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Celia Vara is a postdoctoral fellow at the Moving Image Research Lab at McGill University. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication (2019) at Concordia University (QC, Canada). She is a psychologist since 1997, and her master thesis (“Feminist Video Art in the 70’s in Spain”) won in 2013 the 1st Prize-Award in Gender and Research by Jaume I University in Spain. She is also a visual artist and public and community engage scholar through video performance/films programs and embodied workshops. Her writings and media work have appeared in Journal feral feminisms, Institute for Research on Women (Rutgers University), McGraw Hill Editorial, Art and Politics, humanities and entropy (MPDI Switzerland), and Performance Research (Routledge Journal, Taylor and Francis). She 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. Her research interests include corporeal processes of consciousness, perception and agency, and embodied research-creation methodologies.
Celia Vara
Celia Vara is a postdoctoral fellow at the Moving Image Research Lab at McGill University. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication (2019) at Concordia University (QC, Canada). She is a psychologist since 1997, and her master thesis (“Feminist Video Art in the 70’s in Spain”) won in 2013 the 1st Prize-Award in Gender and Research by Jaume I University in Spain. She is also a visual artist and public and community engage scholar through video performance/films programs and embodied workshops. Her writings and media work have appeared in Journal feral feminisms, Institute for Research on Women (Rutgers University), McGraw Hill Editorial, Art and Politics, humanities and entropy (MPDI Switzerland), and Performance Research (Routledge Journal, Taylor and Francis). She 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. Her research interests include corporeal processes of consciousness, perception and agency, and embodied research-creation methodologies.
Participant in the following FMS projects
More Info
Postdoctoral fellow at the Moving Image Research Lab at McGill University
2019 – Ph.D. in Communication at Concordia University (QC, Canada)
2009 – MA Gender Studies, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
1997 – Bachelor in Psychology, Universidad de Murcia, Spain
celia.vara@mcgill.ca
celiavara@gmail.com
McGill.ca
Vimeo
Publications
2024
“Embodied and Sensorial Methodologies Researching Performance: Kinesthetic Empathy” in vol.7.2 (forthcoming) Special Issue on “Ecologies of Embodiment”. Journal of Embodied Research. Freely online via Open Library of Humanities.
2023
"Kinesthetic Experience : Emancipatory Corporeal Scores" (Humanities MDPI Special Issue 12(6) “With-In Bodies : Research Assemblages of the Sensory and the Embodied”) Freely online (open Access) https://doi.org/10.3390/h12060138
“El cuerpo sensorial en la performance en los años 70: Kinesthesia y Agencia Corporal” in Arte y educación en contextos multidisciplinares (p. 854-869) Freely online (open Access) https://bit.ly/48Wfg88
“Psychological Implicit Motives Construct as an Emergent Fractal Attractor from Intermittent Neurophysiological Responses: Simulation and Entropy-like Characterization”. Martín, M.Á.; Vara, C.; García-Gutiérrez, C. Entropy 2023, 25, 711.
https://doi.org/10.3390/e25050711
2022
Tripas de Corazón [Heart Guts]. REJOINDER. Issue 7 Spring 2022 https://irw.rutgers.edu/rejoinder-webjournal/issue-7-trauma/577-tripas-de-corazon
2021
Somatic Ways of Knowing. Performance Research Volume26, Issue 1 – On perception (2021) https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2021.1977508
Kinesthetic Empathy as Embodied Research. Performance Research. Volume26, Issue 2 – On (Un)Knowns (2021) https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2021.2005973
2019
Gleaning Corporeal Knowledge. Art and Identity Policies Art and Identity Policies, 21, 96–119. https://doi.org/10.6018/reapi.416741
Workshops: Kinesthesia, Embodied and Research-Creation Methodologies
2024
Embodied Workshop: “Dar Cuerpo al Cuerpo: Sensorial instructions for feminist political declarations. Catalonia and the Basque Country” Centre d’arts Santa Mònica – Barcelona (Catalonia)
https://artssantamonica.gencat.cat/en/detall/Dar-Cuerpo-al-Cuerpo-II
2023
“Re-orienting gestures, sensing relationally: a workshop to cultivate kinesthetic empathy”. Uncommon Senses IV: Sensory Ecologies, Economies, and Aesthetics. Centre for Sensory Studies. Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
2022
“Re-orienting Bodies: Unfolding Sensorial Unknowns”. ISEA2022 – International Synmposium on Electronic Art. Barcelona (Catalonia)
https://hexagram.ca/en/unfolding-sensorial-unknowns/
2021
“The body and the researcher”. Uncommon Senses III Conference: Back to the future of the senses. Centre for Sensory Studies. Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/795816090
2020
“Jo soc una professoreta” Conocimiento kinestésico en las acciones de Fina Miralles. Cátedra Institucional de Estudios Artísticos. Annetta Nicoli. Universidad Miguel Hernández, Spain).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-LizSB6I8w
Video and performance
2023
“Pecha Kucha”
Pilot video for a (coming soon) documentary with filmmaker Ivó Vinuesa.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/915217139
2019
“Fina Miralles: Embodied Stories” at Poetics+Politics 4 University of California, Santa Cruz
https://vimeo.com/336108068
2019
Bridges (Collaboration in Performance with Alexandra Rodes) at Museo Universitario de Alicante (MUA) (pages 36-39)
https://mua.ua.es/archivos/2019_Residencias_MUA.pdf
2016
“Tripas de Corazón” at RUTGERS – Institute for Research on Women
https://vimeo.com/264432199
“Atrezzo Tripas de Corazón by Agustina Martín de la Iglesia”
https://vimeo.com/732388397
2013
Bridges (Collaboration in Performance with Alexandra Rodes)
http://feministonlinespaces.com/2013/05/bridges-2/
Violeta Esperanza at feral feminisms and RUTGERS-Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities.
https://feralfeminisms.com/violeta-esperanza/
Curation
2024
“Créer de l’espace: experiences kinesthésiques” MO(U)VEMENT(S) – HTMlles 2024 feminist festival of media arts and digital culture organized by Ada X - feminist artist-run centre (Montreal, Quebec, Canada).
“Dar Cuerpo al Cuerpo: Sensorial instructions for feminist political declarations. Catalonia and the Basque Country” Groupe Intervention Video (GIV) – Montreal (Quebec, Canada)
https://mailchi.mp/d6db574a8369/topovideographies-10296310
“Dar Cuerpo al Cuerpo: Sensorial instructions for feminist political declarations. Catalonia and the Basque Country” Centre d’arts Santa Mònica – Barcelona (Catalonia)
https://artssantamonica.gencat.cat/en/detall/Dar-Cuerpo-al-Cuerpo-I
“Dar Cuerpo al Cuerpo: Sensorial instructions for feminist political declarations. Quebec” Centre d’arts Santa Mònica – Barcelona (Catalonia)
https://artssantamonica.gencat.cat/en/detall/Dar-Cuerpo-al-Cuerpo-II
2018
“Les recerques de Fina Miralles” Super-8 Film (1973-1976) – Centro Cultural de España en Santo Domingo CCESD (Dominican Republic).
https://ccesd.org/exposiciones/les-recerques-de-miralles-super-8-film-1973-1976
Cita Cultural (2018, March 8th) Centro Cultural de España en Santo Domingo (CCESD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7XDzGFbSDU&t=6s
2017
“I create new spaces. I build paths. I walk through them”. Feminist Media Studio – Communication Studies – Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)