Author: Tuuli Vahtola

Could you tell us about the background and starting point of your performance?

DOWN BEAT emerged during one of our conversations when we were trying to define our practice as the Mean Time Between Failures duo. It was then, when we realized that our performances so far had always included movement, soundscape, a reference(s) to past or present artists, humour and an embodied relationship to some kind of material object. We had discussed earlier that we want to include a very physical and cool dance work with beats in our repertoire (also we wanted to stay in shape in the midst of all the computer work). And we knew that we would again work with Oula Rytkönen, a sound designer and our long-term collaborator who makes amazing sounds. Then we were listing material objects that one can have an embodied relationship with (mainly through somatic consumption) and we came up with chewing gum (earlier we had made a performance with potatoes, for example). We immediately thought that there surely must have been an artist in the past who worked with chewing gum, and we bumped into the work S.O.S (Starification Object Series) by Hannah Wilke from the 1974-82. In this way the conceptual, referential and wider framework for DOWN BEAT was born. However, the choreography began to shape as we spent days in the studio chewing the gum and moving to the beat while Oula was improvising with the beats. The deeper meanings of the work also came later. It was different from our previous works where we always started with a strong conceptual base.

While moving and chewing till our jaws hurt, we began to think about waste and consumption in a post-optimistic world, as well as about failure because the taste of the gum always went bland. We discussed how the same movement registered uniquely in our bodies brought a range of emotions, and was perceived differently from the outside, reflecting our diverse individual backgrounds. We also explored how the gum might enable embodied experiences of togetherness and intimacy, both among us and in relation to the audience. The work draws us into an odd kind of closeness – chewing together, moving together – while balancing on the edge of collapse. It’s both intimate and precarious, but also absurd.

There’s something ridiculous about dancing and chewing like it’s urgent, like it means something… or maybe nothing at all. It gestures towards the kind of precarity many artists are feeling right now: let’s perform like there’s no tomorrow – seriously, but also… really?

How do you situate your artistic work within the Finnish performing arts landscape?

We do identify mainly as performance artists, even though we both have strong backgrounds in dance. Thus, we believe that whatever we do in the Finnish performing arts landscape, aims to extend, align and be aware of the legacy of performance art, specifically. We have worked in galleries, black box theatres, public and other random spaces, and therefore we are also aware of the various kinds of production structures that exist out there. This wide range of contexts is mainly a positive thing. It expands our practice and challenges us each time to rethink questions around art making.

To be more specific, we consider Mean Time Between Failures as a performing and choreographic entity that creates both pedagogical and performance practices which operate somehow in the metaphysical core of humour. This for us does not mean that we would always make funny shows; but that humour informs our thinking of dramaturgy, concepts and aesthetic registers and is always present in the background of our making.

We also believe that the Mean Time Between Failures duo offers an example within the Finnish performing arts landscape of a sustained collaboration between two politically distinct bodies and artists. Who, despite their different positioning and urgencies in Finland, continue to find ways to work and create together.

Could you tell us about the background and starting point of your performance?

In 2008 I was starting a bigger production called Stage Animals. Mabel or The Queen of Bones was the 1^st part. It was a duet together with percussionist Aleksi Haapaniemi.  I was elaborating the subject of diva-hood in myself- my female empowerment trip with the divinities of the stage. I was working and getting inspired by a species which seems to have disappeared almost, the divas of the last century. Since the postmodern dance tradition had in it the cool, neutral, somewhat distanced way of performing this new terrain was for me a big challenge.

I also had two diva coaches, Robert Steijn and Frans Poelstra which was very helpful for my journey. I remade the piece slightly and since 2010 I have been performing it with musician and actor Robert Kock and the title is Mabel Revival.

How do you situate your artistic work within the Finish performing arts landscape? 

Gee, I realize I have been here quite a long time —I guess my work has developed during many years to a point where I feel it stands very much for itself and on its own. I´m always inspired by finding new angles to create work. I combine conceptual work with scores, physicality and music.

Could you tell us about the background and starting point of your movie?

Laura & Bianca:
The short film Their eyes will sear holes in the night sky is one manifestation of a longer research project looking at how migration and displacement transform dance practices. We initially focused on reading and researching more on a conceptual level, but when we encountered the group Al Huriya Dabke in Helsinki, the ideas materialized clearly and tangibly.

