Writing is one way of magic to shift our perception. I offer experimental perspectives on artistic practices, creative living, and contemplation techniques. Even my academic papers are an invitation to live courage, spaciousness, and humorous self-realization. My research explores the intersections of aesthetic theory, political philosophy, and sensory studies.

I am interested in breathing as a relational and ethical practice, and on smell as a cultural agent that shapes memory, identity, politics, and collective formation. My publications on olfaction include the monograph “Kunst riechen!” (Oberhausen, 2016), the peer review articles “Ästhetische Erfahrung und Atmung – Politische Kunst erfahren über die Nase,” Germanica (forthcoming 2026); and “Is There Empathy through Breathing?” In Debra Parr and Gwen Lynn (eds.), Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance, Routledge, 2021, pp. 99–107; as well as the coversation with artist Matt Morris: “Copycat Kill or Smelling a Sense of Home.” In Linn Burchert (ed.), Atem. Breath, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 235–244.

Further, I am proud of my co-authored monograph “Kleine Basler Designgeschichte (2026). My research on digital graffiti appeared in Int|AR Journal 09. My writing on arts and design is published with Routledge, the Journal for Curatorial Studies, and other international peer-review journals, and edited volumes. I have co-edited three larger book projects: Teaching Artistic Strategies: Playing with Materiality, Aesthetics, and Ambiguity (2024), Playtest (2013), which features essays on experimental approaches in interdisciplinary art and artistic research, and Interface Cultures (2008), a compendium on interactive interfaces in electronic art.

Please find my publications on arts, design, and education below.

Dorothée King 3/8/26 Dorothée King 3/8/26

Benjamin Adler, Meret Ernst, Dorothée King: Kleine Basler Designgeschichte

Benjamin Adler, Meret Ernst, Dorothée King: Kleine Basler Designgeschichte (June 2026, Basel: CMV)

Design ist eine globale Angelegenheit. Es wird irgendwo entworfen, irgendwo gefertigt und ist dann überall erhältlich – und doch erleben wir Design stets vor Ort. Das Buch erzählt 24 Geschichten besonderer Designideen, die von Basel aus in der Welt Furore gemacht haben.

Dorothée King 3/8/26 Dorothée King 3/8/26

Dorothée King, Diane Dever, and Abhay Adhikari in Conversation

in: Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel FHNW, Quinn Latimer, Claudia Perren (Hg.): Desire for Transmission: On Movements of Materials and Knowledges (June 2026, Basel: CMV)

This second volume of the Basel Dialogues critical book series traces the voices and ideas that are shaping the contemporary academy of art and design and the most pressing issues of the day.

Dorothée King 4/1/24 Dorothée King 4/1/24

Teaching Artistic Strategies: Playing with Materiality, Aesthetics, and Ambiguity

Kargin, Fatma; King, Dorothée; Savic, Selena: Teaching Artistic Strategies: Playing with Materiality, Aesthetics, and Ambiguity, transcript, 2024.

Artistic strategies have a great transformative potential to improve research, teaching, and artistic expression. The contributors to this volume show how to unleash this potential by presenting a variety of epistemological experiments at the intersection of artistic research, pedagogy, and innovative practices in art and design education.

Dorothée King 2/27/23 Dorothée King 2/27/23

Collaborating Lines

Xavier Veilhan interviewed by Dorothée King

On a summer day in 2022, I visited the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. I was drawn into and intrigued by the diverse simplicity and the all-embracing beauty of the colorful lines of Xavier Veilhan’s A3-sized ink-on-paper lockdown drawings, shown in his solo exhibition The Lockdown Drawings. So far, I only knew about Xavier’s bright, bold, and volumetric installations. I wanted to learn more about Xavier’s thought processes about the 2-dimensional space and his interest in lines…(Published at The Nomadic Journal)

Dorothée King 2/17/23 Dorothée King 2/17/23

Mindfulness and Meditation

Maybe you feel like most of all (art) students: Do you feel drained from all the digital input you are supposed to deliver, and all the digital output of others you consume? How does this affect your own creativity? In these digital times, do you also ask yourself how to deliver content, catch up with everyone, motivate yourselves, inspire others, stay creative, stay on track, stimulate discussion, be high-level intellectually, and deliver artistic excellence?

Dorothée King 11/28/21 Dorothée King 11/28/21

Homeland Smells. Matt Morris’ olfactory art works

King, Dorothée and Morris, Matt in Conversation: Copycat Kill or Smelling a Sense of Home. In Burchert, Linn: Atem. Breath, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. 235-244.

For a long time, I have been fascinated by the artistic and participatory possibilities of ephemeral materials in exhibition contexts. I have been researching the social and aesthetic implications of sensory experiences in various museum projects, classrooms, and publications. In 2018 I met the artist Matt Morris at the 106th College Art Association conference in Los Angeles, for which our smell-art-loving colleagues Debra Parr and Gwen-Aël Lynn organized a panel on “Olfactory Art and the Political.”

Dorothée King 10/1/21 Dorothée King 10/1/21

Digital Graffiti

King, Dorothée: Digital Graffiti, in 10 years of Int|AR Compilation, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2021, 30-37.

Dorothée King 9/27/21 Dorothée King 9/27/21

Materialwerte - Ideen materialisieren, Sinne vernetzen

Ein Gespräch mit Lisbeth Freiss und Dorothée King, p.146-163. In Nicole Berner / Anna Maria LoffredoGrenzen öffnen – Werte prüfen: Bildungswerte und Wertebildung in der KunstdidaktikTransdisziplinäre Entwürfe und Ergebnisse einer bilateralen Online-Ringvorlesung, München: Kopäd 2021.

Dorothée King 6/15/21 Dorothée King 6/15/21

Making Art Schools

A Reader by Dorothée King, edited by Bernhard Garnicnig, 2020/2021

Some say that art can be neither taught nor learned. If this is true, then perhaps the institutions, places, and communities we know as art schools exist to learn and teach the art of making (art) schools? What kind of histories would inform such programs, and what styles and practices serve as orientation for those eager to learn such an art? This reader assembles histories of the development of systems and nomenclatures of art and design schools and schooling around the globe.