‘Variations on mobility’ is the joint edition of Creative Commissions 2019/2020 hosted by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility & Humanities (DiSSGeA) of the University of Padova and the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities. The Creative Commissions 2019-2020 Committee was composed of: Sasha Engelmann, Veronica della Dora and Harriet Hawkins (Centre for the GeoHumanities, Royal Holloway University of London), Giada Peterle and Tania Rossetto (MoHu Centre, University of Padua).

This virtual space showcases the work of four artist-researcher teams who explored the potential of art and creative methodologies in the study, imagination and expression of mobility issues. In our current time, the pandemic has not only deeply influenced the mobility and immobility of people and objects but also affected the way in which we think of im/mobility in the present and imagine it in our future. More than ever, mobility issues speak to all of us.

Designed in the pre-pandemic world, the Creative Commissions 2019 – 2020 were deeply influenced by the unexpected effects of the Covid-19 crisis. The four showcased graphic works trace the research path of these ongoing creative-research projects, whose work has been variously diverted, redirected, and moved by the conditions of the pandemic. Whereas the pandemic has caused its own ‘variations on mobility’ these works are nevertheless exploring mobilities on wider timescales. Moving beyond the pandemic time, these Commissions  follow the migratory routes of people in history, experiment with the performative essence of texts as mobilising practices, collect the compelling stories told by mobile objects and explore possible sustainable mobilities for the future by reinterpreting ideas from the past.

This showcase does not represent an end point for many of these creative-research projects, since they are still growing and expanding beyond the Creative Commissions programme. Discover the process of creative-research that led to this showcase through the Progress Posts published at the bottom of this website.