First meeting for mentorship scheme in October – get to know the mentees!

In October 2022, an introductory meeting for the mentorship pilot scheme will take place in Helsinki. All ten mentors and ten mentees will attend. After this meeting, both mentors and mentees will continue to meet up regularly online and in their respective home countries for the duration of the six-month scheme. A joint final meeting will be held in Helsinki in March 2023.

The pilot programme for mentorship within the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture has been established to support sharing of knowledge, learning and exchange of experiences in the Region. The aim is to promote interactivity, sustainability and long-term relationships across borders between experienced and younger artists and cultural workers.

Get to know the mentees who have been selected to take part in the mentorship pilot scheme:

Photo credit: Donatas Ališauskas

Giedrė Putramentaitė

Giedre is a freelancer project manager who now specialises in contemporary circus arts.

Most of her experiences stems from both small and large-scale cultural project management in performing arts – during her professional years, she organised more than 15 performing arts festivals, curated various programmes and projects, worked with strategy within both organisations and the contemporary circus arts in Lithuania. Giedre is also a member of the cultural managers association in Lithuania (which she managed for two years), which helps to lobby for the profession.

Giedrė is also interested in leadership, economical sustainability, and collaboration with businesses in the cultural sector.

Primary artistic field: contemporary circus arts

Currently lives in: Vilnius, Lithuania

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Photo credit: Gabrielė Janilionytė

Gabrielė Janilionytė

Gabrielė Janilionytė; is an anthropologist, cultural and social project manager, and performing arts producer implementing various interdisciplinary projects in order to effect change in Lithuanian cities through community involvement. She is a facilitator, sustainability enthusiast, and a change-maker who seeks to make a positive social impact in different contexts. She has an interest in sustainable urban development through the circular economy and green infrastructure. She is currently working with communities and running sustainability projects relating to composting and the promotion of biodiversity in public green urban spaces.

Primary artistic fields: architecture, visual arts, cultural heritage, and theatre

Currently lives in: Vilnius, Lithuania

Photo credit: Donatas Ališauskas

Tze Yeung Ho

Tze Yeung Ho (born in 1992) is a Norwegian composer based in Helsinki. He is an organiser and founder of the OSLOFONI project ECCO, a working group member of ECSA (European Composers and Songwriters’ Alliance), and a board member of the Periferien – nyMusikk Oslo concert series. Tze Yeung was the former chair of the Norwegian chapter of the UNM (Ung Nordisk Musikk) festival.

Tze Yeung’s music can be found at the crossroads of understanding. His works explore the territories of speech, translation in language, dramaturgy and poetics, with a particular focus on multilingual approaches. Working exclusively with Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric and Chinese poetry and prose, his music explores the fragile landscapes of (mis)communication through (un)spoken words. Close collaboration with living writers, storytellers and word-based artists is central to his practice.

Primary artistic field: music

Currently lives in: Helsinki, Finland

Photo credit: Jussi Virkkumaa

Sanna Soni

Sanna Soni is producer and puppetry agent with a degree (BA) in culture management. She currently works in Aura of Puppets, which is a network for independent professional puppeteers in Finland. Over the last couple of years, she has specialised in contemporary visual theatre and puppetry production, and has more than seven years of experience in artist management. Sanna has a wealth of experience within both large-scale and more intimate theatre productions, as well as festivals and projects. She was head of production and part of the curatorial team for the Turku International Puppetry Festival TIP-Fest for last couple of years, and works mainly in the independent field of performing arts. In terms of her work, one of her the biggest ambitions is to create more sustainable working conditions for independent artists, both nationally and internationally. As a hobby, Sanna teaches Indian folk and movie industry dances.

Primary artistic field: theatre

Currently lives in: Turku, Finland

Photo credit: Rebekka Bohse Meyer

Rebekka Bohse Meyer

Rebekka Sofie Bohse Meyer is a performance designer creating immersive performative installations. With a musical background, sound lies at the core of her work, having worked with spatial sound, generative sound, and sounds for AI. This has further led to her interest in new technology and research into the immersive qualities of virtual reality. She’s currently working to combine sound, performance, and new technology into a VR opera.

