About

  • Tellervo Kalleinen is a Helsinki-based artist and songwriter whose projects spark creative processes and generate temporary communities. Her conceptually driven participatory practice takes diverse forms, from moving image works to performance. She embraces absurdity as fertile ground for unexpected perspectives and unlikely encounters. For her, performance is a means of creating improbable situations between performer and audience, such as Recycle You, in which she recycles audience members’ outdated opinions.

    Kalleinen has been one half of the artist duo with Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen since 2002. Their Complaints Choir project has been realised in nearly 200 cities worldwide. Alongside moving image works such as The Making of Utopia, People in White and Archipelago Science Fiction, they have realised several public art commissions. Their most recent work is The Most Valuable Clock in the World as part of Oulu2026, the European Capital of Culture. The large wind-up mechanical-electronic marvel displays valuable moments donated by the people.

    Kalleinen is also part of JOKAklubi, an artist trio that combines performance, music, video, and live painting. Inspired by creative play with other artists, JOKAklubi invites local creatives to share the stage.

    Alongside her visual art practice, she also writes, performs, and releases music under the name Takay-Sin.

    Bio
    Tellervo Kalleinen (MFA) graduated in 2003 from the Time and Space Department at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, Finland. During 2000–01, she was a guest student at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg in the class of Cosima von Bonin, and at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig in the class of Marina Abramović.

    Kalleinen has exhibited her work worldwide. Venues include Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), P.S.1 (New York), The Kitchen (New York), Shedhalle (Zürich), Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), Havana Biennial (Havana), Mercosul Biennial (Porto Alegre), Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), KUMU Art Museum (Tallinn), KIASMA (Helsinki), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Museo de Arte Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires), Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai), and Ars Electronica Center (Linz).

    She has performed at festivals and venues such as Trouble Festival (Brussels), Performance Festival Odense (Odense), W139 (Amsterdam), Baltic Circle Festival (Helsinki), ATELIERFRANKFURT (Frankfurt), HAU2 (Berlin), and International Schillertage (Mannheim).

    Kalleinen forms an 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). They are authors of the book Keskustelupuisto / Common Ground – A Public Space Game. The book opens up insight and learnings from a complex project in which participants designed and realised a public park through a two-year, game-like process. The duo received the AVEK Media Art Award in 2012 and prestigious Ars Fennica Award in 2014. In 2017, the duo was invited as guest professors at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts.

    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.

    Alongside her work in fine art, she also makes music. In 2025, Minna Records released her debut solo EP under the artist name Takay-Sin. She has released two albums with her band Olento Orchestral (2015–2026). In 2014, she released the studio album Käsky ja Hyräily as Kaukaisu, in collaboration with other musicians.

    Awards
    2003: GRANT IN HONOUR OF THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FINNISH ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS
    When graduating from The Finnish Art Academy she won a prize with her graduation work In The Middle Of A Movie, from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

    2012: BEST FEATURE FILM -AWARD
    People in White – a film describing doctor-patient relationship in mental health care  from the subjective point of view of the patient – won a „Best feature film -award“ at Lo Spiraglio Film Fest, Rome.

    2012:  AVEK Media Art Award
    With Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen she received the biggest Media Art Award of Finland.

    2014: FACES OF WISDOM – 2nd prize
    Tellervo and Niina Lehtonen Braun won the 2nd prize of Faces of Wisdom -film festival with their work Play This At My Funeral

    2014: ARS FENNICA
    Tellervo and Oliver received the most prestigious art award of Finland, Ars Fennica.

    2015: WILLIAM THURING PRIZE
    Finnish Art Society awarded her with their annual prize.

    Publications
    Keskustelupuisto / Conversation Park (Published by Lönnström Art Museum and Studio Kalleinen, Rauma)
    The First Summit of Micronations (Published by Artist Association MUU, Helsinki)
    In The Middle Of A Movie (Published by Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki)
    Lost And Found (Published by S.M.A.K., Ghent)
    Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (Published by Mori Art Museum, Tokyo)