Grants and symposiums

Speakers

Photo: Hannele Salminen

Hannaleena Heiska, Master of Fine Arts who often examines the mysteries of life and death in her works. Known for using both painting and drawing, as well as video and performance art as ways of expression. Exhibitions both in Finland and abroad, several works in major collections such as Kiasma, EMMA-Espoo museum of modern art and Gothenburg Museum of Art.
Docent Ruth Illman is the director of the Donner Institute of for Religious and Cultural History and a member of the museum committee of Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation. She is a Doctor of Theology (Jewish Studies) and Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative religion).
Kai Kartio (b. 1961) is an art historian and the director of Amos Rex Art Museum and a member of the museum committee of Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation. He has a theosophic family background.
Ilona Keňová graduated as Master of Dance Art from Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She works as dancer, teacher, choreographer. Art of dance is Ilona´s reflection and expression of life.
Ph.D. Nina Kokkinen's research focuses on esotericism in the Finnish art world. She is the Chief Curator of Villa Gyllenberg's summer exhibition 2020, The Path to Hidden Knowledge, and has also curated other exhibitions about similar subjects.
Heikki Kännö is a 51-year-old writer from Turku. He has published two books, of which the first one Mehiläistie is about Joseph Beuys' shamanistic art, and the second one, Sömnö touches among other things on G.I Gurdjeff's teachings and ponders on questions of perpetual life. He received the Runeberg Prize 2019 for Sömnö.
Docent and Ph.D. Maarit Leskelä-Kärki is a lecturer of cultural history at the Unversity of Turku. Her research focuses on how life and narratives are intertwined, and is particularly interested in the cultural history of writing, and esotericism in early 20th century Finland. She is the head of the research project Seekers of the New: Esotericism and the transformation of religiosity in Finland during the era of modernisation, 1880-1940.
Photo: Annika Adlercreutz
J O Mallander (b. 1944) has worked as an artist, art critic, gallerist and curator since 1968.
Art historian, Master of Arts, Lotta Nylund is the Chief Curator of Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum. She is the initiator of Villa Gyllenberg's symposium, exhibition and publication that examine esotericism in Finnish art.
Jani-Petteri Olkkonen is a theater director (MA), sound and performance artist and a teacher. He focuses on ritualistic traditions in the framework of contemporary art.
Ph.D. Riikka Stewen is an art historian with a special interest in cultural and material memory. She has worked as a university lecturer at the universities of Helsinki and Turku, as well as Uniarts Helsinki.