Tareq:
Al Huriya Dabke was founded out of a deep love for Palestine and its vibrant cultural heritage, expressed through the traditional Palestinian dance dabke. Our members include Palestinian dancers who grew up in Palestine performing dabke at weddings, celebrations, and cultural gatherings, where the dance has always been more than just movement, but a shared expression of identity, unity, and joy. Now in Finland, we carry this living tradition forward, preserving and celebrating it while introducing Palestinian culture to new audiences. Through rhythm and movement, we continue telling stories of resilience, belonging, and freedom—the essence of huriya (freedom) itself.

Laura & Bianca:
The dedication of the group’s participants to preserve and share Palestinian culture through dance, even in the face of erasure, has been deeply moving and undeniably powerful. Through conversations, shared time, and witnessing their weekly rehearsals, we learned so much about the history of dabke, as well as about the broader history of the Palestinian people and how this dance has long been tied to land, displacement, and resistance.

The video takes on a hybrid form, a blend of rehearsals, trials, and mistakes, interwoven with the fierceness and determination of performing and sharing. This hybridity also mirrors the diversity within the group, composed of both Palestinian and Finnish participants, each with different backgrounds in dance and performance, yet united by shared values.

Within the broader project, we question the very idea of what is considered “traditional” or “original” in dance, understanding that every movement practice emerges from encounters between cultures at different points in time. One of our central questions is: after experiencing displacement, what do you choose to hold onto, and what do you choose to let go of?

How do you situate your artistic work within the Finnish performing arts landscape

Laura: Both Bianca and I entered the Nordic artistic landscape through education, finding in Finland (in my case) and Norway (in hers) a fertile ground in which to grow as young artists. Over the past years, we have committed to working both locally and internationally, bridging our own cultural backgrounds with those we encountered in the places where we live now, as well as with communities across Europe, South America, and Africa.

To be a foreigner is both a blessing and a challenge. Entering a new landscape allows one to see things with a certain clarity and distance, while also keeping questions of belonging, understanding, and being seen at the forefront. This unstable position (partly circumstantial, partly chosen) has become a foundation for our artistic work.

During my years in Helsinki, I have witnessed a (slow) increase in heterogeneity within the Finnish performance art field, particularly in experimental contexts and festivals. Yet, the path toward a truly diverse and inclusive field remains long, particularly within the current socio-political climate. Presenting this work in Moving in November, and earlier How the Land Lies at Kiasma Theatre with a fully foreign-born cast, feels both meaningful and necessary.
By bringing forward the voices and practices of Al Huriya Dance Group through this film, we hope to contribute to a more mixed, dynamic, and conceptually challenging discourse. One where we can coexist, share visions, respectfully disagree, and yet continue supporting one another.

Bianca: I work in spaces where choreography meets social life – often with communities, across languages, and in collaboration with artists from different disciplines. While I don’t have extensive experience performing in Finland, I feel that my current practice resonates well in this landscape. The Nordics are in a way so similar and so different at the same time. The performing arts scene in Finland feels very open and generous. There are both similarities and differences with the Norwegian field, which I know more in depth. Both countries have strong institutional structures, but in Finland I see very exciting artist-run initiatives.

Through my collaboration with Laura, we have been actively trying to produce our works between Norway and Finland and blur the lines that separate them. Both geographically and conceptually, we often experiment on how our works can move and live between these countries while making them. It has worked very well so far, and I feel we still have a lot to discover.

What was the starting point of Maze? Could you share some insights into your research and working process?

Also, could you tell us about your long-term collaboration with Julia Giertz and how it has influenced your body of work?

Marie: To define a starting point for Maze already says something about the work itself. Maze is an entanglement of questions and issues that have arisen from both our artistic practice and our private lives.
A maze has many possible entrances and exits, unlike a labyrinth. The concept of the maze is present in many layers of this work: form, process, and audience experience. If you follow the many threads that have shaped this project, they form a maze in themselves. Out of the eight performances we have created together, Maze is the only work where we both perform in the space, also the only work that continues to develop and change. It is a work that adapts to our expanded interests and changing life conditions—a work we hope to keep performing throughout our entire life cycle.

