SINNA VIRTANEN

Sinna Virtanen is a playwright, director and multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki. She works across theatre, performance, installation and moving image. Virtanen completed a Master of Arts degree in Playwriting and Dramaturgy at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2015.

Working across scales and contexts is central to her practice. Her works span theatre, opera, installation, film, and site-specific performance, and have been presented in institutional settings including & Espoo Theatre, The Finnish National Opera and Ballet, Helsinki Biennale, Scenkonstbiennalen, and Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, as well as in small galleries and site-specific contexts ranging from shorelines and water treatment facilities to an abandoned kiosk. Her works are realised through diverse and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Virtanen works reach toward the pre-dramatic stage where weather conditions, natural forces, and more-than-human beings strongly shape both the reality of the performance and the experience of it.  Her practice is driven by an interest in Homeric worlds, hauntings and lost histories, speculative fiction, the agency of materials, and humour as a disruptive force.