17.1. Club V

Anna Kontula

is a sociologist, writer, Member of Parliament for the Left Alliance and member of the Pirkanmaa Regional Council, living in Valkeakoski. She is known for challenging mainstream thinking, especially in debates on class, power structures, changes in working life, human rights, feminism and substance abuse policy. In recent years, environmental and animal issues have become central to Anna’s policy work.

Kai Zombie

Behind Kai is Sámi multidisciplinary artist, storyteller and drag performer Ritni Tears aka Ritni Ráste Pieski. They are interested in decoloniality, community, radical dreaming, queering and humour. Pieski’s most recent works include Indigenous Drag Excellence XXL and Girjái – a decolonial queer utopia.

Iida Savolainen

Adonina Se-La-Vii, known as K.Ä.P.Y. (Cosmic Infinite Planetary Union) brings a piece of intergalactic musical tradition for the audience to marvel at. Based on the principle of intergalactic appropriation, the performance explores the blurred boundaries between the familiar and the unknown, between us and them, between meaningfulness and meaninglessness. // Adonina is the escapist and super-powered alter ego of folk musician Iida Savolainen, whose guest on stage is the super-powered escapist Miko Kivinen.

Vishnu Vardhani Rajan

is a Body-Philosopher based in Helsinki (born and raised in Hyderabad, India). A hyphenated identity, multidisciplinary practices, building connections between art, science, witchcraft, history and cultures define them. Sleep Night politics, conflict-presence, nutrition for queer food politics and mental health are recurring themes in their work. Vishnu is scripting a performance ’Schizophrenia as a methodology’ and developing ’kata’ a collective for narrative practices and Re-authoring.

Aino Savolainen

is a contemporary circus artist (they/she), working at the interface of art and activism, exploring the possibilities of new spaces and collaborative practices. In their performance, Aino processes hyper-individualism, letting go and sensitivity as a resource.

Saxtronauts

is a touring saxophone ensemble that brings diverse art music to audiences of all kinds, also in unusual places. The Saxtronauts Anna-Sofia Anttonen, Nanna Ikonen, Nanako Lammi and Sikri Lehko arrange works from different periods, commission new music and perform original works composed for saxophone. The saxophone is their instrument for exploring the universe.

Pekka Kuusisto

is a questioner and knocker-up in the classical music industry. With the unexplored sound layers of a lounge harmonium, Pekka will prepare the club crowd for the underground.

Katri Jurvakainen

is a member of the Vita nuova writers’ collective and a PhD researcher in the philosophy of education. She studies the cultivation of desires as a factor that sustains capitalism and as an opportunity to overcome it. She asks in what ways our desires are produced in directions that support the destructive capitalist social order, and how the cultivation of desires could help challenge that same order.

Miko Kivinen

mixes genres and moods in his plays in a wild and cheeky way. Family life, gender roles and middle-class scenery are thrown into a wild spin, often with grotesque but always memorable results.

András Nádasi

has worked extensively in the field of sound, including electronic music, film soundtracks and as a DJ. For Aino Savolainen’s acrobatic performance, he creates a soundscape that draws from the above-mentioned fields, including utopian synthesizer sounds and distant field recordings.

Wilhelm Blomberg

is crawling. A timeless messenger arrives with a headlamp blazing from the bosom of the earth, channelling the concern and persistence of British activists to the carefree and nonpersistent Finns.

Kaisamaija Uljas

is in a state of constant despair and rage, with or without their lute.

Eriikka Maalismaa

and their violin are in a constant career and identity crisis.

Elissa Shaw

is a producer for life, zigzagging through the bogs between hope and despair.