Here, I’ll try to share some of the most important starting points: Understanding time. Maze is part of what is, up until now, a trilogy on time. Besides Maze, the trilogy includes The Labyrinth (2022) and True Random (2025). All three works deal with the movements between past, present, and future. The Labyrinth (2022) evolved from thinking about time in relation to birth. Maze (2023) evolved from thinking about time in relation to life cycles and how every brief moment also contains eternity. True Random (2025) evolves from thinking about time in relation to endings or death.
From the beginning, the idea was to create three choreographies with three distinct movements: moving forward, moving in cycles, and moving backwards. I remember very clearly the moment when this idea was born. It was during the Covid pandemic. I had just had my second child and was waiting in the hour-long lines at a test centre in a public park in Copenhagen, while talking on the phone with Julia, who is based in Stockholm. The scene—white tents, medical personnel, and hundreds of citizens waiting to be tested—truly evoked the sensation of time standing still while at the same time moving faster than imagination.

Another starting point was the philosophy of the Swedish philosopher Jonna Bornemark. In her book Jag är himmel och hav (2022) (I am Sky and Sea), she writes: “The pregnant woman controls her body and at the same time does not; she is passive and active at once, she encounters both life and death. She is one—and at the same time two. It is an experience that has not been given space within philosophy; the Western philosopher has typically not been a woman, let alone a pregnant woman.”
She asks: “If we were to take this experience seriously, what would we then discover? Where would it lead us?”

Her thinking inspired us to consider how one can be both an individual and an environment at the same time—the kind of presence this produces. We became interested in creating a performing presence that did not dominate the space but instead interacted softly with the installation, allowing the audience to drift between objects, sounds, and human presence.

Another important starting point was our collaboration. Julia and I have been working together for many years. We both graduated as dancers from the Danish National School of Performing Arts in 2009 and are close friends. In the years that followed, Julia began making music and I focused on choreography. Instead of forming a collective or a duo, we decided that for each project we would define who was the artistic owner. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s a collaboration, and sometimes it’s Julia’s project. This clarity in artistic ownership has given us freedom and joy in the collaboration and has freed us from some of the burdens that can come with running a company together.
When we started creating Maze, we had worked together for about 10 years and had created six black box performances. We had developed a method, and it was clear that it was time to challenge both our practices and the expectations of our audience. We had a distinct artistic language and a sense of stability or “safety” in our common practice, but we needed to destabilize that in order to continue developing together. We knew we needed to create new conditions to work more deeply. From the beginning, we had a clear desire for Maze to be experienced as much as a sound installation as a performance. Neither of our individual practices should dominate the work—and that is a balance we continue to adjust.

Marie, we see you rooted with both feet into the ground, with movements happening only in the upper part of your body, including your gaze–oracle like–I am curious about your sensation of the passing of time in Maze?

Julia, could you also answer this question from your perspective, being on stage and in direct communication through music/sound with Marie?

Marie: The experience of time while performing Maze is almost hallucinatory. I work with a practice of renewal. I move between the eyes of the spectators, and every time I meet someone’s gaze, I try to ground myself in that encounter, into their eyes—not staring, but grounding—while also grounding my feet into the floor, into the earth. Then I drift with the person. Sometimes I try to read their thoughts, sometimes I induce emotions. I work intensely with my imagination, traveling in my mind. I listen to Julia with my ears, but to the audience with my eyes.

The dance or practice of Maze has no chronological time. Every time I shift to a new person, it is a reboot of the situation. Over the course of the two-hour duration, I lose track of time; I can’t separate one performance from another—I only remember the encounters. When I sit there, I feel as though I’ve been sitting there for a hundred years.
The oracle is an archetype I keep returning to. To enter the performance space as an embodied portal that can potentially open the imagination and inner emotional landscape of the spectator is an approach to performance that I find deeply interesting.

Julia: Since I follow a score, my position in Maze is that of the timekeeper. I create the cycle that repeats, and at the same time I follow that repetition. In Maze I am both the generator and the receiver of sound. The same sound source will sound very different depending on the material I send it to. Since I also listen to the instrument’s responses, I hear both past and present versions of the gestures I am making.
In that sense, I experience myself as both the guardian of the chronological layer of Maze and as part of its architecture: I contribute to its evolving repetitions, echoes, and folds.

