New Performance Turku Biennale Opens New Perspectives in an Uncertain World
The International New Performance Turku Biennale will once again emerge throughout Turku spaces on September 2-7, 2025, with the theme “On the Threshold” (Käännekohta). Organized for the second time, the biennale invites audiences to pause and reflect on the deep change and transitions we are living together – and explore how art opens new perspectives in this uncertain world.
The biennale’s diverse program features 25 international and Finnish artists who examine current crises, embodiment, and forms of survival in a world where ecological and societal transitions define a new reality.
“New Performance Turku Biennale invites us to pause at a turning point, at the edge of change, and to experience, sense, and think together. Although we may not have answers to the burning questions that concern us, we offer a space for asking, wondering, and being together – at the threshold toward the future,” summarizes Leena Kela, the Artistic Director of the Biennale.
Five Perspectives on Change
The biennale’s program is built around five key thematic areas, each offering different and sometimes unexpected perspectives on the threshold of change.
Ecological transition lives in Nigerian Jelili Atiku‘s powerful performance Let Peace Awake, which draws its strength from the Ifá rituals of the Yoruba people. The procession moving through urban space seeks peace and healing of the mind, gathering energy to sustain life and find inner balance in our fragile world.
Social justice and power are addressed in Miradonna Sirkka‘s hedonistic and chaotic circus performance Nonstop Paradise at Turku City Theatre. The work deconstructs the Western paradise ideal, revealing the sacrifices, desire for pleasure, and white supremacy that lie behind it.
Changing identities and corporeality are concretized in Ghanaian Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi‘s work prodiGirl Species: We are the Earth at Titanik Gallery. In the performance, clay serves as a medium for physical transformation and ritual connection in the cycle of life, death, and renewal beyond gender norms.
Technology and speculative futures are at the center of Canadian-Finnish Harold Hejazi‘s interactive performance OMNISCIENT HARJUS. In this work, the audience is invited to ask advice from an AI oracle about the future. The aesthetics of the gaming world playfully combine with Finnish spirituality, nature, and the grayling fish (harjus), offering an experience for younger viewers as well.
Contemporary rituals create spaces to reflect on how we make sense of our world in the everyday. Belgian Gaëtan Rusquet and his working group’s The Rivers Chasing Us, realized at Manilla’s Old Distillery, is a meditative group performance that explores the connection between body and environment. In the work, sound and movement reveal the quiet presence of space and the diversity of touch.
The Biennale’s program also extends to Kino Kilta, where five documentary films about great figures of performance art will be presented. An opportunity for the public to understand the rich history of this art genre.
As a preliminary work for the biennale, Pilvi Porkola and Reality Research Center will present SOHVA – Conversations about Utopias on August 22-23, bringing societal discussions into urban space. In this performance, Porkola sits on a sofa with a researcher and an activist to discuss utopias and invites passersby to join the conversation.
The biennale’s program will be complemented during the summer with discussions, professional programming, and celebrations. A team of NPT Audience Ambassadors will also activate connections with new communities and bring in new ways to look at performance art.
Biennale Artists
Jelili Atiku (Nigeria) / Jade Blackstock (Great Britain) / Marita Bullmann (Germany) / Sara Cowdell-Murray (New Zealand) / Va-Bene Fiatsi (Ghana) / Dariusz Fodczuk (Poland) / stvn girard (Canada) / Edvinas Grinkevičius (Lithuania) / Marco Fernando Guagnelli Gonzalez (Mexico / United States) / Harold Hejazi (Canada / Finland) / Hanna Ijäs (Finland) / Parsa Kamehkhosh (Iran / Finland) / Leena Kela (Finland) / Jamie Lewis-Hadley (Great Britain) / Anna Maskava (Latvia) / Aapo Nikkanen (Finland / France) / George Rallis (Cyprus / Finland) / Gaetan Rusquet (Belgium) / Miradonna Sirkka (Finland) / Aliisa Talja & Samuli Laine / WAUHAUS (Finland) / Emil Santtu Uuttu (Finland) / Anabela Veloso (Portugal / Denmark) / Sara Wollasch (Czech Republic)
Preliminary Event Artists
Gabriela Ariana & Lotta Petronella (Chile / Finland) / Pilvi Porkola (Finland)
Additional Information:
Leena Kela
Artistic Director / New Performance Turku Biennale
leena@newperformance.fi
+358 45 123 4567
Laura Vanonen
Publicist / New Performance Turku Biennale
laura@newperformance.fi
Partners:
Manilla Cultural Factory, Factory Theatre, Turku House of Arts, Titanik Gallery, Contemporary Art Space Kutomo, Western Regional Dance Center, Living Culture Koroinen Association, Sibelius Museum, Turku City Theatre, Turku Main Library, WAM, Turku Art Museum, Aura of Puppets, Aurinkobaletti, Turku Arts Academy, Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki’s LAPS Program, Live Art for Kids Festival (Copenhagen), Starptelpa Festival (Riga), Studio ALTA (Prague), Meet Factory (Prague)
Funders:
Arts Promotion Centre Finland, City of Turku, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Nordic Culture Point, Pro Manilla Foundation, Martha and Albin Löfgren Cultural Foundation, Finnish-Danish Cultural Foundation, Turku Theatre Foundation, and Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.