As part of the regular updates and refinements of its programmes, AR is introducing a new Peer Artist scheme at AR-Safe Haven Helsinki. The idea is to pair AR-Residents with artists, who are their peers in the local scene. Aside from a person to share their thoughts with, this gives them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with local artists and cultural circles and put down roots in their new environment.
Musician and composer Sanna Salmenkallio, and artists Petri Hytönen and Egle Oddo are joining Artists at Risk as the first Peer Artists on the new programme. These artists will be paired with individual AR-Residents, embedding them in Helsinki cultural life on the one hand and enriching the Finnish scene on the other.
Peer Artists bios
Credit: Pietari Purovaara
Sanna Salmenkallio is one of the most experienced film composers in Finland. She has composed the score for more than 30 artistically ambitious documentary features. As a composer she has worked with symphony orchestras, smaller ensembles and electronic music. She has won the Jussi Award three times for the best film score in Finland. She has also composed music for theatre, including the Finnish National Theatre. She loves experimental film and theatre, and works regularly with refugees and prisoners. She was educated at the Sibelius Academy and has also studied sound design at the
Theatre Academy. As a violinist she specialises in improvisation. She has also started to study Arabic music and performs with Iraqi-Finnish ensemble, Duo Ali Saad & Sanna Salmenkallio.
External links:
http://www.nordicfilmmusicdays.com/sanna-salmenkallio-fin.html
Duo Ali Saad & Sanna Salmenkallio with Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
Credit: Jussi Aalto
Egle Oddo focuses on linear and non-linear narration as an art form. She combines photography, moving image, installation, sculpture, environmental art and experimental live art. In her pieces, industrial production morphs towards delicate handcraft, life forms appear and emerge out of sculptures and objects, film photography appropriates digital images, selected trash mixes with fashion, precious edible minerals and ancestral recipes are served as part of ritual meals. Her work has been shown at international biennials, and museums, as well as independent alternative spaces and events. She is chair of Pixelache Helsinki trans-disciplinary platform for experimental art, research and activism; a board member of Myymälä2 contemporary art gallery in Helsinki; a member of Catalysti association of transcultural artists in Finland, and MUU association of professional artists in Finland. Oddo lives and works in Helsinki.
External links:
https://www.artdependence.com/articles/the-aestheticized-interview-with-egle-oddo-italyfinland/
https://www.instagram.com/egleoddo/?hl=en
Petri Hytönen is a painter. He studied at the University of Industrial Arts and Design, and Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. His work has been widely exhibited internationally, and is held in many public collections, including EMMA, Kiasma, Sara Hilden Art Museum, Malmö Art Museum, Göteborg Art Museum and Nordic Watercolour Museum. His public works include “Limbo”, Pro Artibus, gallery Sinne office, ceiling painting, 2017, and “The Ones falling from Heaven”, Nordic Watercolor Museum outdoor wall, 2018, along with works in Vantaa, Nurmijärvi and Porvoo libraries. He was awarded artist of the year in Artist of the Helsinki Festivals, 2004, the Porvoo City Art Prize, 2013, and a three-year grant from the Kone Foundation, among other grants and prizes.
External links:
http://petrihytonen.com
https://www.instagram.com/petrihytonen/
Krista Mikkola is an art historian and curator based in Finland. She is President Emerita of bjcem, the European and Mediterranean Biennale for Young Artists, Turin and Vice President at both Bazaar Projects, Turin and ACI, Paris. She is Planner for the Porvoo Triennial Association and is head of External Relations at The Window, Paris.
External links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krista-mikkola-90651314/
Nicole Willis, BFA, is an acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, director and visual artist best known for her twelve years of collaboration with The Soul Investigators. She has further collaborated with the likes of Curtis Mayfield and Leftfield, and has toured extensively in Europe, Japan and Australasia. Willis is based in Helsinki, Finland and is currently developing a documentary series under the working title Atoning For Gen Alpha.
Nicole Willis is a substitute member of the board of Perpetuum Mobile ry, the association which runs Artists at Risk (AR).
External Links:
https://nicolewillis.com/
Keep Reachin’ Up, by Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators.
Peer Artists, Artists at Risk (AR)-Safe Haven Helsinki is funded by the City of Helsinki with the help of the AR Secretariat co-funded by Kone Foundation. Artists at Risk (AR) is a Perpetuum Mobile (PM) programme.
