Night of the Arts: sitting.waiting.walking.

Tze Yeung Ho is a Norwegian-Finnish composer. Tze Yeung’s music is created at the crossroads of understanding, reflecting his multilingual upbringing. His works explore the territories of speech, translation, dramaturgy and poetics. Working with Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric and Chinese poetry and prose, his music treads on the fragile landscapes of (mis)communication through (un)spoken words. Close collaboration with living writers, storytellers and word-based artists is integral to his practice. His creations often result in some form of music theatre between opera and performance.

Tze Yeung holds a doctoral degree from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Tze Yeung was among the featured artists of Venice Biennale in 2024. Tze Yeung is a recipient of the national artist grant from the Arts Council of Norway for three years and a stipend recipient of both the Fergesten Foundation and the Kordelin Foundation. In 2025, he was selected as Skien municipality’s Artist of the Year with a residence at Spriten kunsthall, where the project sitting.waiting.walking. was born. Tze Yeung is also the new artistic director of Borealis – a festival of experimental music in Bergen, Norway. 

Suvi Kajas is a Helsinki based costume designer who graduated with a Master of Arts in Costume Design from Aalto University in 2025. With a background in theatre costume construction, she has gained extensive experience as both a designer and a seamstress in the performing arts field. With strong crafting skills, she enjoys exploring the intersections between textile art and costume design.

Kajas’ design philosophy approaches costume as a reflection of social norms and a means to challenge them. Driven by a search for beauty, she regards her work as a deeply personal and spiritual form of expression. As a synesthete, her work is characterized by an expressive use of colour, combining contemplation with bold creative choices. Her most recent work as a costume designer, Tule kotiin tähtityttö, premiered at Lahti City Theatre in September 2025.

Jenni Pystynen is a designer working with light in various contexts from architecture to performing arts and cinema. In her work she is interested in investigating the subliminal effects of light and how it affects living things both emotionally and biologically.

Before working as a designer in London on international art and design projects for a decade Pystynen studied film and design in University of Applied Sciences of Tampere and architectural lighting design in Kungliga Tekniske Högskolan in Stockholm. Having grown up under the wondrous light and darkness of Nordic sky it continues to be her ultimate inspiration.

Max Pennanen is a Helsinki based choreographer and dancer. Their latest work seliseli was performed at KokoTeatteri in 2024. They have also created choreography for opera and contemporary circus. Their artistic practice explores the metaphor of dance as voice as well as the embodied dimensions of activities generally regarded as mental. Pennanen works at Tero Saarinen Company as a dancer and choreographers assistant. They hold a Master of Arts degree from the Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art MA program at Aalto University.

Linda Gabrielsen is a Norwegian writer of novels, plays and librettoes. Her collaboration with Tze Yeung Ho includes several projects which deal with violence in a cultural and personal context. Their latest work Nara, a chamber opera, premiered in 2025. 

Filip Vest holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy. In their work, Vest explores subjects such as identity, performativity, and work. Through performances, installations, and film, they negotiate different social scripts and institutions that define our roles and (lack of) agency, to see if there are other possible stories to tell, other ways of being in the world.

Filip Vest has previously shown their work at SMK The National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen Contemporary, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Arken Museum for Contemporary Art, Den Frie, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Roskilde Festival, Tallinn Art Hall, MMCA Seoul, Museum of Modern Art Zagreb and at Manifesta13 as well as The 15th Gwanju Biennale. Vest’s work is included in the collection of Moderna Museet.

Josh Spear is a British composer-performer whose work spans music-theatre, concert music, and installation. Since 2016, he has developed a distinctive use of lipsync as a compositional and performative tool, creating works in which performers embody pre-recorded voices.

His recent projects explore stammering and queerness within larger narrative forms. Spear performs internationally in contemporary music and interdisciplinary contexts, including appearances at the Venice Biennale, Copenhagen Opera Festival, and with the composer-performer collective Bastard Assignments, of which he has been a member for over a decade. In the past year, the group has premiered their music-theatre work PIGSPIGSPIGS in Norway, Denmark, and the UK, and realised an eight-hour music installation for Musik Installationen Nürnberg. He recently worked with Alwynne Pritchard on FRAMEWALKER, a new work for performer and picture frame.

As a sound designer, he has worked across theatre (How To Survive Your Mother, London), podcasts (Clown Sex; Storytech), and installation (The Island is Dead, Norway).

Linnéa Sundfær Casserly is a recorder player and vocalist dividing her time between Oslo and Helsinki. She effortlessly jumps between her two instruments and happily performs duets with herself where she sings and plays at the same time. She is curious about the relationship between the body and music, and tries to explore this in her solo performances. She also curates meditative concerts with yoga and mindfulness incorporated in the musical experience.

Casserly is passionate about collaborations with living composers and has premiered a large number of works – many of which composed specifically for her. She has worked extensively with Kaija Saariaho’s vocal music, including the soprano solo part in the opera Only the Sound Remains at the Maillon theatre in Strasbourg, and has been featured as soloist in Helsinki Chamber Choir’s album Reconnaissance which won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance.

In addition to her love for new music, Casserly is a keen performer of early music and has performed with renowned ensembles such as Barokkanerne and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra.

Katinka Saarnak is a curator, producer, and project manager working at the intersection of contemporary art, performance, and art in public spaces. With a background in Art History from the University of Copenhagen and an International Master’s in Curating from Stockholm University, she has held roles across various art institutions such as MAPS – Museum for Art in Public Spaces (DK), Tensta konsthall (SE), and Creator Projects (DK). She works as a studio manager for the Danish artist Julie Nymann and freelances.

Her work spans curatorial research, exhibition production, and cultural programming, with a focus on performance as well as collaborative projects and practices. She has contributed to a range of exhibitions and artistic events, including Realistic Utopias and TO MOVE AND BE MOVED at MAPS, The Advantages of Being Dyslexic by Julie Nymann at Struer Museum, the public programming series Another Look at… at Tensta konsthall, and Tunnel Vision for Nobel Week Lights in Stockholm. Saarnak is also co-founder of Seaslug Art Guide, a guide to Stockholm’s art scene, and has participated in the Nordic Noise two-year residency program, exploring new narratives on Nordic contemporary art.