Marie and Julia, I would be curious to hear from both of you how you related to and defined the title of this work?

As mentioned, Maze is part of a series of three works—The Labyrinth, Maze, and True Random. All of these titles are metaphors for life or the passing of time, the most fundamental movement.

A labyrinth has a single, continuous path that winds and curves, leading directly to the centre (or out, in some cases), without any choices or dead ends. A maze, on the other hand, typically has multiple paths, dead ends, and branching routes, requiring the solver to make choices and find their way through a complex network to reach an exit.

In The Labyrinth we explored the sensation of time moving forward, accelerating along a path—as if there were a map to follow—as well as the idea of acceleration itself (a sensation of lack, of never arriving).

While creating Maze, we both had small children and had also experienced the heavy losses of close family members. Time became very circular, revolving around a few daily gestures—comforting, holding, embracing. Life and creation were deeply entangled. The confrontation with parenthood, with aging and the effort to combine it with our artistic practice infiltrated both the process and the work itself. As co-workers with a feminist practice, we had to redefine how we could work deeply together. Looking back, we can now see some beauty in it, but at the time it was messy. Often it felt like we lost the overview of our process—much like when you enter a maze.

Maze started as a working title that felt precise for the choreographic vision and the more formal aspects of the work. In the beginning we were sure we would change it, but as we moved further into the process, we connected to it more emotionally. The title began to describe not only the work but also our lives and the artistic process we were, and still are, navigating together.

Antonia, could you share with us the background and starting point, research, and process behind Don’t thank for the Food? What inspired you to create this performative installation?

The process actually began some time ago when I started my Master’s years at the Theatre Academy in 2022. The worst part of the pandemic was over and even though it had been a tough time, it was the first time I had the time and space to take a step back and reflect. Amid the hustle of academic life, I didn’t take the time to reflect on my identity, and I realized that I had unconsciously left a large part of who I am outside the academy. I felt pressured to fit into either the white-dominated perspective of art or the constrained box of Black identity.

This tension stayed with me, but I didn’t fully grasp it until later in my studies.

It wasn’t until four years into my studies that I had my first course on representation. That was when I learned that our art has deep colonial roots. To put it into perspective, I had already spent years in the academy without being exposed to these fundamental discussions.

Around that same time, a newly arrived professor Aune Kallinen asked me, “How has it been for you, and what do you need as the only BIPOC student in your class?” Startled, I realized that this was the first time I was ever asked that question. It was at that moment I truly realized how little space there is for BIPOC identities within art institutions, and how little attention is given to our experiences in academic spaces.

During a course called Contextual Deepening (translated from Swedish Kontextuell Fördjupning) by Outi Condit, I decided to focus on my identity. My main question became: How can I work with this subject on my own terms, in a space with a predominantly white audience? I chose to approach this in a way that felt meaningful to me: through joy and community.

For the first iteration, I created a demo project where I transformed a classroom into my “home” for a few days. I was inspired by the idea of house squatting — of becoming a “parasite” in an institution — by claiming space in a place where I was never meant to belong. I surrounded myself with things that made me feel grounded: home videos, voice recordings, familiar colours, textures — anything that brought comfort.

But I didn’t want to be alone in this space. I invited fellow BIPOC student, Sofia Sharifi, to join me and do whatever she wanted. That collaboration sparked something deeper in me. I realized this was more than just a project — it was the beginning of something I wanted to dedicate the rest of my studies to.

So, for my final artistic work and thesis, I decided to re-create this living installation. My research question was: How can I create decolonizing art with an education shaped by a white institution?

This time, I occupied a larger student space — one with a kitchen — and pushed the idea further.  I wanted to create a piece that was personal, but also collective.  I envisioned an art piece that could only exist in a communal and social setting. I invited more BIPOC artists and students to contribute their own work. I reached out to reading groups, youth organizations, and BIPOC communities, inviting them to take part in the space. It became both my thesis and my final artistic expression.

