect example of how public scholarship can take shape through an array of forms.
#saarasärma #art #collages #allmalepanel #finland #globalsociology #publicscholarship #globalissues #accessibility
Bibliography and Additional Readings:
Adkins, Lisa and Dever Maryanne. “All Male Panel: Interview with Saara Särmä”. Australian Feminist Studies 30 (15) 2015. Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2015.1107943
Särmä, Saara. “Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics”. E-International Relations. Internet. 2015. Available: https://www.e-ir.info/2015/06/06/collage-an-art-inspired-methodology-for-studying-laughter-in-world-politics/#_ftn1
Särmä, Saara. “Congrats You Have an All Mail Final”. tumblr. Internet. Available: https://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/
Särmä, Saara. “Junk Feminism and Nuclear Wannabes”. Tampere University 2014. Available: https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/95961/978-951-44-9535-9.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y