IHME’s advisory board is responsible for choosing the artists who will carry out IHME Helsinki Commissions and for developing IHME’s operations in a changing operating environment. The group’s members are experts in art and science who work internationally.
IHME Helsinki advisory board, starting June 1, 2022
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.
Hanna Guttorm
Ph.D., Senior researcher
Guttorm is a Senior Researcher in Indigenous Studies at the University of Helsinki. She is also a member of Helsinki Institute for Sustainable Development (HELSUS). Guttorm has revived her father’s Northern Sámi language and is also a part-time Associate Professor in Sámi Teacher Education at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, Guovdageaidnu, Norway. She is Chair of the Dutkansarvvi – Sámi Language and Culture Research Society, and Editor of Dutkansarvvi Dieđalaš Áigečála magazine. Primarily in Kone Foundation‘s individually and collectively funded projects, Guttorm explores, writes, speaks and performs from somewhere between the arts, sciences and pedagogy, for a more ecologically and socially sustainable world.
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 of Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University and Visiting Professor at the Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) and at FAMU in Prague. In addition, he is a Docent of Digital Culture Theory at the University of Turku. 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.