Virgečilgehus

Research on and with arts, culture, and society.

Research interests

Coastal Cultures
Ageing and Dementia
Gender and Gender Equality
Sound and Music
Historiography and Storytelling

Expertise
Community Research
Research Ethics
Open Research in the Arts & Humanities
Innovative Research Communication

I apply feminist theories to explore human thoughts, creations, and relations, and what it means to be human at all. I often use qualitative and arts-based research methods such as archival studies, content analysis, multimodal analysis, aesthetic analysis, diffractive analysis, discourse analysis, policy analysis, qualitative interviews, focus group interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and situated art intervention.

With a strong background within the arts & humanities, I have developed close collaborations with social and natural scientists working on artscience, natureculture, and human-more-than-human intra-actions. Theoretically, my work is inspired by feminist posthumanism and new materialism. Empirically, my research is increasingly connected to the Arctic where I have lived since 2014.

I am trained in Musicology and Media- and Communication Studies at the University of Göttingen and the University of Oslo and received my PhD in 2014 with a study of women composers in 19. century Norway. Since 2023 I am coordinating the Centre for Arctic Humanities at UiT.

Member

• UArctic Thematic Network on Gender in Arctic Knowledge Production
• Arctic Five Network on Intersectional Gender Equality in Academia in Arctic North
• International Research Network Arts & Dementia

Selected Projects

• CO-VISION - EU Artistic Digital Archive
• Ocean Creations - Situated art intervention in coastal cultures
• Living with the Ocean - Traveling outdoor exhibition at the shoreline
• Artful Dementia Research Lab - Citizen Science and open arts-based research
• RESCAPE - Performative Research & Education
• Voices of Women in the Arctic and Beyond - ERASMUS+ between Norway, Germany and The Netherlands
• Gender Balance in Research Leadership - Research and intervention in organisational change
• Gender Balance in Arts Education - Research and intervention in organisational change
• musikk-musik. Space for possibilities of Norwegian women composers - International Conference

Selected Publications

• Lukić, Dragana & Lilli Mittner. 2023. Diffracting Dementia: Co-Creative Experiments with Agential Realism and Multisensoriality in a Residential Care Home in Northern Norway. In E. Just, M. Udén, V. Weetzel, & C. Åsberg (Eds.), Voices from Gender Studies: Negotiating the terms of academic production, epistemology, and the logics and contents of identity. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Voices-from-Gender-Studies-Negotiating-the-Terms-of-Academic-Production/Just-Udn-Weetzel-sberg/p/book/9781032415826
• Mittner, Lilli, and Rikke Gürgens Gjærum. 2022. ‘Research Innovation: Advancing Arts-Based Research Methods to Make Sense of Micro-Moments Framed by Dementia’. Nordic Journal of Art and Research 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.7577/information.5065
• Haselmann, Lena, Janke Klok, and Lilli Mittner. 2021. Autumn Talk and Ocean Songs. Dramatic Assemblage – Methods and Relevance of Performative Historiography. In: Anna Langenbruch, Daniel Samaga, and Clémence Schupp-Maurer (Eds.), Musikgeschichte auf der Bühne - Performing Music History, 375–98. transcript Verlag. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783839457467-021/html.
• Mittner, Lilli. 2021. Resonating Moments: Exploring Socio-Material Connectivity through Artistic Encounters with People Living with Dementia. Dementia, 14713012211039816. https://doi.org/10.1177/14713012211039816
• Maxwell, Kate, Lilli Mittner, and Hanne Hammer Stien (Eds.). 2020. Conceptualizing the North. Nordlit, nr. 46: 1–11. https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/399
• Maxwell, Kate and Lilli Mittner. 2018. Multimodal Aesthetics and Gender in Beck’s Song Reader. In E. S. Tønnessen & F. Forsgren (Eds.), Multimodality and Aesthetics. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315102665
• Mittner, Lilli. 2018. 'Students Can Have a Really Powerful Role…'. Understanding Curriculum Transformation Within the Framework of Canon Critique and Critical Pedagogy. Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education (2). https://doi.org/10.23865/jased.v2.928