Celia VARA
Ph.D., Communication, Concordia University (2019)
MA, Gender and Equality, Jaume I University, Spain (2009)
BA, Psychology, University of Murcia, Spain (1997)
Performance art; corporeal agency; kinesthesia; research-creation; feminisms
Her postdoctoral research explores the use of sensorial body in 1970s feminist performance art and its relations with corporeal agency and feminist resistance in the current cultural and political context. It further develops experimental methods employing kinesthesia and kinesthetic empathy as research-creation methodologies.
2023
"Kinesthetic Forms of Building Knowledge", Journal of Embodied Research, Volume 6 – Issue 1 – 2023 (accepted)
"Somatic Restorative Practices". Performance Research Volume 26, Issue 28.5 – On sadness 2023 (accepted)
2022
"Tripas de Corazón" [Heart Guts]. REJOINDER. Issue 7 Spring 2022
2021
"Somatic Ways of Knowing". Performance Research. Volume 26, Issue 1 – On perception (2021)
"Kinesthetic Empathy as Embodied Research". Performance Research. Volume 26, Issue 2 – On (Un)Knowns (2021)
2019
"Gleaning Corporeal Knowledge". Art and Identity Policies, 21, 96–119.
Celia Vara is a FQRSC Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University (Montreal, QC, Canada). She holds a Ph.D. in Communication (2019) at Concordia University (Montreal, QC, Canada). She is a psychologist (Bachellor in Psychology) and has been working since 1998 in a pioneering research and treatment centre on gender violence. She has participated in numerous researches and projects on feminism and art in Europe, Canada and the Caribbean. Her MA thesis (“Feminist Video Art in the 70’s in Spain”) won in 2015 the 1st Prize-Award in Gender and Research by Jaume I University in Spain. She is a visual artist and curator and has had residencies and individual and collective exhibitions in Dominican Republic, Canada, Cuba and Spain. Her writings and media work have appeared in Journal feral feminisms, Institute for Research on Women (Rutgers University), Feminizine, Art and Identity Policies, McGraw Hill Editorial and Performance Research (Routledge Journal, Taylor and Francis). Her research interests include performance, contemporary art, curatorship, and research-creation from a feminist perspective.