IHME Helsinki's Advisory Board on September 2019 (from left) Ute Meta Bauer, Antti Majava, Hanna Johansson, Paula Toppila (chair). Advisory Board also features Jussi Parikka. Photo: Veikko Somerpuro.IHME Helsinki advisory board, starting June 10, 2019
Ute Meta Bauer
Curator, Professor
Ute Meta Bauer is a curator of exhibitions. Since October 2013 she serves as founding director of the CCA – Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore — a research center of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where she is professor at ADM, NTU’s School of Art, Media and Design. From 2012–2013 she was Professor and Dean of the School of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art, London. Prior to that appointment she was Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, where she served as the Founding Director of ACT, the Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (2009–2012) and as Director of the MIT Visual Arts Program (2005–2009) at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. She was a professor (1996 – 2006) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, heading the Institute of Cultural Studies and serving as Vice Rector for International Relations. During her tenure as Founding Director of the Office for Contemporary Art (OCA) in Oslo, Norway (2002-2005). She has curated exhibitions for the major contemporary art biennales and event. She has also edited and published variety of articles and publications in the field of contemporary art. Ute Meta Bauer has been a member of IHME’s expert team since fall 2018.
Ph.D., Professor of Contemporary Art Research, Academy of Fine Arts
Art historian and docent Hanna Johansson works as Professor of Contemporary Art Research at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts in Helsinki. She has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (2007-2009), as a researcher at the University of Helsinki (2000-2005) and at the Finnish National Gallery’s Central Art Archive (1998-1999). Johansson has lectured widely at universities and art schools. She has also worked as a curator and written art criticism for numerous publications. Contemporary art, its nature aspect and theoretical concepts are the most central areas of Johansson’s research. She has an extensive publication record on Finnish and international contemporary art.
Antti Majava
Artist, Ph.D. candidate
The visual artist and researcher at the BIOS Research Unit Antti Majava has brought in his work together experts and viewpoints stemming from science, arts, and other fields. He is the founding member of the Mustarinda Association, and through it has created a platform for experimentation in artistic and everyday practices which take into account the material underpinnings of society. In his doctoral thesis, which employs socio-ecological methods, he studies the effects of nature, society and science on the development of artistic phenomena, and correspondingly, the role of art in socio-ecological and scientific breakthroughs. In the research unit his role has been to look at forests and bioeconomy, and to develop ways of collaboration with representatives of the media and art worlds. His texts have been published both in scientific and popular journals; alongside writing, he continues his visual artistic work.
Jussi Parikka
Ph.D., Professor
Dr Jussi Parikka is Professor at the Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) and Docent of Digital Culture Theory at the University of Turku. In addition, he is a Visiting Scholar at FAMU in Prague. His various books have addressed a wide range of topics relevant to a critical understanding of network culture, aesthetics and media archaeology of contemporary society. The books include the media ecology-trilogy Digital Contagions (2007, 2nd. ed 2016), the award-winning Insect Media (2010) and most recently, A Geology of Media (2015), which addresses the environmental contexts of technical media culture.
Executive Director, Curator
Paula Toppila is the Executive Director and curator of Pro Arte Foundation and IHME Contemporary Art Festival since 2007. During her directorship the Festival has produced new commissions in public space in collaboration with artists Antony Gormley, Susan Philipsz, Superflex, Miroslaw Balka, Yael Bartana, Jeremy Deller, Kateřina Šedá, Theaster Gates and The Black Monks of Mississippi and Henrik Håkansson. With Christan Boltanski IHME continued the on-going project Heart Archive in libraries of four cities in Finland. Toppila worked as curator at Frame Finnish Fund for Art Exchange 1998-2007 and is curator of several Finnish and international exhibitions both in Finland and abroad e.g. Finnish representation of Sao Paulo Biennial in 2001 and The Fourth Pirkanmaa Triennial in Tampere, Finland in 2009. She has co-curated e.g. Momentum – The Nordic Biennial in Moss, Norway in 2000. She has contributed to Siksi, Taide, Flash Art and Framework magazines. She has a Master of Arts Degree in Art History. She participated in Curatorial Training Programme of De Appel Foundation in Amsterdam 1997-98 and Business College Helsinki´s vocational studies in leadership and management 2018-2020.