Furthermore, Bohse Meyer facilitates other interdisciplinary and performative artists through her work as a curator and founder of the exhibition space platform BUNKER, located in Copenhagen, Denmark

Primary artistic fields: media, music, theatre, design

Currently lives in: Copenhagen, Denmark

Photo credit: Keithy Kuuspu

Laura Cemin

Laura Cemin (born in 1992, Italy) lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Her work, often presented in galleries and non-traditional performance spaces, unites elements of performance, writing, and temporality with the intention of challenging the boundaries between dance and visual arts. She graduated from Umeå Art Academy in Sweden in 2019 and holds a degree in ballet and contemporary dance.
Her work has been presented internationally in galleries, theatres, and museums including Norrlandsoperan and Bildmuseetin Sweden, Museum für Neue Kunst in Germany, and Kiasma Helsinki in Finland. Alongside her practice as a creator, she works as a dance dramaturgist and guest teacher at the Estonian Academy of Fine Arts.

Primary artistic fields: visual arts, dance

Currently lives in: Helsinki, Finland

Photo credit: Lukas Lund

Sandra Cecilie Quist Lund

Sandra Cecilie trained as a writer at Biskops Arnös author school and Konstfack in Sweden. She has published poetry in Kritiker and OVBIDAT, and has written critique in various magazines. She has a BA in Literary History from Aarhus University in Denmark and an MA in Literature, Culture & Media from Lund University in Sweden, specialising in poetics and performative criticism. Sandra has worked with hybrid forms of critique at Bastard, a platform for experimental performance art, choreography, and interdisciplinary art practices. She currently works in publishing as an editor and translator of children’s literature, and has previously worked at the exhibition platform Forlaget Gestus. Sandra is interested in literature on a wider plane, poetry in the margins, performance art, as well as the aesthetics of archives. Recently, she has been exploring visual poetry and contributed to the magazine ToCall.

Primary artistic field: literature

Currently lives in: Copenhagen, Denmark.

Photo credit: Livia Schweizer

Manca Dornik

Manca Dornik (born in 1995) is a Slovenian accordionist who just recently graduated from the Sibelius Academy from the class of Finnish accordion pioneer, Professor Matti Rantanen. In addition to the accordion, she also studied conducting and composition. Manca has participated in many international competitions in which she has won several first and second places and prizes. She has already played as a soloist with many orchestras. As early as 2015, she received the highest accolade for Slovenian students (the Prešeren award) for her musical activities.

Manca is an active performer as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She has given many performances and produced several recordings at important international festivals. Throughout her career, her dedication has been centred around intensive collaboration with composers, and she has recorded and premiered several new musical works featuring the accordion. Her dedication to contemporary music was also recognised with the Kranichstein Stipendiumpreis in Darmstadt, Germany. Manca recently recorded her debut album “Elements” with Orpheus Classical Label (NYC, London, Madrid).

Primary artistic field: music

Currently lives in: Helsinki, Finland

Photo credit: Aki Viren

Inka Kynkäänniemi

Inka Kynkäänniemi lives in Helsinki and works with video, sculpture, installation, and text. Her work is often connected to time, collectively shared effects, and the varied relations to beings and objects, and the way communities shape the world and each other. Collaboration plays a key role in her work. In recent years, she has worked as a duo together with the artist Iiris Kaarlehto. She has an MFA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts.

Primary artistic fields: visual arts, film, crafts

Currently lives in: Helsinki, Finland

Photo credit: Jari Hannuniemi

Amanda Hakoköngäs 

Amanda Hakoköngas (born in 1993 in Finland) is a cultural practitioner, writer, and exhibition producer from Lapland in northern Finland. Since 2019 she has been working at the Aine Art Museum in Tornio, Tornedalen on the border between northern Finland and Sweden. She actively writes articles and reviews about art and culture in the northern areas. At the moment, her interest lies in the different structures of textiles, dramaturgy, and exhibition spaces and the intersection between them.

In 2021/22 she studied postgraduate curatorial studies at the KASK School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium and holds an MA in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art from the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, where she also obtained a BA in textile design, scenography, and writing studies at Critical Academy in Helsinki.

Primary artistic field: visual arts, design, architecture, cultural heritage

Currently lives in: Tervola/Tornio/Helsinki, Finland

If you’re unfamiliar with the mentorship programme and the mentors, you can find out more HERE.