Mari Pitkänen is an actor and performing artist, working with applied theater and performance processes. She holds BA degree in Acting (Norwegian Theatre Academy 2018, Fredrikstad, NO) and in Performing Arts (Centria University of Applied Sciences, 2012, FI). Focus of her artistic work is transformations of bodies and their impacts in public spaces.

 

Central aspects of my work are finding ghostly and haunted (hi)stories and voices, and to engage considerate dialogues with non-humans; creating links between peripheral factors; creating spaces, where gender, especially feminine can be renegotiated; and exploring ways of incorporating ’play’ in terms of carnivalesque into artistic practice, also as a way of relating to movement or trauma. This work I realize in various collaborative constellations with artists in the free field and institutions, as well as finding new precarious positions for performing art. My approach is rooted in physical embodied practices, where movement, voice and costume work shape the base for creative encounters. I incorporate theoretical research and narrational tools to create spaces, where performers’ relation to audiences is uncertain and negotiable, and where identities can become many, entangled and fluid instead of affirmed hegemonic truths. My work is concentrated mostly to Norway, and also Finland and Trinidad and Tobago. As an artist I approach carefully considering political, ecological, demographical and artistic aspects of the areas for artistic interventions. 

​

​

She is one of the founding members of Vaara - Performance Art Collective, based in Kajaani, Finland.

Read more about Vaara here http://www.vaarakollektiivi.fi/

​

​

She works as MAR/MÆR together with Kaja Egeberg.

Read more here https://www.sadsailors.com/

​

​

Find CV here.

​

​

​

​