As I considered what I should contribute to the space, I had a conversation with my family over dinner. I spoke about the idea of cooking Ghanaian food as a way to celebrate my heritage and the familiar smell of home. My father burst into laughter and said: “You have no clue how to cook Ghanaian food! I’ve been trying to teach you for years, but you’ve always been more interested in eating it than cooking it.”
So I asked him if he would join me in the installation to teach me how to cook. He agreed, but on one condition: that the ingredients be paid for by the school.

Since then he has been part of this installation. We reimagined the work with a lovely group for the Hangö Teaterträff theatre festival in 2024, and we are now preparing for the next phase in Moving in November.

As the host of a space aimed at providing narratives and inspirations to a BIPOC audience, how do you understand your role in this setting?

In the earlier versions I had a handful of roles. My role as a host was the director, producer, audience worker, set designer, gallerist, sound designer, light designer, the translator, contact person and food caterer. Luckily, I have had a lovely group of people working with me to help with the load. Now when I can let go of some of the roles through working with Moving in November and with Mirjam Yeboa and Katinka Ebbe, I can focus on what the host role entails.

For me I understand my role as a host as someone that aspires to bring people and art together. To facilitate a space for BIPOC audience and artists and give tools, opportunity and motivation. Since I feel that hosting this kind of space is very important – not only for others but for myself as well – I feel that this host role has the responsibility and opportunity to listen and see what is needed.

Since rest and joy are the centre elements in this piece it is also important for the host to give space for change. Nothing in this piece has to be a particular way or aggressively controlled. It lives through the community, and this means that space has to be created. With this is mean – letting go of the control and listening in, is also a big part of the role.

I’d like to see my role as someone who sets the space and has responsibility for it, that the space still feeds the need of the community and that it is accessible even though the atmosphere changes. The responsibility that the purpose of the installation stays the same.

But I also see to it, that the responsibility is somewhat shared. We all have to take responsibility, to give space, to let people rest and to encourage people to be creative.

When thinking about the stories told in our art spaces, your performative installation clearly responds to your experience of what is missing. How would you articulate your wishes and needs towards curators, theatre and museum directors, and cultural policy makers?

I read through my thesis actually last week and this was what I wrote as a finishing paragraph:

I didn’t want to get any right answers, but I feel that my question made me more aware

of structures and new issues that can take me further in a process. I would not have gained this without the extensive preparatory work and the processes that deviated from what I was accustomed to.

The rapid pace of project creation and the habit of creating on an assembly line are factors that promote what we are familiar with: white, homogeneous and Eurocentric art. 

Change requires us to break not only the structures of narratives and representation, but also our way of working. Actively seeking representation and other narratives requires time and financial resources, and this is something those in power must be willing to provide. Working in an anti-racist and decolonised way means more than accepting. It is about action, giving up power, giving time and financial support. I therefore encourage institutions and individuals with power and privilege not to get stuck on words alone. Stop and look around, does your space have few or no BIPOC people at all? (no one is not enough). And in what positions are those people? Take a step back, rethink, correct. Give time, work and resources that deviate from what we are used to. Let others go first in the queue.

Through this process, I want to take the work forward not as a finished product but as an

ideology. I want to see how the work can take shape in different spaces and what new things it can promote.

The work is definitely not just a version of utopia. The work is an energy and an

approach that creates something according to our needs as BIPOC people and the needs of artists and cultural workers in general. The work listens, nurtures and creates new realities. Realities we need.

I feel that that is still the thing I want to say to our institutions.

These times are so tough and inhumane and instead of cutting down, gatekeeping, speeding up and seeing diversity, safety and wellbeing as a 30-minute quick wash program, we have to dig deeper and make different “sacrifices”. Because those sacrifices are not even sacrifices. It’s simply just letting go of old, unsustainable strategies for art and life.

Work Body draws inspiration from Pasolini’s poem “Le ceneri di Gramsci” (The Ashes of Gramsci). Could you share how Pasolini’s homage to Gramsci shaped the narrative of your performance, and in what ways the poem influenced your choreographic choices?

In many, many ways. First of all: the set, the setting, the props. To read Pasolini’s dense, multi-layered poem meant for me not only intellectually grasping its basic ideas – it also meant attending to the words (to the “signifiers”, as Lacan would put it) which resonated with me: the hammer, the rain, the ashes, the flowers, the dark, the light etc.. Jenny Schleif, my costume and stage designer and me, we worked on making visible and tangible what resonates in the set.

