Our new colleague Yohannes Henriksson started his internship at the institute one week ago. He will be working on our programme. We warmly welcome Yohannes!
Yohannes describes himself and his upcoming internship in his own words:
“I am 30-year-old dancer and photographer with my roots from Porvoo, Finland and Mekelle, Ethiopia. Dancing has always been a big part of my life journey; I started dancing at the age of 8 by imitating artists like James Brown and Michael Jackson in my living room and then soon after starting to take Breakdance classes.
Fast forward 22 years and dancing is still a big part of my life today. However, instead of imitating others, I have now found my own voice within my dance and use it as a tool to connect; to have personal conversations with myself.
When my daughter was born in August 2016, I bought my first camera. Soon after I became passionate about candid photography. Inspired by my earlier experience in freestyle dancing, the idea of being able to create my own visual interpretation of reality and to capture moments that once they disappear, they are impossible to revive or re-experience, fascinated me.
My educational background is in Cultural anthropology, which, as an academic subject, matched my natural curiosity as to why people, society and culture operate in certain ways. However, being an artist at the core, I always wanted to find a way of connecting the arts and societal questions.
What I most look forward to in this internship is to be inspired. To get a deeper dive into and understanding of how cultural events can bring a bigger societal impact and how art can act as a tool for a broader discussion.
– Yohannes “