Isa Hukka is a writer, performing artist, and student. They are based in Helsinki, although parts of them belong to Pohjois-Pohjanmaa, Copenhagen, and Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. In addition to participating in crip grassroot organizing and making performances in Helsinki, they have worked with translating. Various magazines have also published their award-winning poetry. Currently Hukka studies philosophy, focusing on feminist critiques of identity politics. In the near future, Hukka continues to explore radical access and care, trauma informed working methods, and crip mythologies.
Una Auri is wannabe-Helsinki based scenographer, designer, and performance artist. In their praxis they focus on collaborative methods. When doing spatial design, considering difference in points of view, is central to their work with spatial, material and visual solutions. In their artistic work, they have explored how space can challenge binary, hierarchical, and normative thinking. Auri is particularly interested in mixing up so-called highbrow and lowbrow aesthetics, viewing rest as an anti-capitalist working method, and approaching design through the lens of neuroqueerness.
Juti Saari is an ecofeminist dramaturg and playwright from Helsinki. They study at Teatterikorkeakoulu and work as a freelancer. Saari’s thrives on the line between art and activism and their home genre is sci-fi. In alternative landscapes, they explore converting data receivable by senses, ponder the diversity of gender, dreams of crippling of the capitalist system, and clings on climate hope. The weighty topics combine with gentle playful poetics and constant rethinking of perfomance conventions. In addition to writing plays, Saari directs, writes poems and acts.
Aku Meriläinen (they/he) is a media artist and researcher who develops practices beyond the normative expectations in works that integrate digital technologies and performing arts.
At the moment they are interested in combining artistic processes with new technologies to identify discriminatory cultural features from the crip perspective.
In their artistic research project Crip Sex Worker (@Nakurampa on Instagram) they have started to do online sex work as a non-binary person that lives with Multiple Sclerosis. The project aims to challenge the dominant male gaze in porn from a queer and anti-ableist perspective and to diverse the ways disability is perceived. Crip Sex Worker is a collaboration with photographer Tuisku Lehto.
Vishnu Vardhani Rajan – Body philosopher, has spent the last decade in creating community centred practices. Their practice spans performance arts, movement, stand-up comedy and film making. A hyphenated identity, multidisciplinary practices, building connections between art, science, witchcraft, history and cultures define them. Oscillating between cultures, methodologies and sexual identities, each different from the other are instrumental in their visual Language. Twerking, Napping in public spaces, connecting people quilting and headstands in airports are Vishnu’s whatchamacallits for ‘everyday-activism’.
Vishnu explores shame, through dance, acting and stand-up comedy. They are interested in the unconscious mind and the way people express power, manipulation techniques and unacknowledged biases in groups. Sleep, conflict, nutrition for queer, food politics and surveillance are their research interests. Night politics, conflict-positivity, mental health and food are recurring themes in their work.
Sophia Mitiku is an artist and producer who is easily recognised by her explorative sound, gravitating between experimental RnB and avant-pop. Her music migrates between twilight worlds of loss and longing, memory and fantasy, the glitch of nostalgia; a requiem for love. In their work they express surreal and dream-like imaginations as means to understand multifaceted realities in their intersections and fragments. While currently working on her sophomore album ‘all sickness is home sickness’ Sophia’s interdisciplinary practice also includes composing for video projects, sound installations, and work with Kairos Collective.
Nóri Varga (she/they) is a Helsinki and Budapest-based producer, theatre pedagogue, researcher. She has been working on the Coming Stage productions for Baltic Circle for 2 years. As a producer, she finds it crucial to work on events that challenge the concept of theatre and reflect on the dissonances of our societies.