Tellervo Kalleinen is a Helsinki-based artist and songwriter. Rooted in strong concepts, her participatory practice spans moving image, performance, and music, fostering unlikely encounters and creating temporary communities. Her work embraces absurdity as fertile ground for collaboration, play, and unexpected perspectives. She approaches art as a collective creative adventure, and her projects often begin with an open invitation to participate. Her solo performances create twisted spaces between performer and audience, such as Recycle You, in which she recycles audience members’ expired opinions. Alongside her artistic practice, Kalleinen writes and performs music. She is currently active with her solo project Takay-Sin.
Kalleinen is 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.
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.
Education
2003 Master of Fine Arts, Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts
2000–2001 Guest student, HFBK Hamburg (Prof. Cosima von Bonin)
2000–2001 Guest student, HFBK Braunschweig (Prof. Marina Abramović)
Awards
2015 William Thuring Prize, Finnish Art Society
2014 Ars Fennica Prize (with Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen)
2014 Faces of Wisdom Film Festival, 2nd Prize (with Niina Lehtonen Braun, Play This At My Funeral)
2012 AVEK Media Art Award (with Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen)
2012 Best Feature Film Award, Lo Spiraglio Film Festival, Rome (People in White)
2003 Grant in Honour of the 150th Anniversary of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts
Publications
Keskustelupuisto / Conversation Park (Lönnström Art Museum & Studio Kalleinen, Rauma)
The First Summit of Micronations (Artists’ Association MUU, Helsinki)
In The Middle Of A Movie (Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki)
Lost And Found (S.M.A.K., Ghent)
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo)