WORKS
I AM EDITH SÖDERGRAN
A large-scale performance and exhibition project inspired by the life, poetry and artistic world of Edith Södergran. The work brings together choreography, performance, voice, text, music and visual art. It premiered in Helsinki in 2022 and has since been presented in Helsinki, Riga, Vienna, Madrid, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Filadelfia.
THE WHITE ROOM
An evolving installation-based body of work exploring space, isolation, memory, absence and the body. The project has taken different forms in Moscow and Helsinki. In 2024, The White Room was presented as a solo exhibition at Galleria Katariina in Helsinki.
MY BODY BELONGS TO THE STATE
An ongoing performance series investigating the relationship between the body and the state. The work moves between the political and the intimate, questioning who controls, defines, regulates and possesses the body. Presented in Finland, Austria, Latvia, Germany and France.
FUNNY GAMES DURING WARTIME
A series of anti-war performances initiated in 2022 and presented across Europe in galleries, festivals and public space. Using absurdity, humour, play and direct action, the project confronts the reality of war and the normalization of violence.
INTERNATIONAL SILENCE
An ongoing site-specific project combining performance, installation, history and anthropology. I work in abandoned, peripheral and historically charged locations across Europe, investigating collective silence, disappearance, memory and the traces of lives that have vanished.
I AM THE ELEPHANT
A performance-installation project exploring my identification with the elephant as a symbolic and physical being, alongside a sense of estrangement from human society. The project has been presented in Riga, Stockholm and Helsinki.
SUPERFAST
A series of short, disruptive dance interventions performed in places where dancing is unexpected, restricted or forbidden. The works use speed and physical presence to create temporary situations and reclaim space for movement.
EVERY DAY IS HOLIDAY
A durational video-performance created during the COVID-19 isolation period at HIAP in 2020. Every day became a separate performance connected to a particular “holiday”, turning repetition, isolation and time into a daily ritual.
THE CORNER
An ongoing performance questioning systems of visibility and exclusion within art institutions. I place my body in the corner of galleries and exhibition spaces, often facing the wall, occupying a position where a body can be present yet deliberately unseen.
ONGOING PRACTICES
KA-LLIGRAPHY
An ongoing interdisciplinary practice in which the body becomes both instrument and material for drawing, painting and image-making. Through movement, gesture, voice and physical action, I create marks and compositions with the body, often directly on canvas. The resulting work can exist simultaneously as performance, choreography and visual artwork.
KA-LLIGRAPHY treats the body as an active cultural and visual landscape. Choreography generates an image, while the image becomes a trace of the body in motion.
BEING JOSEF KA — PHOTO
A long-term photo-performative collaboration with Mark Maher, begun in 2017. Through extended photographic actions, the project explores identity, transformation, image, intimacy and the construction of the self. Two volumes have been published, documenting the collaboration across different countries and periods.
PRANAYAMABAND
A performance and sound project that began in Moscow in 2018. Inspired by yogic breathing practices, it brings performers and musicians together through breath, rhythm, voice and listening. Each encounter becomes a shared experiment in sound and presence.
THE WORST THEATRE
An experimental anti-theatre structure in which the rules are never fixed. Each performance is created through a shifting set of constraints, improvisation and play, allowing performers, audience and environment to alter the work in real time.
KA YOGA
A body practice rooted in Hatha yoga and reimagined through performance art. KA YOGA treats the body as a site of attention, discipline, ritual and transformation, and has been presented in artistic and festival contexts in Finland, Austria and Italy.
FUCK YOU PANIC
A participatory project initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants contributed personal experiences of panic through video, audio and text. I transformed these materials into performances and visual works, keeping each participant’s contribution and authorship visible.
FACEMARKET
A collaborative portrait project based on exchange. Artists paint my face; in return, I create their portrait. The project explores reciprocity, transformation, authorship and the unstable relationship between artist and subject.
KHLEBNIKOV
A long-term interdisciplinary project developed over more than a decade and inspired by the Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov (1885–1922). His visionary language and ideas have generated performances, collaborations and experimental works across disciplines.
COUPLES
A series of photographic and spatial installations built from objects arranged in pairs. The works examine attachment, correspondence, repetition and the human impulse to establish relationships between things.
MY MORNING FACE
An ongoing self-portrait project begun in 2019. Repeated images of the face become a record of time, identity, aging and the difference between the face we present and the face that appears before presentation.
PAINTINGS
An ongoing body of paintings developed from performance images, bodily actions and traces of live work. The paintings transform material generated through performance into autonomous visual forms.
BODY AND VIDEO
An ongoing interdisciplinary practice in which the body enters into direct relationship with projection and moving image. The works explore the body simultaneously as performer, image, surface and spatial presence.
PHOTOCOLLABORATIONS
Long-term collaborations with photographers in different countries, producing photo-performances and photobooks. I develop the concept, styling and performative situation while leaving room for accident, interpretation and unpredictability.
MUSIC COLLABORATIONS
An extensive body of work developed through collaborations with musicians across Russia and Europe, including around 100 performances. These encounters often take site-specific, improvisational and experimental forms in which movement and music are developed together rather than subordinated to one another.
INITIATIVES & CURATORIAL PROJECTS
SAUNA GALLERY
An independent, non-profit, artist-run space founded in my Helsinki studio in 2021. Sauna Gallery presents exhibitions, performances and interdisciplinary projects by artists from Finland and abroad, creating a space for encounters between visual art, performance and experimentation.
PEACE2020 — ARTISTS AGAINST THE WAR
An international anti-war art project that I have curated since 2022. More than 300 artists from 25 countries have contributed short video works. The project has been presented at more than 30 venues and cultural events across Europe, including Helsinki, Vienna, Krakow, Leipzig, Hamburg, Stockholm, Rome, Riga and Kassel / documenta fifteen.
PERFORMANCE ART FOR EVERYONE
A series of site-specific interventions in everyday environments — shops, train stations, parks, streets and other public spaces. The project brings performance outside conventional art spaces and places it directly into ordinary life.
RESIDENCY
A developing project exploring the possibility of creating a flexible, artist-led residency format — potentially temporary, mobile or pop-up. The idea grows from my own experience of participating in residencies across Europe and from an interest in creating conditions for artists rather than simply producing events.
FILM
DOCUMENTARY FILM
A continuing film practice rooted in my background in documentary filmmaking. I worked in documentary film from 2005 to 2012, with festival screenings, and later participated in the online project Reality (2012–2014). Film remains an important part of my interdisciplinary practice and a field I continue to develop alongside choreography and performance.
TEACHING & EDUCATION
PERFORMANCE ART MASTERCLASSES
An ongoing teaching practice developed since 2017. I combine performance theory, physical research and practical exercises, leading participants toward individual and collective performance. Since 2023, I have taught performance art regularly at Arbis in Helsinki.
JOSEF KA 