Yujie Zhou is a Helsinki-based visual artist who navigates performativity and a decoded notion of language through photography, textiles, moving images, installation, and publishing. Based on the juxtaposition between their nationalist upbringing and their current life in Finland, their practice interrogates dominant historical narratives and power structures while reframing collective individuality. They have shown internationally at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Photographic Centre Peri, Photographic Gallery Hippolyte (Finland), BFoto Festival (Spain), FORMAT Photography Festival (UK), alpha nova & galerie futura (Germany), and Fotomuseum Winterthur(Switzerland). Zhou was Kone Foundation’ Saari Residence Fellow from March to Apri 2024. They are an 11-month Artist Resident at HIAP and an artist for Futures Photography 2024. 

nadiye works primarily with sculptures and installation. They work in the Savio artist community in Kerava. They approach art through contemporary jewellery, focusing on small objects, materials, details, surfaces, shiny little things. Nadiye’s work invites the viewer to take a closer, more intimate look. Their work often deals with the self and the body, unpeeling the various ideas about the self that build up on the body. Currently they are also exploring geometric patterns, ornamentation and decoration.

ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS is a Queer art collective. We are Chris Gylee and Aslan and we have been living our lives together and making artwork together for more than a decade. Our practice is multidisciplinary with a strong emphasis on writing and live performance and involves elements of publication, installation, and curation. Our work to date has taken us on a journey to understand how art maps out unexpected futures and shines a light on less commonly told stories, thereby helping us imagine different and new ways of being in the world. It has become our passion to imagine and transmit stories of Queer futures and Queer ruralities that help us understand how the world is, how it got that way, and how it could be different. Throughout 2024 and 2025, ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS are creating the constellation artwork With Forests in Our Mouths — Speaking Queer Utopias into Being. Field Guide, made in collaboration with Joni Judén, is the tenth chapter of this multidisciplinary work.

Joni Judén is a musician and artist living and working in Joutsa, Finland. Active since the mid 00’s, Joni’s previous home bases include London and New York. His current musical projects include Celestial Trax, Sisilisko and Muki Bu Mudiubi. Joni runs True Aether–– TUO TUO’s independent record label focused on globe-spanning electronic music experiments. Joni graduated from London College of Music in 2003. Joni has toured extensively in Europe, North America and Asia, including appearances at Berghain, MoMA PS1, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boiler Room, Field Day, Glastonbury, Bestival, CTM, Corsica Studios, Roundhouse and SXSW. 

Ora H.Subverting traditional notions of spirituality, art, economy and self-help, Ora H. grounds their voice in amateurism and defiance. Queer ecofeminism, narrative overrides, time travel, conscious mirroring, divination and hypnosis all play a role in Ora’s creative practice. Ora treats every output not as a container, but as a proposition for how we might relate, read, receive and digest differently. substack.com/@emergingora