The new professorship in artistic didactics will contribute to more knowledge in interdisciplinary and practice-based research and teaching, focusing on how creative processes are expressed in higher education.

Annika Olsson, Dean of Lund Faculty of Engineering (LTH), describes the professorship as a strategic investment to increase the quality of the faculty's artistic programmes.

"The undergraduate programme will be strengthened through increased research links and clear pedagogical development that can provide better conditions for students' learning and their academic development," she says.

Ylva Hofvander Trulsson, who took up the professorship in mid-June, explains that the subject is about learning in relation to artistic expression and what it means for the individual and society. It is experience-based learning that can be linked to creativity and action in various ways. A common thread in the research is different perspectives on participation and sustainability, as well as norm-critical perspectives on learning and exploration processes.

"My goal is to contribute to pedagogical development in programmes that work with art and creation as a method, and to develop a platform for a didactic discussion between teachers. Through this discussion forum, we can both make visible and analyse the knowledge we have attained in the meeting with the students," she says.

Ylva Hofvander Trulsson explains that artistic learning is about using imagination and creativity to develop new ways of performing and interpreting.

"Training students to explore and trust their own capacity to find solutions is important for them to dare to think in new directions and tackle issues that may be vaguely formulated at the start. These didactics can also be interesting for other student groups at LTH to explore and learn from," she says.

Art and creation as a method and knowledge area can be a bridge to other disciplines, a role that has not been prominent in the STEM strategy – the government's initiative to strengthen the Swedish pool of competence in science and technology, says Ylva Hofvander Trulsson.

"Art can contribute a human perspective and a critical eye. Art can also strengthen culture and translate knowledge of individual learning, for example in the face of existential challenges."

When we combine industry and production with the artistic aspects, what do we get?

"I think we open up new ways of understanding human beings – where experiences, creativity, ethical and aesthetic expression become central to the development of both the individual and society," says Ylva Hofvander Trulsson.

What is didactics?
Didactics is about the art of teaching and how people learn. In the field of education, didactics focuses specifically on what to teach, how to teach it and why.

About Ylva Hofvander Trulsson

Ylva Hofvander Trulsson is a new professor of artistic didactics at LTH, Lund University, based at the Division of Industrial Design at the Department of Design Sciences. Here she will work with tutor training on an artistic basis and with how practice-based knowledge can be conveyed, communicated, assessed and quality assured – among other things.

Ylva Hofvander Trulsson was previously Professor of Aesthetic Didactics at Stockholm University of the Arts, where she was also Head of Department and had responsibility for pedagogical development at the entire university. Before that, she was Vice Dean for research at the Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts at Lund University, with responsibility for higher education pedagogy, quality and equality issues.

She obtained her PhD in music education in 2011 at Lund University, became an associate professor in 2019 and was active at Lund University between 2004 and 2021. She has also done a two-year postdoc at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education.

Her research focuses on artistic learning for social mobility and innovation among minorities and indigenous peoples, arts learning in higher education, ethics in higher arts education, artistic research and artistic learning as a tool for social change.

Ylva Hofvander Trulsson is a member of the Swedish Research Council's Committee for Educational Sciences, the Swedish Arts Council's expert group and the Knowledge Council of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. She has extensive experience of evaluating higher education and research at Lund University and Stockholm University of the Arts and has chaired several examination rights hearings for the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ).