Ama van Dantzig

Ama van Dantzig spends her time building bridges between seemingly different worlds, between Africa and Europe. She weaves together diverse realities and perspectives in search of better responses and coping strategies. She facilitates and moderates conversations between various groups such as policy makers, entrepreneurs, artists, philosophers, scientists and activists. She believes these will help us address the problems in our systems that create some of the greatest challenges of our time e.g the climate crisis, themes around inclusion, equality and leadership.

As co- founder of the social innovation company Dr. Monk she gained over a decade of experience in sustainability, social innovation, collaboration and creativity. In 2021, she decided to stop her company. She now plays a lead role in numerous international initiatives such as being the lead facilitator for the UNDP forest dialogues in Ivory Coast and Liberia, Leading BuZz Women to scale up on the African continent to support women to empower themselves, lead facilitator for the Obama Foundation for their Leaders: Africa program and lead moderator of the flagship Amujae program of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and development.

Next to these roles, Ama plays advisory roles on various committees and commissions including for the Stimuleringsfonds for the creative industries, the Prince Claus fund and as a board member of Nature College and the Church of Climate Change.

Sara Davis Buechner

Sara Davis Buechner is one of the leading concert pianists of our time, a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (New York Times). Revered as the most prominent transgender musician appearing on the classical concert stage today, she has been lauded as a champion of LGBTQ+ rights. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award of Brandeis University and is a member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

With an active repertoire of more than 100 piano concertos -- she has been soloist with many of the world’s prominent orchestras, and given recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl. Dr. Buechner is a Professor of Music at Temple University.

Luis Guerra

Luis Guerra (*1974, Santiago of Chile) is a Visual Artist and Philosopher. Currently he is a University Researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, and Fellow Researcher at the Künstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, Innsbruck, Austria and Fellow Researcher at the research group Post-foundational Contemporary Thought: Critical and theoretical analysis of the contemporary ontologies of negativity and the question of the violence of the foundation, University of Barcelona. Former Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Theory of the Arts at BAU University Center of Arts and Design Barcelona (2020-2022), GREDITS Design and Social Transformation Research Group Coordinator, and co-editor of the scientific review Immaterial, Design, Art and Society.

Luis Guerra did postdoctoral studies at the Center for Artistic Research (CfAR), University of the Arts Helsinki, 2019-2020. He was also Fellow Resident Artist at the Saastamoinen Foundation, Helsinki (2021) and Fellow grantee at the Kone Foundation, Helsinki (2020) with the artistic research project Wandering Echoes, rounds and litanies as performative maps under confinement. In 2022, he published his second book: Wandering Echoes, a handbook of operative losses, Errant Bodies Press, Berlin. In 2017 he published La Inexistencia del Arte, Brumaria Editores Madrid, after a research residency at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2015-2016).

His praxis inhabits a zone of visual encounters between drawings and acts, writings and objects. His work revolves around the imaginary line that Western culture has created between art and philosophy. Among the concepts framing his artistic research are three main notions: the un-domiciled, the echoicity and the inexistent.

Currently, at Uniarts Helsinki, he develops research on relational sustainability in Artist Pedagogy from an enactive approach.

Hildá Länsman & Lávre

Performing both as solo artists, as well as doing collaborative concerts, Hildá Länsman & Lávre are two yoikers and musicians of the young generation in Sápmi. They master both the traditional form of the Sámi vocal technique luohti (yoik) from their respective areas, as well as experimenting with modern expressions.

Hildá Länsman is a joik-singer and songwriter from Ohcejohka on the Finnish side of Sápmi. Having grown up with the ancient traditions of reindeer husbandry, handicraft (duodji) and luohti (yoik), she connects her background with contemporary world music and academic studies in the Global Music programme at Sibelius Academy. Hildá has performed widely both in Finland and internationally and is standing out with her uniquely ethereal, shrilling, growling and clear voice.

Lávre Johan Eira is a young indigenous artist and musician from Guovdageaidnu in the Norwegian side of Sápmi. His musical expression is strongly grounded in the vocal tradition of joik, yet always exploring new impulses in the world of Sámi music. Joik and song are at the center of his live performances; sometimes accompanied solo with a guitar and effects setup - and other times woven together with a varied ensemble of inspiring musicians.

Aizhan Sultan

Aizhan Sultan is a professional singer, composer, and educator originally from Kazakhstan. Based in Helsinki for the past few years. Graduated with a master's degree from Lithuanian Music Academy (VMU, Kaunas). Laureate of International competitions, a semifinalist on X-Factor of Ukraine and The Voice of Ukraine. She wrote and produced music for artists of Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Her experiences involve performing on musical theater stage, opera and also her own written music where she expresses musical roots lie in traditional folk Kazakh music with classical and experimental music.

Through her music she brings up very important topics such as racial and gender dicrimination, political issues, domestic violence. Aizhan is an artist wanting to share my world of music with all of you. Music heals the mind, eases the soul, and gives peace to the world.