The Mechanit Project is a Helsinki-based art collective formed in 2015. The group is especially interested in the agency of machines. The members are: Atte Olsonen, Teo Lanerva, Jani Hietanen, Ukko-Pekka Itäpelto and Soili Huhtakallio. They're working in the fields of installation and performing arts.
Lighting designer (Master of Arts (Theatre and Drama)) b. 1984, Lives in Brussels, Belgium.
Meri Ekola is attracted by light as an expressive medium because of its dramatic potential. With her work she wish to generate unique aesthetic experiences in people’s minds and a strong feeling of presence in the moment. She has gained experience by working both in the wide field of performing arts and architectural lighting design. In each production she seeks to find a specific role for lighting and use it as an expressive medium.
Mia Erlin is a media artist working with light, sound and video. She has done temporary installations for urban spaces and light festivals as well as permanent artworks in public spaces. Mia Erlin has graduated from the Department of Light and Sound Design at the Treatre Academy and worked as an artist and designer since 1997.
Mia Erlin is a media artist working with light, sound and video. She has created temporary installations for urban space and light festivals, as well as permanent works in public spaces. Mia Erlin graduated from the Department of Light and Sound Design at the Theatre Academy and has worked as an artist and designer since 1997.
Heini Myllyoja is a light artist and designer with a wide range lighting and art projects. In addition to light artworks and installations Heini has designed architectural lighting since the beginning 2000. She has gratuated from the Aalto University Visual Culture and Contemporary Art program and TAMK Art and Media school's light design BA program.
Heini is interested in visually sustainable spaces, everyday life's aesthetics and the diversity of light.
Kivinen has curated light and fine art projects since 2007, alone and in groups, in galleries, city spaces and festivals. She been giving lectures about and teaching light art since 2014. She's familiar with organising seminars, workshops and other activities. She writes about light art and talks about it, constantly.
In my work I incorporate elements such as painting, light and architectural structures in durational, site-specific installations. They translate transient, fleeting perceptual phenomena into large, space-occupying structures, but at the same time they turn unmoving objects, images and colour surfaces into live events and processes that exist only in time. It is often the viewer’s physical presence that completes and interacts with the artwork. I like to think of it as a play of the perceptible, in which empirical evidence and everyday observations are called into question. Small, often imperceptible changes in light’s wavelength or intensity trigger inexplicable changes in what and how a viewer sees my installations. I want to bring focus to the complexity and fragility in the relationship between human perception and the reality we inhabit.
Mollu Heino lives and works in Luvia, Eurajoki. She has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Art and Design. Heino's main means of expression are light and three-dimensional materials. The subjects of the art pieces emerge from nature and the part of humans in the world.
Nanni Vapaavuori works with light and space, the circumstances, the surrounding relationships and the tactile material/ity of the light. Her light art installations have been described as conceptual and on occasion even implied. As a lighting designer she has worked in the wide field of performing arts, in particular with contemporary dance both in Finland and abroad. She is a doctoral candidate at the Performing Arts Research Centre, the University of the Arts Helsinki, since 2019.
Niko Tiainen is Finland based Multidisciplinary artist, specialised on outdoor interactive projection mappings and video-, light- and sound installations. He has a degree in classical music, composing and graphic design and he is also a post graduate student in Aalto-University studying a Masters Degree in New Media Design and Production (graduating on spring 2022) His installations often use conceptual ideas and abstract procedural materials with a mix of classical music structures and techniques. His artworks have been part of exhibitions and art festivals over 20 different countries, e.g. Ars Electronica (Linz, 2020), Light box New York -gallery (N.Y.C, 2020), Neo Shibya Gallery (Tokio, 2021), Theater of Digital Art (Dubai, 2022.)
Olivia Pohjola is working as a lighting designer in the field of arts. She is interested in moments provided by arts, where the yard stick for humanity is revealed in relation to the non-human world. In her works, Pohjola searches for interfaces between an illusion and the situation after the illusion is broken. Her latest artistic works include Be the Ocean (Barker Theatre, Turku, 2021) and Eliané (Vabalava, MadHouse, 2019). At present, Pohjola is engaged in metal works and drawing.
