Research

Frølunde's (Frolunde's) research areas are visual communication, arts-based research (ABR), dialogic theory, and narrative inquiry. Her expertise is health and arts practices for well-being - both as experienced by vulnerable individuals and families today, and illness seen with a sociocultural and historical lens. She gives public talks on arts for health especially for people with Parkinson's disease and her own experience with Parkinson's and dementia in the family. Her motivation is to understand and create platforms for sharing people's stories about living with illness in accessible, arts-informed, ethical ways. She integrates arts-based approaches inspired by pragmatism (experiential knowledge), the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi (imperfection or flawed beauty) and Kierkegaard's existentialism.

She has explored the meaning of arts for health in the "Dancing with Parkinson’s" project, a collaboration between Roskilde University, the Danish Parkinson's Association and Tivoli Ballet School, funded by the VELUX Foundation, HUMPraxis Programme (2019-2022). Please read more about "Dancing with Parkinson’s"

Research areas

Her research draws on the medical humanities and participatory and embodied approaches within arts-based research and contributes to narrative and graphic medicine, personal stories told through graphic novels. She is interested in the potentials and challenges of telling personal stories about illness and their reception, especially through stories and imagery. The interest in storytelling includes writing/illustrating her own autofictional stories as short "comics" or graphic novels, including on Parkinson's disease and suicide in the family. The personal and psychological is seen in light of cultural, historical and political contexts. She applies narrative and visual methods, such as memory work with photos and poetic representation inspired by the artist Lynda Barry, among others. In 2018, she trained with artist Halfdan Pisket on making comics under "Skolen for Tegneseriekunst" at Gladiator Publishers.

Previous research topics are immigration experiences, the representation of ability/disability and aging, affect in the mediation of memories, trauma, mourning, and comedy / tragedy genres. She has studied online digital practices and identities using critical cultural perspectives on social media, with focus on cheating, polarization and echo chambers. She has studied research communication through academic videos aimed at audiences outside academia. Her research has a critical approach and historical perspective on media ecology, for instance, video production and dissemination has changed with adoption of platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TED Talks. The audiovisual stories shared in online ”folk culture” incur changes in the media ecology - as a new printing press, today's media production and distribution raise many questions about authorship, authenticity, fraud, and presence in time / space.

A key research motivation is the potential for social change through media and the arts. Her interest in art and creativity is grounded in embodied, expressive practices (drawing, dancing, etc.) as ways humans communicate and learn throughout our life span - we return to play, design, writing, as ways to find awe, joy, wonder and meaning.

Teaching

Frølunde contributes to the PhD school at RUC in evaluation committees, and continues to co-teach the PhD course 

Autoethnographic methods: Building reflexivity through critical and collaborative arts-based practice

From 2009 to 2024 she taught graduate and undergraduate courses on visual and narrative communication, and critical approaches to film studies, digital technologies, including workshops on Digital Media, Video, Storytelling and Animation at RUC. She has supervised group projects for Danish and international students on topics such as: selfies and self-portraits, refugee art exhibits, sustainable design, failure of anti-smoking campaigns, international aid on twitter (X), audience reception of war documentary films, representation of mental illness and handicap, ethics regarding visual elicitation as interview method, etc.

Funding

Besides the VELUX Foundation grant (2019-22), Frølunde has received funding for her post.doc. research (2009-11) at RUC from two sources: Nordic Innovation, and KINO (a strategic research grant under the Danish Research Council), both with focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and new digital media production practices.
Previous funded research work are grant from Linneaus University, Sweden (2009) on digital storytelling for teachers. She was the sole Danish researcher funded by the Norwegian Media Council, as part of the Scandinavian project Making a Filmmaker (2008-09) on young Scandinavian filmmakers.

Her PhD (2004-09) was funded in part by KINO under the research project DREAM (Danish Research on Education and Advanced Media) led by Professor Kirsten Drotner. She received an additional grant from the Ministry of Education to support the collaborative production of educational materials on animation filmmaking with DR (the Danish Broadcasting Corporation).

PhD research

Her PhD is from the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, 2009. Animated Symbols, her doctoral thesis, concerns how young people design animated films and the notion of a critical, multimodal design literacy. Her PhD stay abroad was at University of California Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. Glynda Hull.

Background

Frølunde’s background combines arts research and practical experience in visual communication, visual art, design, computer human interaction, and clinical art therapy and education.

Her MA was from Lesley University Graduate School, Cambridge, Mass., and BFA from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. She has lived in Denmark since 1991.

Her work experience includes: Concept Developer for the LEGO Group in Billund and London (1997-2001), products such as Mindstorm robots, the Friends girl-oriented product line, Creator 3D worlds, Bionicle, and film-editing LEGO software. She was a free-lancer in the publishing, IT and game industry as usability consultant, multi-media designer, and game illustrator back in the 80's when Boston was a hub for game design.

She was art teacher and project leader for the Danish Red Cross (1992-95), co-led a newspaper and facilitated arts and writing workshops for asylum seekers. She worked as an art therapist at museums and public psychiatric hospitals (including day hospitals under Harvard Medical School) in Cambridge, Mass., USA, (1985-90).

Frølunde has taught and supervised at several universities. She taught communication design at the IT University in Copenhagen (2001-02), expressive art therapies on the graduate level (in a Danish program under the European Graduate School, Switzerland, 1991-96), and at Lesley College Graduate School, USA, (1985-88). She was research assistant at Learning Lab Denmark, the Danish School of Education, collaborating closely with Prof. Mitch Resnick from MIT Media Lab, USA, on bringing Computer Clubhouses to Denmark (2001-04).