Then, what you find in the poem is a dense weaving together of politics and eroticism. My main concern here was: what does this imply for our understanding of solidarity? With my “dedication”, written on the white roll, as well as with my song and other elements I suggest a new perspective, namely a continuum that extends from auto-eroticism, narcissistic self-love to love for those who are like me to finally those who live far from me but in whom I’m still able to see “myself”. It seems of utmost political importance to me to shift our understanding of solidarity from one that solely grounds it in a sense of mutual dependence and precious difference to an understanding of solidarity that also grounds it in a certain narcissistic sense of similarity and deeply wished-for autonomy. The archive of male homosexuality to which I also count Pasolini is very informative here.
Finally, it is through Pasolini’s poem and also through the archive of male homosexuality that threads of death and mourning run. I wanted to move through mourning but also beyond it – to bring back to life our engagement to re-shape life (“rifare la vita”, as Pasolini puts it), to open the grave, so to speak, to find there something that maybe hints beyond death.

Your performance responds to a rightward shift in the working-class milieu, permeated by fantasies of masculinity. I am curious to hear more from you about this.

50 years of neoliberal policy as well as other cultural developments have in many ways undermined people’s sense of security and, as I like to emphasize, also their sense of self-determination. Political scientist Birgit Sauer has written extensively on how right-wing authoritarianism takes up this sense of insecurity, of injured autonomy and all the anger that comes with it – and how authoritarian parties, leaders and “intellectuals” respond to those feeling states by mobilizing masculinist attitudes centred around contempt of “the different” (in terms of gender, culture, ethnicity), the “different” who are assigned the role for being the cause of that threatened security and injured self-determination. As being a disabled person myself, I have a sensibility for how a precarious sense of self-determination can result in an extra-strong need for it – which basically means that you want to share space with people like you, so that their vibes, their wavelength, their preferences don’t interfere too much with your own. And the working-class movement also has its origin in an experience of similarity, mediated through the factory, the club, the newspaper and so on. So, given the contemporary fragmentation of the working class, the question for us on the political left is: How can we design post-national experiences of shared, common pride and self-determination. I think the body and affect are crucial here.

With Work Body, you created a poetic response to a work culture that continues to favour ableism, functionality and productivity–pushing what doesn’t conform into the margins. You have invented the term “Crip Choreography” to challenge conventional ideas of body and movement. Could you explain what this concept means to you? 
Additionally, the experience of time and duration in your piece felt particularly crucial to me. How do you relate to these aspects, and what is your experience of them from within the work?

Crip choreography, a slightly ironic term, for me essentially means engaging the inherent resistance of my own body in processes of de-organizing and re-organizing dominant forms of movement. That of course also relates to what is referred to as “crip time”. In the name of self-care, of not hurting ourselves in the long run we need to move through our lives in a different rhythm than the dominant one, the one established in our ableist culture and our capitalist mode of production. I view crip choreography as a practice of resistant temporality. And maybe this is what workers and crips have in common: In order to be free, we need to shoot at clocks.

As part of the performative installation Don’t thank for the food, taking place November 7th & 8th at Caisa, Antonia Atarah and her working group have invited young BIPOC visual artists to present their work in Caisa’s Gallery through an open call.

Atarah’s performative installation is a utopian living room created by and for BIPOC communities – a space of home, dreams, joy, nurture and rest. The works in the gallery enter into dialogue with this setting, expanding its meanings.

The artists exhibiting in the gallery are: Iida Valmé, kemelo sehlapelo, Selma Mataich, Shaghayegh Ansari, Victor Miyano and Vivian WONG Wing Lam. Together, the artists have chosen the exhibition title:

A body, many homes:
from the ground to the earth, we low flying and have travelled far…

Iida Valmé (all pronouns) is a Finnish-Haitian-American queer multidisciplinary artist with an international practice currently based in Helsinki. Love is at the center of their practice. Valmé’s existence and expression is a direct homage to their ancestors, a declaration of love to those whose ancestor they will one day be. Their work and creative process draw power from their community, nature, intuition, and the spiritual realm. Currently Valmé is completing their MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Sculpture Department, where they are focusing on expanding their toolkit for artistic expression. From filmmaking and writing to performance and sculpting, Valmé continues to learn through joy and play.

