ABOUT

Tellervo Kalleinen is a Helsinki-based artist and songwriter. Rooted in strong concepts, her participatory art takes forms ranging from moving image works to performance and often begins with an open invitation to take part. She is known for work that builds on absurdity as fertile ground for celebrating collaboration and unexpected perspectives. Her initiatives spark creative adventures, foster unlikely encounters, and create temporary communities. Her solo performances create twisted spaces between performer and audience, such as Recycle You, in which she recycles audience members’ expired opinions. In music, she is currently active with her solo project Takay-Sin.

Kalleinen forms one half of the artist duo with Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. Their collaboration began by organising The First Summit of Micronations as curators of the Amorph!03 performance festival in Helsinki in 2003 (produced by Artists’ Association MUU). Their Complaints Choir concept (2005-) has spread to nearly 200 cities worldwide. Alongside several moving image works, such as People in White (2011) and Archipelago Science Fiction (2011), they have worked with complex public art commissions. In 2022 they completed Keskustelupuisto / Common Ground – A Public Space Game, in which participants designed and realised a public park through a two-year, game-like collaborative process. In 2026 they unveiled The Most Valuable Clock in the World, a clock that shows precious moments drawn from people’s lives and the surrounding natural environment – the work was commissioned by Invisible Dust in collaboration with Oulu2026, the European Capital of Culture. The duo received the Ars Fennica Award in 2014.

Together with Niina Lehtonen Braun and Mirka Raito she forms the performance trio JOKAklubi (since 2009), and she is a founding member of the YKON collective (2005). She is a former member of The Speech Karaoke Action Group.