Päivi Alajuntti has lived in different parts of Finland, currently working in Fiskars. She graduated in 1991 as Master of Arts from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (nowadays Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture), also completing some music courses at the Sibelius Academy.
Alajuntti is a multidisciplinary artist and often works in the field of site-specific art. She is interested in the inter/intra-action of light, sound, color, space, time and materials: how different art forms influence both each other and people who interpret their perceptions. The master's thesis approached light and sound from a perspective of colour (212 pages and a temporary light and sound installation Niinkuin kahdesta/As Two). Light is a prerequisite for seeing and it is always of some color. The concept of colour refers to different things in music and visual arts, and in everyday speech the word colour has several meanings.
In light art she has used artificial or nature light, fire, characteristic or artificial filter colors of different light sources, direct/indirect light, light-shadow-space, natural and found materials reflecting their characteristic light colors, connotations of colours and expressions etc. Themes has dealt to human and nature related issues, i.a. poverty, fragility, death and ecological crisis, sometimes in a humorous way too.
After a generated idea the working process starts: acquire background information and photos, explore and move around on-site (if possible), think, interpret and write as well as sketch and experiment - it's a persistent dialogue how lights and materials cooperate in relation to the ambience of the idea, with each other and with space and time.
In addition to solo and group exhibitions, Alajuntti has worked in a variety of visual arts positions, for instance as a initiator and motor of site-specific and community art projects, member of event workgroups, teacher, lecturer, curator and as a specialist of visual arts.
Lighting designer and technician for a long run, mostly for dance, music and theatre productions. Been making a couple of environmental lighting installations also.
Pasi Rauhala is a media artist with a focus on interactivity, spatiality, and public space. During his 20-year-career he has taught in all the major Finnish art schools and participated in dozens of art productions as an artist, curator, producer, or coordinator. For Rauhala art is a never ending adventure that can lead you anywhere.
Petri Eskelinen was born in 1975, Rovaniemi, Finland. Eskelinen lives and works in the city of Helsinki, Finland.
http://www.petrieskelinen.net/
I'm a multidisciplinary artist and artisan and working with light gives me freedom of expression in a dreamlike way. Scaling from small to big or layering objects such broken glass and seeds tells stories of the place, the land and ways of interacting with it. My site-specific and process-based works and projects are usually an experimental mix of materials and usually filled with different traditional crafting skills. I am interested in identities, social behavior, traditions, learning by doing, communities, nature-relation, public space, wastelands, fibers and forests.
Ishmail Sandstroem is a title for a group of artists that change from project to project. Petri Lehtinen is the artistic director, curator.
Pietu Pietiäinen is lighting & video designer and artist who has worked mainly as a designer for stage productions and music industry. As an entrepeneur he also delivers designs and solutions to contemporary art field and AV installations in museums, galleries and exhibtions worldwide. He is an active member of FLASH (Finnish Light Art Society Helsinki).
Juha Valkeapää is a vocal artist and performance maker with a 30-year long career of performances, installations, radio pieces and soundscapes – solos and various group works – vocal & sound & performance art, theatre, music, dance. The key elements of his art are voice / sound, presence, playfulness, improvisation, and a live contact with the audience.
Pietu Pietiäinen: www.pro-light.fi
Juha Valkeapää: juhavalkeapaa.net
Kilpeläinen works as an artist and a freelance designer. She creates light art, lighting design, scenography, cross-disciplinary pieces and participates in various collaborative projects, including the art collective KOKIMO (2010–), of which she is a founding member. Kilpeläinen is also a writer, editor, and curator. Along all this Kilpeläinen works as an hourly-paid lecturer in The University of the Arts Helsinki's Theatre Academy. She also is a doctoral candidate in the field of art and design. As an artist, Kilpeläinen has a specific focus on dramaturgy, light, space, stage, site-sensitivity, realities, perceptions and sustainability. Her work has been exhibited and performed in Finland and internationally. Kilpeläinen is a board member of the Finnish OISTAT Centre and a board member of the Finnish Light Art Society (FLASH). She chaired the board of Lighting, Sound and Video Designers in Finland (SVÄV), 2016–2019.
