The International Institute of Applied Aesthetics (IIAA) organizes its 16th International Summer Conference with the title “Experiencing Environments – Human Perspectives in the Changing World.”
Discussion on the Role of Aesthetic Experiences and Values in Understanding Environments
The International Institute of Applied Aesthetics (IIAA) organizes its 16th International Summer Conference, in Lahti, with the title “Experiencing Environments – Human Perspectives in the Changing World.”
With this three-day conference, the IIAA brings together scholars from different fields and backgrounds to discuss the experiential side of human existence in relation to the multiplicity of living environments and conditions. The conference’s theme focuses on reconsidering human perspectives in the changing world. With organizing this phenomenologically oriented conference, the IIAA aims to support multidisciplinary discussion on environmental experiences.
The conference will take place on-site on the Lahti campus of LAB University of Applied Sciences (Mukkulankatu 19), on 10—12 June 2025. The conference registration is now open.
The event’s four keynote sessions include the speeches of the environmental philosophers Ted Toadvine (Pennsylvania State University) and Mădălina Diaconu (University of Wien) as well as the online speech of philosopher Jeff Malpas (University of Tasmania). A panel on philosopher Arnold Berleant’s work will be organized as one keynote session with the panellists Fotini Vassiliou, Max Ryynänen, Arto Haapala, and Harri Mäcklin together with Arnold Berleant who will participate in the panel remotely.
As a pre-event to the conference, the IIAA will organize, together with the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the Finnish Society for Aesthetics, an open and streamed discussion event on experiencing environments at the University of Helsinki’s Think Corner (Yliopistonkatu 4) on Monday, June 9 at 5 pm. The event brings together in a dialogue the conference’s keynote speakers Ted Toadvine and Mădălina Diaconu. The discussion will be facilitated by philosopher Sanna Lehtinen (Aalto University).
Aesthetic Values and Seasonality
Philosopher Mădălina Diaconu’s keynote speech ”Living in Tune with the Seasons? Attunement, adjustment, and engagement in the experience of seasonality” will be held at the conference, on Wednesday, June 11. During recent years, Diaconu has written extensively on weather aesthetics. In the keynote speech, Diaconu will discuss the significance of seasonality in relation to human-nature relationship. How to live in tune with the seasons in an age of disquieting seasonal disruption?
The IIAA and the Summer Conference 2025
The IIAA organizes the XVI summer conference together with the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Arts, the Lahti University Campus, the Finnish Society for Aesthetics, the City of Lahti, LAB University of Applied Sciences, Visit Lahti, and the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science.
The conference registration is open and the registration link can be found from the conference web page. The registration fee for three days consists of the access to the conference sessions. Please note that the conference programme remains subject to change.
The IIAA was founded in Lahti in June 1993 by the University of Helsinki, the City of Lahti, the Finnish Society for Aesthetics, and the Päijät-Häme Region University Association. The first Summer Congress was held in 1995, after the World Congress in Aesthetics in Lahti, under the title “Nature, Man-Made Environment.” The City of Lahti has offered a base for the IIAA since the beginning. The IIAA functions as part of the collaboration between the University of Helsinki and the Lahti University Campus.
More information
Conference web page: www.iiaacongress.fi
For more information, contact conference coordinator Noora-Helena Korpelainen, contact@iiaacongress.fi
