JONNA WIKSTRÖM

I am a theater director, performance artist, playwright, theater teacher, and expert in applied and participatory arts, with a Master’s degree in Education. My strengths lie particularly in group work and its analysis, as well as blending the real (documentary) and the fictional. I have trained and directed individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds for over 20 years.

I create performances for public spaces and new types of stages. The audience can be immersed into the performance, and in workshop settings, participants can be creators, material producers, and performers. In most of my directing work, I have used documentary material. In the performance “You won’t understand anything anyway” (2023), I explored youth and parents in the metropolitan area; in STREAK (2023), young people from the Tampere region had their say; in “Kissing Booth” (2023), children talked about love and affection. In “Ruusulankatu 10” (2014), I followed the lives of former homeless people living in a housing service unit. In “Broken language, Kielirikot” (2015), I tracked the lives of young immigrants in the Aavaranta reception center. “Too late my friend” (2015) was a documentary performance about development cooperation projects in Kibera, a Nairobi slum. All of these resulted in documentary theater performances.

In addition to ESF (European Social Fund) projects, Wikström has been responsible for two Ministry for Foreign Affairs-funded three-year development cooperation projects in Nairobi. The projects were “Q-plays for Kibera” and “Girls turn”. These projects worked with young girls and women living in the Kibera slum.