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Univ.-Ass^.in Dr^.in phil. BA. MA Freda Fiala

University assistant

Freda Fiala is a Post-Doctoral researcher in the ERC project OLFAC (Olfactormativity: Exploring The Intervening Performativity Of Smell) and joined the department in this role in 2024.

FIELDS OF RESEARCH

Theories and Aesthetics of Performance (Art)
East Asian Performance and Cultural Studies
Transmodern Artistic Networks / Art and Cultural Diplomacy
Critical Curatorial and Museum Studies
Infrastructural Critique

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Freda's academic journey bridges Theater, Film, and Media and East Asian Studies (Sinology), developed through study periods in Vienna, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Her P.h.D., funded by a DOC grant from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–2023), explored contemporary performance in Taiwan through its networks and cultural-political implications. Titled „Curating Communities, Staging Liveness: Contemporary Performance in Taiwan’s Quest for Identity“, it is set to be published in 2025 as the first English monograph on contemporary performance and its role in informal cultural diplomacy in the Taiwanese context.

Freda’s research is guided by questions of de/centralisation in both macro- and micro-historical frameworks. Across performance, curatorial and museum studies, her practice critically probes the influence of cultural infrastructures on modes of the artistic and institutional.

Freda has been a guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Vienna and a theory mentor at the P.A.R.T.S. School for Contemporary Dance in Brussels. Her curatorial work includes developing performance formats for museum spaces, such as „The Non-fungible Body“? and „HYBRID BODIES“ at OK Linz, as well as co-curating symposia („Performance Besides Itself. Infra- and Parastructures of a Contemporary Liveness“ with Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, „Curatorial Tipping Points“ with the Austrian Association of Curators, Salzburger Kunstverein and Museum der Moderne Salzburg).

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECT

2024-2029 OLFAC Olfactormativity - Exploring the Intervening Performativity of Smell (ERC Consolidator Project)

Project Team:
Prof. Dr. Silke Felber (PI)
Dr. Freda Fiala (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Dr. Julia Ostwald (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Antonia Karácsonyi LL.B. (Project and Office Management)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Fiala, Freda (forthcoming, 2025): ”Empty Stages, Crowded Studios, Networked Bodies: ADAM’s Pacific Perspectives on Contemporary Performance,” in The Routledge Companion to Performance, eds. O’Connor, Lucian; Ovejero Postigo, Graciela; Loveless, Natalie; Klein, Jennie (New York: Routledge).

Fiala, Freda (2024): “The Taipei Performing Arts Center and the Bauhaus – The Visceral Economy of “Avant-Garde,” in Curatography. The Study of Curatorial Culture, ISSUE 13 The Economy of Curation and the Capital of Attention. (English/Chinese)

Fiala, Freda (2024), ”Performance ohne Protest. Freda Fiala über ‘UNBOUND: PERFORMANCE AS RUPTURE’ in der Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin,” in TEXTE ZUR KUNST.

Fiala, Freda; Lin, River; Weidinger, Alfred (eds.) (2023): The Non-fungible Body?Performance and Digitalisation (Berlin: DISTANZ).

Fiala, Freda (2022): ”Thinking borders, oceanically. On The Past is a Foreign Country by Michikazu Matsune and Jun Yang,” in Networked Bodies: The Culture and Ecosystem of Contemporary Performance, ed. Lin, River (Taipei: Taipei Performing Arts Center). (English/Chinese), 169–177.

Fiala, Freda (2022), ”Performance on the Blockchain: Zhang Huan and EchoX,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 45 (3 (135)): 24–34.

Please find a list of all publications here.