Performance Summer Club SUMMER OF 26’ – FLASHBACK / FORWARD

Aeon Lux | Emmi Kairenius | Gabriella Presnal |

Sofi Häkkinen w/Miradonna Sirkka & Aleksi Kinnunen

6:00–8:00 p.m. Various spaces at Kalevan Navetta: Vintti, Kammio, Itikka, and the surrounding area

We remember forward

This year, the Performance Club is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Seinäjoki’s Summer Artist program! To mark the occasion, the club will feature the city’s summer artists, who will illustrate the traces and impacts of their work through their performances: living, physical, and shared moments.

The evening will feature four performances by Seinäjoki’s summer artists. The club creates a flashback that represents not only a return to the past, but also a glimpse of something yet to come.

The Performance Summer Club celebrates the essence of the summer artists’ work: encounter, presence, and the moment that is created and experienced together as unique and unrepeatable.

Come spend a relaxed Friday evening enjoying performance art—no prior experience necessary. A warm welcome to all!

Kunsthale Seinäjoki is hosting a group exhibition by Summer Artists titled “Flashback,” on view through August 8, 2026.

Artists performing at the Performance Club

Aeon Lux (b. 1993) was the Summer Artist in 2019. She is a Seinäjoki-based visual artist. She works with ceramic sculpture, painting, drawing and performance art. Lux’s art is driven by her desire to explore reality. Metaphysical and esoteric questions are often the starting points of her work. Aeon Lux graduated as a visual artist from Kankaanpää Art School in 2017.

Sofi Häkkinen (b. 1990) was the Summer Artist in 2020. They focuses on sculpture and performance in their artistic work. They are the artistic director of Recover Laboratory, a multi-art collective. Häkkinen holds the Master of Fine Art degree in the sculpture programme at The University of Arts Helsinki and a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University (ViCCA, 2018) and a Bachelor of Art from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, 2016.

Miradonna Sirkka (1991) is a contemporary circus and performance artist, director and performer based in Helsinki, Finland. Works of art are multidisciplinary blends of performance art, installation, video, sound and media art. Inspiration arises from pleasure, joy, emotions that are too big to handle, disgusting and top secret thoughts, human contact and everyday awkwardness. Every detail is thought through too many times and then dipped into a sugar bowl and digged out gruesomely realistic. Plasticity, pine forest, femmeness and grittiness all feature in the works. Miradonna graduated as a circus artist from Turku University of Applied Sciences and as a Master of Arts from Aalto University in Visual Culture and Curating Contemporary Art.

Aleksi Kinnunen is a Helsinki-based musician and sound designer who, throughout his professional career, has worked in a wide variety of fields within both music and the performing arts. Improvisation, spontaneity, and musical interaction are often central to his work, and musically he specializes in combining electronic music, pop, and jazz. Currently, Aleksi plays and produces music in several different bands (including Aki Himanen & Aleksi Kinnunen, Ramy Essam, Serot, and Trash Drumming), but his main focus is on expanding internationally, which has led Aki Himanen & Aleksi Kinnunen to tour actively abroad. The duo has played sold-out shows at venues such as Berlin’s renowned Kantine am Berghain club, as well as at numerous international festivals, including JazzMi, Fano Jazz by the Sea, and Jazz:Re:Found. International booking is handled by Jazz-O-Tech, based in Milan and Berlin. Music production and extensive experience in performing have also led Aleksi into the performing arts, where he has worked as a sound designer, composer, musician, and even an actor. In recent years, Aleksi has worked in various roles on projects for, among others, the Helsinki City Theater, Q-Teatteri, Teatteri Takomo, Zodiak, Cirko, Recover Laboratory, and Race Horse Company.”

Emmi Kairenius (b. 1993, Sammatti) was the Summer Artist in 2025. Kairenius is a visual artist based in Rovaniemi, Finland. Through her artistic practice, Kairenius explores the daily urban environment and public space. Her work is characterized by embodied and repetitive engagement with the surroundings—through observation of change, collecting found objects, and playfully interacting with elements of the city. Her works are public performative processes that at times take the form of video, photography, or installation. Kairenius earned her Master of Arts degree from the University of Lapland in 2024 and is currently pursuing doctoral studies in art. She has participated in exhibitions and, alongside working in gallery contexts, has been actively engaged in process-based art situated in urban environments.

Gabriella Presnal (b.2001, they/them) is the Summer Artist in 2026. Presnal is a Finnish American artist having previously lived in Sweden, Canada, Denmark, and the U.S. Conceptually, they draw upon philosophies surrounding spatiality, publicness, and cultural memory. Alongside their own cultural background, an integral influence to their work has been Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s theories of nomad art wherein they apply the characteristics of spaces to textile methods. For Presnal, multidisciplinary textiles then become a model for subverting, warping, and molding spaces. Many times, their works integrate community-centric and participatory approaches, having previously created projects surrounding precarity, post-anthropocentrism, utopias, queer international youth, and more. Ongoing and upcoming works (summer 2026) from Presnal are currently with Amos Rex (Generation 2026), ArtOulu2026 (performance programming), a solo exhibition in MUU ry’s Ikkuna / Window Gallery (Helsinki), and the Rihmasto / Rhizome group exhibition at Haihatus (Joutsa). They have a history of exhibiting primarily in Finland as well as group exhibitions and festivals abroad, for example, in Brazil, Australia, Korea, Italy, Slovenia, and more. They have recently graduated from a dual master’s degree program in Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education from Aalto University and Aalborg University.

 

What to Expect

Kunsthalle’s performance clubs are open to everyone, free of charge, and suitable for all ages. You can drop by without any prior knowledge of performance art. This year, Aeon Lux’s performance in the Kammio space is, exceptionally, rated 18+. The performance lasts 20 minutes and is the last show of the evening. However, as a minor, you are welcome to attend all other performances in the other spaces.

Four performances will take place during the evening. Sofi Häkkinen will perform in the Vintti exhibition space on the 3rd floor. Aeon Lux will perform in the Kammio space on the 1st floor. Emmi Kairenius will perform around Kalevan Navetta. Gabriella Presnal will perform in the Itikka space and outdoors. Staff from the Kunsthalle will ensure everyone knows which room the next performance will take place in. A more detailed schedule will be published a couple of weeks before the event. You’re also welcome to come see just one or two performances. Admission to the exhibitions at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki is free all day.