Name of exhibited work: The Ancestors
Year of completion: 2024
Technique: Sculpture, raw east african clay
Dimensions: Two 20 x 25 x 7 cm sculptures
Photo credits: Helmi Padatsu (right)

kemelo nozipho sehlapelo is South African, African, a medley of IsiZulu, Sesotho, and Ndebele & a medley of all the places and spaces they have touched. She likes to play with this language and its inherent failure (writes). They like to conjure ancestral AND diasporic reckoning on european soil, and likes to access that knowledge through aliveness of body and spirit, on African soil (dances). They are based wherever their root chakra is, which for now, is in Frankfurt, germany. [This will update regularly.]

Name of exhibited work: a Native Princess sitting Pretty
Year of completion: 2026
Medium: Video (dance, performance)
Photo credits: Georg Kronenberg (left) Merthe Wulf (right)

Selma Mataich is an Iraqi-Moroccan designer and visual artist based in Helsinki, currently completing her studies at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture. At the core of her practice is the exploration of relationships between the body, objects, and the environment, and clothing and textile work has served as the primary means for her artistic expression. Her works are built on layered meanings and material sensitivity, where the personal and the collective intertwine. In this way, she creates entities that open up space for reflecting on one’s relationship to the self, to others, and to the surrounding world.

Name of exhibited work: Goldilocks
Year of completion: 2025
Technique, material: Blown glass, sublimation, synthetic hair
Dimensions: 40 x 12 x 8 cm
Photo credits: Adele Hyry (left)

Shaghayegh Ansari is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist, based in Helsinki. She holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in directing from the University of Tehran, and her second Master’s in Live Art and Performance Studies from the University of the Arts Helsinki. At the core of her work is storytelling. She creates site-specific pieces that weave together memory, speculation and care, often engaging participants directly. By using feminist methodologies and archival thinking, she treats the body and space as active sites where histories, emotions, and power relations become visible. Through performance, video, text, participatory installations, and collective encounters, her work seeks to challenge hegemonic structures while opening spaces for dialogue, imagination, and transformation.

Name of exhibited work: Tell Me a Story From Before I Can Remember
Year of completion: 2025
Technique, materials: Textile, ink
Photo credits: Elis Hannikainen (left), Tangmo Tualek (right)

Victor Miyano (宮野ビクター) is a Japanese Brazilian sociologist and storyteller. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of São Paulo and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in education at the University of Helsinki. His work moves between photography, filmmaking, and poetry, often using autoethnography to explore themes of migration, identity, and collective memory. Drawing from decolonial approaches, Miyano believes in the power of multiple and counter-narratives as acts of rebellion against homogeneity and normativity. His practice elaborates on personal and inherited experiences of resisting the broken frameworks of modernity, progress, and development upon which our realities are built.

Miki Nii (新井実希) is a Japanese-North American based in Osaka, Japan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Sciences from the University of Osaka. A practitioner of the arts and social sciences, her work focuses on the intersections between militarism, environmental degradation, and social alienation. Her curiosities lie in the following questions: How are we grounded and alienated by our natural and built environments? To what extent is “belonging” a state of mind, and to what extent is it determined by dominant structures? Can colonized and commercialized places be transformed into sites of healing?

Name of exhibited work: Carta nº 1 a Keizō / Letter no. 1 to Keizō
Directed by: Victor Miyano (宮野ビクター) and Miki Nii (新井実希)
Year of completion: 2025 – Ōsaka, Japan
Language: Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, English subtitles
Medium: Video documentary
Length: 13 min 13 sec
Photo credits: Antonio Salueña (middle), Tomomi Shibukawa (right)

Vivian WONG Wing Lam is an interdisciplinary artist who utilizes performance and moving imagery as her primary mediums. Wong explores the interconnectedness of the individual body, collective experience, and the ethics of power through poetic creation, documentation, and cross-disciplinary experimentation. Her work examines the body as a field and symbol, carrying and resisting societal states of aphasia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Hong Kong, and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Live Art and Performance Studies at Uniarts Helsinki.

Name of exhibited work: All Things Wise and Wonderful
Year of completion: 2024
Medium: Double channel performative video
Photo credits: