The 2025 PARSE conference turns up the heat
The sixth biennial PARSE conference, Some Like It Hot, takes on the theme of HEAT. In a world of rising temperatures, both literal and metaphorical, the conference explores heat as a force of crisis and creation alike.
“This year’s conference theme reflects our collective concern for the vast range of environmental and societal harm linked to climate change,” says Jessica Hemmings, Editor-in-Chief at PARSE.
The conference, Jessica Hemmings explains, builds on several notable examples. Hito Steyerl published Medium Hot: Images in The Age of Heat this summer, a work that focuses on technology, while issue 51 of Thresholds, published by the MIT Department of Architecture, is devoted to the topic of heat in relation to architecture.
“PARSE also has a further interest at play, the idea of artistic research “turning up the heat” to hold itself more accountable to urgent topics that include but are far from exclusively climate related,” says Jessica Hemmings.
Open to the public
While most of the conference’s program requires registration, this year introduces a new element: all plenary sessions will be open to the public, free to attend, and live streamed. This allows a wider audience to take part in the conference.
The following sessions are open to the public and will be live-streamed via the PARSE website:
fields harrington, Thermal Runaways: Labor, Extraction, and Circuits of Exhaustion, Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Wednesday, November 12, 15:00–16:30
This session explores how the gig economy’s delivery work and global lithium mining are connected through cycles of exhaustion and resource depletion, showing how both human bodies and the planet are being drained of energy in the name of technological progress.
Marina Otero Verzier, On Heat, Desire, and the Thermopolitics of Data, Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Thursday, November 13, 12:30–14:00
This talk explores how digital technologies produce and depend on heat, from server rooms to mining sites, revealing how data infrastructure fuels environmental strain while suggesting ways to imagine more sustainable energy futures.
Hsuan Hsu, Thermoception and Post-AC Worldmaking, City Library, Thursday, November 13, 17:30–19:00
This presentation examines how our experiences of heat and temperature shape the way we relate to the world, arguing that thermal sensations, often overlooked in Western thought, can reveal new, more connected ways of living beyond the capitalist and climate-controlling logic of air conditioning.
Sara Sassanelli, Looking for the Heat, Gothenburg Concert Hall, Friday, November 14, 11:00–12:30
This session explores how contemporary dance and choreography engage with heat as both a physical and emotional force, manifesting through movement, repetition, and intensity, to create spaces of experimentation, instability, and transformation in response to our accelerated, crisis-driven world.
We are looking forward to what the conference delegates may be able to teach us all
As PARSE enters its second decade, the 2025 conference continues to build on the platform’s role as a space for exchange and reflection within artistic research, this year under the theme of HEAT.
“We are looking forward to what the conference delegates may be able to teach us all through their compelling examples that press beyond an apologetic stance to instead exemplify artistic research deployed with conviction and energy,” says Jessica Hemmings.
PARSE (Platform for Artistic Research Sweden) is both a publishing platform and a biennial conference focused on artistic research.
Hosted by the Artistic Faculty at the University of Gothenburg, the sixth biennial PARSE conference will take place on November 12–14, 2025. Gathering international artists, researchers, and thinkers, it continues PARSE’s commitment to critical artistic inquiry.
