Performance and Pizza – performance art club at Runostuoppi
Saturday 29.3. from 17-20, followed by karaoke
Venue: Runostuoppi, Munterinkatu 15, Turku
Performance and Pizza is New Performance Turku Biennale’s new travelling performance art club, which will take place at different locations around Turku. The Performance and Pizza is an open invitation for everyone to get to know performance art and to encounter a potentially new art form in an approachable way, without compromising on high artistic quality.
The aim of the club is to find new friends in places where performance art may not have been seen before.
Four performance artists will perform at the Performance and Pizza performance art club. Alisa Alho is a young performance artist whose works insightfully examine social structures and challenge the boundaries of acceptability. Tomasz Szrama is a recognised artist in the domestic and international performance art scene. His work is characterised by participation and improvisation, which can even create unexpected situations for the artist himself. Roi Vaara is a pioneer of Finnish performance art and it is an honour to have him perform at the Performances and Pizza club. Vaara’s works are physical poems that are created for a specific time and situation. The evening will be hosted by Leena Kela, artistic director of the New Performance Turku Biennale and performance artist, who will also perform as part of the club’s programme.
Free pizza will be served between the performances and after the performances the evening will continue with karaoke.
The event is free of charge (pizza included).
Arrival directions from Turku centrum by public transport:
Bus No. 18 from Kauppatori, bus stop A3 leaves at 16:33, arriving at Runosmäki, bus stop Munterinkatu at 16:46.From here it is a 200 m walk to Runostuoppi.
Return to Turku centrum:
see more detailed timetables at https://www.foli.fi/fi/aikataulut-ja-reitit
Performance and Pizza is part of the City of Turku’s cultural services pop-up art programme.
Artist presentations
Alisa Alho
Alisa Alho is a conceptual artist with performance as their primary tool. With a background in social sciences, activism and music, their work reviews the social structures that shape interaction — examining norms, power dynamics, and boundaries of the acceptable. Through the practice of performance, they create situations exploring the tensions between the individual and collective behaviour, experienced realities, and the absurdity of what is considered appropriate. Often working with the body and disposable materials—cardboard cups, cigarette butts—their pieces question the normativity of spaces and the rules that govern them.
Tomasz Szrama
Tomasz Szrama (Poland / Finland) has been practicing action art since 1993 and has made significant contributions to the development of Finnish performance art. Over the past 20 years, Szrama has regularly performed both locally and internationally at numerous events and festivals across Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America. Additionally, Szrama has been an active organizer of performance art events, having curated and co-curated over 50 live art events. Earlier he has worked as a producer, designer, and technical manager, overseeing the organization of live art events at HIAP. In recent years, Szrama has been teaching performance courses at art schools and universities.
Roi Vaara
Roi Vaara is a pioneer of performance art in Finland. His performances are site-specific, physical poems. Since 1979, Vaara has created over 500 unique performances that have been presented in some 50 countries. Since 1988 he has been actively involved in the internationally renowned performance art collective Black Market International. In 1999 Vaara organised the national performance art festival Poikkeustila and two years later the world’s largest performance art “Woodstock Festival” EXIT at Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki. Vaara has been a guest lecturer and teacher at numerous art academies and universities, has curated and organised performance art events, has written about art, and was appointed an Academician of the Arts in 2023. Currently he lives in Helsinki.
Leena Kela
Leena Kela is a performance artist, artistic director of the New Performance Turku Biennale, and a doctoral candidate at the University of the Arts Helsinki, the Fine Arts Academy. Her works and research explore the interplay between embodiment and materiality in performance art. She creates performances and video works that twist and play with our relationship to everyday objects and phenomena. She has performed on numerous occasions in Finland and internationally at performance art festivals and exhibitions on every continent of the world except Antarctica.