Ramboll Valostudio is a multidisciplinary design team specializing in the lighting of public areas, premises and properties. The group consists of lighting professionals with special expertise in design, landscape architecture and electrical engineering.
Rami Saarikorpi is a respected photographer with over 30 years of experience in specialized photography. His expertise spans various photographic techniques, and he has been involved in developing several innovative methods in the field of photography. He is particularly known for his expertise in 360-degree panoramic photography and has earned a reputation for his skillful and stunning 360-degree panoramas.
Saana Volanen is an artist, lighting designer and scenographer. She works in the fields of performing arts and light art. Volanens light art practice originates from the moment in the early morning when the Sun's first rays shine into her home for the first time in that orbit after the winter.
Video artist.
I have worked as a light, sound and video designer for dance, theatre, events and exhibitions. In addition to traditional performance spaces, I have also become familiar with non-electric drying barns, stone churches and lakes. I have always been fascinated by the relationship of the works to the spaces where they are at any given time. In my artistic designs, I have often used elements that transforms in real time. During the last years, light and video have become my most important tools.
The miracle of life in the world of chaotic entropy, rude laws of physics. Neverending inspiration to my art.
As a visual artist, Simo Ripatti strives to subtly and modestly shed light on subjects that are difficult to put into words. Space and its use are almost always active elements in his works.
Media artist merited and experienced media and visual artist.
Suvi Saastamoinen is an environmental artist working closely with public space. Her works consist mostly of landscape elements, light and sound. Saastamoinen is a founder and active member of art collectives SWart (Sitowise Oy) and SISU (with Sini Parikka). Most of her artwork are collaborations with several artists and professionals.
My light art works are installations, environmental art and lighting sculptures, including permanent pieces within urban environments. My works have been exhibited in galleries, group exhibitions and light art happenings. My orientation towards environmental light art is often culturally site specific. In my installations I explore space and light through shadows, reflections and colour. I create spaces for meditative perception – often my works examine the spiritual qualities which light carries. I have planned and curated several environmental and light art projects as well as been a jury member in light art competitions. My career as a lighting designer includes close to a hundred lighting and set design works in the fields of drama, dance and opera.
Photo: Hannu Pakarinen / Finnish National gallery
Teemu Määttänen (b. 1978) is a media artist from Helsinki, Finland.
Teemu has been working on his own installations since 2006, creating works displayed in galleries and festivals. He has also been working in dance- and theatre productions in Finland since 2006.
From 2008 to 2014 Teemu worked as a researcher and media designer in the University of Tampere, Center for Practise as Research in Theatre. He has been teaching media technologies, interactivity and content creation as a visiting teacher in the University of the Arts, Theatre Academy and Aalto University since 2007. In 2015 he coordinated the Digital Visual Design - Advanced Intermediality in Performance program for the University of the Arts, Theatre Academy, which started in 2016. In 2019 Teemu started working as the Lecturer in Digital Design Methods in Film, Television and Theatre in the Department of Film, Television and Scenography in Aalto University.
In his work, Teemu is studying the relationships between space, light, colour and movement. He is also building interactivity into his current works, working mostly in the Processing environment, processing.org.
CONTACT INFORMATION
BLAF Best of Light Art in Finland
is hosted by
Finnish Light Art Society FLASH
2877700-6
LightArtFi
Producer: Annukka Ketola
annukka.ketola@valotaiteenseura.fi
+358 40 735 3972
Curators:
Mia Kivinen / mia.kivinen@valotaiteenseura.fi
Anna Björklund / anna.bjorklund@valotaiteenseura.fi