Vartiosaari Artist House has a guest studio room.
We organize both short term residency programs for international and local artists / researchers working in the context of Vartiosaari island.
The residency / studio program was launched in 2023 thanks to the support of the Saastamoinen foundation.
The invited guests have created personal works and collaborations with our members, students, visitors, artist colleagues, and educators sharing their engaging projects and speculative workshops with the public during our ongoing artistic events.
*Currently the residency / studio program is by invitation only.
Special Thanks To: The Saastamoinen Foundation / Helsinki, FI
*Support for the 2023-2025 Artists House Studio Residency Program.
2023 - 2025 Residents / Guests:
AA Jönsson (Aalborg, Denmark) Marjolein van der Loo (Eindhoven, Netherlands) Neil Luck (London, UK) Marek Kozakiewicz (Warsaw, Poland) Shitou & Mingming (China - *Currently based in Malmo, Sweden) Alessandro Rolandi (Italy - *Currently based in Bern, Switzerland) Carlos Gutiérrez and Tatiana Lopez (La Paz, Bolivia) Erro Yli Vakkuri (Helsinki, FInland) Kärt Ojavee (Tallin, Estonia) Katarzyna Sobcka (PL/UK) Lenka Cernotova, (Prague, Czech Republic) Mateusz Scibor (Warsaw, Poland)
2025 EUNIC Residency Artists
Monika Czyzyk - (Poland *Currently based in Helsinki, FI) Julia Lohmann - (Germany *Currently based in Helsinki, FI) Kristina Ollek - (Tallin, Estonia) Ville Raasakka- (Helsinki, FI) Lefebvre + Zisswiller - (Paris, France)
Special Thanks: The Goethe Foundation / Helsinki, FI *Support for the 2025 EUNIC Artists House Studio Residency Program
2025 Residents
aasj (alex/alexandra sofie jönsson)
is an artist exploring how artistic practices can be a site of new reparative relations to the environment and more than human. They work with a queer- and eco-critical perspective through video, sound and building projects and focus on making work that acts as open-source conceptual and emotional everyday tools. They hold an MA from Goldsmiths College and an artistic ph.d. from Westminster School of Arts. Since 2011, they have worked and exhibited internationally, including at Art Center Nabi (KOR), Tate Modern (UK), and Kunsthal Nord (DK). They have been the recipient of awards and grants from the Danish Arts Foundation for several years. https://aasj.info/
2024 Residents
Painter- photographer-filmmaker-curator Shi Tou has been actively engaged in various artistic creations and social practice. She graduated from Guizhou Art Academy China. 1992 Moved into Beijing Yuan Ming Yuan (The Old Summer Palace) Artist Village and started with personal art works. She began collaborating with Mingming in 2001, using photography of performance and installation, video and documentaries to portray the social changes in contemporary China. as well as issues of sustainable ecology and gender diversity. Her leading role in Fish and Elephant (Yu Li 2001) helped this first feature-length Chinese lesbian film win prizes at the Venice, Berlin and Toronto film festivals. She as the art director of the documentary Dream on the Wall (Mingming 2010) won the best short film award at the 2010 Hong Kong Chinese Documentary Film Festival. Her art works and films have been showed in many exhibition and film festivals all around the world. She combines artistic creation with social practice, in 2008, she with friends established China Queer Independent Films. From 2008 to now, they go to different places every year, traveling all over China, from cities to towns, and have held nearly 400 screenings, with tens of thousands of audiences watching and communicating. Shi Tou with Dr Li YinHe and Cui Zi'en were first time to have a homosexual topic on TV Interview Program publicly in 2000, its audience rating was 300 million.
Graduated from Guizhou Radio and Television University with a major in "Industrial and Civil Architecture". She’s a photographer-filmmaker. Her art works and films have been showed in many exhibition and film festivals all around the world. She directed the documentary Dream on the wall won the best short film award at the 2010 Hong Kong Chinese Documentary Film Festival. In 2008, she co-founded the China Queer Independent Film with Shi Tou and a group of queer directors, artists, activists, critics, etc. From 2008 to now, nearly 400 screenings and discussions have been held across the country. Several documentaries on gender diversity in Chinese history and contemporary society that she is co-producing with Shi Tou are currently in production.
2024 Resident
Born in Pavia on 18th April 1971;
Living and working in Beijing 2002-2020
Currently based in Bern (Switzerland).
Studied
Chemistry in the universities of Pavia and Siena;
Theater at Scuola Europea di Danza e Teatro Carcano, Milano;
Experimental Theatre and film-making with Dominique Defazio (Lee Strasberg’s assistant, Actor-s Studio life-member), and Eleonora Marino (student of Peter Brook, ArianneMouschkine, Jerzy Grotowski);
Master History of Art & market at Christie’s Education Paris/ Cambridge University; Asian Environmental Humanities: landscapes in transition, Zurich University certificate.
Living and working in Beijing 2002-2020
Currently based in Bern (Switzerland).
Studied
Chemistry in the universities of Pavia and Siena;
Theater at Scuola Europea di Danza e Teatro Carcano, Milano;
Experimental Theatre and film-making with Dominique Defazio (Lee Strasberg’s assistant, Actor-s Studio life-member), and Eleonora Marino (student of Peter Brook, ArianneMouschkine, Jerzy Grotowski);
Master History of Art & market at Christie’s Education Paris/ Cambridge University; Asian Environmental Humanities: landscapes in transition, Zurich University certificate.
Links: Social Sensibility
I have been living and working in Beijing from 2002 to 2020, as a multimedia and performance artist, social activist, researcher, writer and educator.My work focuses on social intervention and relational dynamics to expand the notion of art practice beyond existing structures, spaces and hierarchies, engaging with reality through strategic decentralized autonomous practices.
I’m the founder and director of the Social Sensibility R&D Department at Bernard Controls Industries in Beijing (2010-ongoing) and Paris/Gonesse (2016-ongoing) and a founding partner of the Social Sensibility Research Institute (SoSense).
Fellow at Roxbourg Institute for Social Entrepreneurship
since 2020 and among the Good100 in 2022.
I’m the founder and director of the Social Sensibility R&D Department at Bernard Controls Industries in Beijing (2010-ongoing) and Paris/Gonesse (2016-ongoing) and a founding partner of the Social Sensibility Research Institute (SoSense).
Fellow at Roxbourg Institute for Social Entrepreneurship
since 2020 and among the Good100 in 2022.
2023 Resident
In 2015, Černota graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Graphics Studio II, prof. Vladimir Kokolia. A year earlier, she completed her doctoral studies at Technical Univerzity of Ostrava. The topic of her dissertation was: Processing of industrial waste for the preparation of pigments and their use in restoration techniques. Černota for the pigment she prepared received a patent. She studied for 3 years at the Academy of Fine Arts. Jan Matejki in Krakow, Poland (intermediate studio, sculpture). She has a bachelor’s degree in restoration of wallpainting and sgraffito at the University of Pardubice in Litomyšl.
Černota is mainly devoted to painting. By using complementary techniques that cast the painting in other contexts are drawing, photography from photo traps, animation, video… She is currently studying atthe doctoral study program at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the studio of prof. Vladimír Kokolia, the theme of her work is Obrazová spojka with the subtitle painting´s evnvironment. She paints paintings for wolves and explores what it brings to both sides( human/non human). In 2020, she had the largest solo exhibitions to date at the Bold Gallery and the Pragovka Gallery in Prague, in 2021 exhibition Svorka at Gallery Lapidárium in Broumov monastery.