Workshop for students and university graduates

The language of the workshop is English.

This workshop is aimed at students and recent graduates working across disciplines—for example, between choreography and dance, visual arts, performance, applied arts, or music. The goal is to provide tools for artists to contextualize and position themselves within the larger field of contemporary art.
During the workshop, we will begin by exploring the key elements and various uses of a written artist statement and a visual portfolio. We will examine case studies and collaborate on refining participants’ own artist statements and portfolios.

Participants are expected to have an existing artist statement and a visual portfolio (such as a website) that they would like to develop further. You can bring your own laptop.


The workshop is led by Riikka Thitz, a Helsinki-based curator working at the intersection of performing and visual arts. Her practice investigates how performance and exhibition formats shape the forms, temporalities, and spaces in which art is presented. She is particularly interested in the frictions and dialogues that emerge when different artforms meet—architecturally, conceptually, and experientially. Grounded in site-responsive approaches, Riikka’s work emphasizes bodily experience, multisensory engagement, and the materiality of art. She incorporates dramaturgy as a tool to navigate and articulate the complex interdependencies between artworks, spaces, and audiences.
Since 2021, Riikka has worked as the part-time curator of the Stage for Contemporary Performance programme in the Helsinki City Theatre. She also co-runs the Helsinki-based multidisciplinary arts association i dolci. Riikka holds an MFA in Exhibition Studies from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and an MA in Euroculture from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. She has previously held roles in production, communications, and programme management, both in freelance contexts and at institutions such as the Moving in November contemporary dance festival and Kiasma Theatre in Helsinki, as well as the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux in Brussels.

In connection with the exhibitions “Women Artists! From Monjé to Münter” at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and “Crossing Borders” at the ATENEUM Helsinki, this workshop is organised in cooperation with the Finnland-Institute.