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- The Artist's Dilemma: How Do We Validate Knowledge That Lives "In Between"?- (Reflection Part I) As a Multidisciplinary Artist Researcher, I face a common yet critical challenge: how to effectively validate the rigorous knowledge and skills acquired through a multidisciplinary international career path? My work isn't confined to a single box. It emerges from 15 years of situated research across international contexts, integrating transdisciplinary collaborations with diverse communities and cultures. This results in a potent blend of expertise, a "baggage" that goes far beyond a traditional CV which often impacts in artists livelihoods. ---- The Unseen Expertise: Embodied, Imagination, Resilience... The essence of this knowledge is often found in the "in between": intangible, fluid insights that resist easy categorisation, particularly within academic structures as artistic research evolves in permeability. The question: if practice is the place where knowledge emerges, and if artists are trained to integrate imagination and critical thinking, how should we validate practice-based knowledge emerging from situated artistic research and embodied learning? Our visions are often too complex to fit into existing disciplinary/institutional boxes. Artist's intentions are diverse and surely different to other profesional perspectives but this is the core for a rich innovative collaboration: diverse perspectives. Such partnerships require of trust not necessarily full understanding. This lifelong research has cultivated vast expertise on me: - from working in research collaborations and education: in situated research methods, academic research, embodied somatic practices, complex system thinking, transdisciplinary collaborations informed with trauma informed practices, conflict management, transformative education, mentoring, psychological practices... - the ongoing multidisciplinary research based on theoretical multidisciplinary knowledge includes: ecosocial justice, water management, ecological/humanitarian relational perspectives, decolonial and sustainability approaches, knowledge on climate change, natural disasters, conflict territories, cultural diplomacy... - multidisciplinary art and design techniques: film, photography, drawing, creative writing, sound art, sculpture, installations, website, publications... - this process also rests on a conscious nomadic lifestyle demanding personal and cultural adaptation as well as bodily resilience, all of which profoundly inform the research, lately, for example, working from Ukraine and how war not only impacts the work I do but myself. It is an ongoing evolution, continuously surfacing intangible "in betweens" to highlight relationality over categories and disciplines. Reflection part II ----- Expanding Multidisciplinary Vocabulary To give multidisciplinary academic language to what the practice already inhabits intuitively, I constantly join virtual or in person spaces to learn and exchange in order to keep growing and challenging perspectives. Recently I expanded my educational journey in various ramifications of the research I am developing. One of them I came across years ago, the Earth Charter, a UNESCO endorsed international declaration of fundamental values and principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. This took me to enrol the Ecoliteracy course (2023) by Haumea University run with Dr Cathy Fitzgerald. As she notes, “ecoliteracy means becoming familiar with the ecological philosophy, ethics, and sciences that advance an ecological worldview”. This foundational course led me to this year the Certificate on Education for Sustainable Development by Earth Charter International and UNESCO at the University for Peace (UPEACE) - UN Mandated in Costa Rica. I'm now proud to be a certified educator of the Earth Charter”! This expanded learning enhances my ongoing research, which centers on artistic practice as a core response to the current socio-ecological crisis. I weave artistic transdisciplinary methods, imagination, intuition, and critical thinking with transformative, collective ways of being. I am particularly fascinated by how transformative education and the Earth Charter merge with artistic visions and embodied-grounded forms of being, embracing our emotional and intuitive intelligence. This journey provided the theoretical words to articulate better in the educational context transferring what was already was emerging in my artistic practice. This is added to a number of recent certifications including "Trauma-Informed Art Practices" organised by Art therapy Force and Kings College London in June 2024 (Kyiv, Ukraine) and the course "teacher training methods and tools to help students navigate climate anxiety while fostering resilience and regeneration" (2025) by CLARITY run by One Resilient Earth with Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS and IIIEE The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (Lund University), REAL School Budapest and Climate Creativity and also "Water, Relationality and Ethics. A philosophical ethical and artistic exploration" (2025) organised by the University of Antwerp in collaboration with Atlas Bioethics Center and University of Almería. Here courses (list is growing to further add more already finished past courses): https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/multidisciplinary-education.html ----- Next Steps: Sharing the Expertise This latest round of learning was achieved while immersed in multiple international projects, mostly in Ukraine but also in Portugal, Spain, Germany and other countries. The questions keep arising, feeding this ongoing research, however, with this journey concluded and planning underway for the new year, I am now offering:
If you're interested in exploring how my expertise can benefit your organisation or project, please check out what I can offer here: https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/sharing-expertise.html and my BIO with a brief CV here: https://www.seilafernandezarconada.net/bio1.html 
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