Where Imagination Meets Discovery: Welcome to Oulu Art & Science Seminar

Whether you're an artist, scientist, researcher, student, or simply curious, Oulu Art and Science Seminar is your chance to develop your own skills by combining the imaginative world or art with the cutting-edge science world. The event is held onsite at Linnanmaa Campus, Tellus stage, and globally online on Zoom.

The seminar program includes a complimentary breakfast, exciting networking opportunities, an interactive onsite workshop for doctoral students as well as four captivating keynote speeches from various experts!

Oulu Art & Science Seminar Keynotes:

• Paula Kouri ja Kate Salminen (keynote in Finnish and onsite only.)
  • Paula Kouri ja Kate Salminen ovat vaatemerkki YO ZENen perustajat ja suunnittelijat. Brändi tunnetaan tarinallisista graafisista kuoseistaan ja koruistaan. YO ZENen estetiikka kumpuaa perustajien arkkiehtitaustasta ja rakkaudesta ajattomaan designiin.Kourin ja Salmisen puheenvuoro esittelee YO ZEN brändiä ja vastuullisen muodin erityispiirteitä ja haasteita designin maailmassa.
• Antti Tenetz (in English, streamed)
  • Antti Tenetz is a sub-arctic based artist. He investigates how humans, non-humans, and machines dream, envision, perceive, and adapt to the changes and challenges and possible futures in hybrid environments where the technosphere and biosphere converge. Tenetz’s works and cooperation projects have been exhibited in Finland and internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, Manifesta 12, Istanbul Biennale parallel program, Tate Modern Exchange program, Science Gallery Dublin and Lumipalloefekti exhibitions, X-Border, ISEA Istanbul, Pan- Barentz, and e-mobil art. He has also won national snow-sculpting competition.
• Ari Björn (in English, streamed)
  • Ari Björn is a visual artist (MFA) whose work focus on public space and questions related to it. In his projects Björn has been highlighting for example the otherness and the contested nature of public space. Since 2012, Ari Björn has been working under the name Art & Process, a visual art collective whose output consists of multidimensional projects and works. Projects are characterized by collaboration with people and with different disciplines. The artworks vary, depending on the subject and context, from temporary interventions to permanent publicart. Art & Process work is fundamentally research-based, helping the artists to understand the context, to analyse and to relate their work to the reality around. The core and the founders of the collective are Ari Björn and Heini Matveinen(MFA).
  • Currently Ari Björn is involved among other things with a research project An archaeological perspective on the welfare society inequality: the Vaakunakylä in Oulu and its communities 1947-2025, in which he is an artist member of the working group. Along with his artistic career Björn is a lecturer in Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture and in Oulu University’s Department of Architecture. https://artandprocess.com/
  • This talk, with a title Engaging Art, presents two site-specific and multidimensional visual art projects, located on the Finland-Germany axis and in Oulu. The projects are performative, and perhaps even absurd in nature, showcasing the ability of peculiarity. Thematically both of the projects move around issues related to public space.
• Béla Fiser (in English, streamed)
  • Art and Science are the two main areas within which creativity is expressed. Human imagination expressed through literature and art in general influenced the society and inspired generations of people to became scientists and engineers to build computers fit into our pockets, create the internet, and invent machines to travel through space. Come and join me to explore the connection between Chemistry and Literature and how poems and stories could help to understand difficult concepts of chemistry and other disciplines.

The event is open to all faculties, units and students. The event is supported by the University's internal community event funding call.

See more info and register as a participant on the event page. Welcome!