pARTir – Creating a Cultural Roadmap Towards Responsible International Mobility
pARTir is a new collaborative project between the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes (SKTI) and ten Finnish cultural institutes operating abroad. The project aims to promote the sustainable and long-term internationalisation of Finnish art.
Scheduled to run until 2025, the project promotes cross-cultural exchange and facilitates the international mobility of artists through the production of approximately 30 sustainably created performances, exhibitions, and other artworks. These works are commissioned and developed in collaboration with various international art organisations. The programme is designed to strengthen and establish ecologically and socially sustainable practices for international mobility, cultural export, and exchange.
The project operates through a network model, with the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes umbrella organization (SKTI) serving as the main coordinator in Helsinki. The ten Finnish cultural institutes involved collaborate with intermediary cultural organisations in their respective host countries.
Participating in the project are the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes: FinnAgora – The Finnish Institute in Hungary, The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, The Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, the Finnish Institute in Japan, The Finnish Institute in Madrid, the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute FINNO, Institut finlandais – the Finnish Institute in France, Finnland-Institut – the Finnish Institute in Germany, and the Finnish Institute in Estonia.
The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture awarded a special grant of €726,000 to the pARTir project as part of the European Union’s cultural and creative industries structural support (Rescue and Recovery Facility RRF) in the fall of 2023. The RRF is one of the programmes under the European Union’s Next Generation EU recovery instrument.
2025 Programme
Our 2025 pARTir programme culminates in three exceptional projects across the Netherlands. First up is Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen‘s exhibition When I grow up, I will become a coat rack, opening at 1646 in The Hague. Later in May, we will bring you two groundbreaking performance-based projects that push creative boundaries. More details to be announced on our channels soon.
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, How Great is Your darkness, 2024, still from 2-channel video installation, 5min 22sec. Image: Rasoul Khorram. Courtesy the artist.
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen: When I grow up, I will become a coat rack
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen’s exhibition When I grow up, I will become a coat rack invites visitors to explore the consequences of excluding disabled people from decision-making and technological innovation. Through her playful and futuristic works, Wallinheimo-Heimonen challenges societal norms and highlights the need for inclusive practices in both technology and daily life. As an artist and activist, she emphasizes the importance of shifting away from traditional views of disability, advocating for a future where quality of life and joy take precedence over profit and ableism. The exhibition takes place 7.2.2025 – 13.4.2025 at 1646 Experimental Art Space, The Hague.
This exhibition is supported by the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux as part of the pARTir initiative funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.
2024 Programme

ONE DROP performed at Take Me Somewhere 2023, Photo by Tiu Makkonen.
Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux – Brussels
ONE DROP continues Sonya Lindfors‘ series of works dealing with power, representation, and Black body politics. This is the second time Lindfors presents at Beursschouwburg in Brussels, following ‘Cosmic Latte’ in 2019. The work’s title refers to two frameworks: the “one drop” rhythm, a reggae-style drum beat, and the “one drop rule” of the Race Separation Act in the United States from the early 1900s. According to this rule, a single drop of “Black blood” made a person “Black” despite their appearance. Through these starting points, the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements with capitalism, coloniality, and modernity.
The dance performances took place Friday, 18.10.2024 followed by a talk and Saturday, 19.10.2024 at Beursschouwburg in Brussels, Belgium.
Our pARTir Partners
Institut finlandais – Paris
At the end of May, the Ensemble ! Block Party festival in Paris features the performance Something Like This by choreographer Sonya Lindfors and a street dance event led by Akim Bakhtaoui, Linda Ilves, Ramona Panula, and Sophia Wekesa.
Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland – London
The Vapaa Collective (Iines Karkulahti, Meri Wiikinkoski, and Charlotte Nyholm) present their series Architectural Acts of Care, as part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture.
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York
After London, the Architectural Acts of Care series will continue to New York in the fall for the Archtober festival, in collaboration with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.
Finnish Institute in Estonia – Tartu
In Estonia, the pARTir journey begins with the CPPM Manifestal theatre and performance festival at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, featuring Katia Skylar‘s work Mundane.Magic. In July, the European Capital of Culture Tartu will host Elina Brotherus‘s residency at the Villa Tammekann, designed by Alvar Aalto.
“By focusing on collaboration with local partners of the institutes as well as with artists and organizations operating in Finland, we aim for a more impactful cultural export with long-lasting effects compared to one-off events. The project also designs and experiments with various methods of mentoring and networking, aimed at enabling deeper and ongoing dialogues. This approach is also reflected in the internal cooperation and development within the institute network, for which large projects like pARTir provide a special opportunity,” shares Asta Teräväinen, the project manager of pARTir.
Sustainability
Learn more about sustainability at the institutes in a recent interview featured on vihreataide.fi. Annu Webb (SKTI), the network specialist and coordinator of sustainability, Director Laura Boxberg from the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Monica Gathuo (Finnish Cultural Institute in New York) the head producer of the Together Again project 2022–2023, and Iiris Tarvonen, the producer of the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute answer questions about environmental and social sustainability work of the institutes.
Visit the pARTir website to learn more about the project.
Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen: When I grow up, I will become a coat rack
Fresh from representing Finland at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Wallinheimo-Heimonen debuts her first exhibition in the Netherlands, opening 7.2.2025, at 1646 in The Hague.
“ONE DROP gives Blackness space to breathe” – Joséphine Gram on Sonya Lindfors’ latest work in Brussels
Our Programme Assistant Joséphine Gram shares what it meant to her to experience Sonya Lindfors‘ ONE DROP at Beursschouwburg in Brussels.
Sonya Lindfors returns to Brussels with a powerful confrontation of race, rhythm, and resistance
On 18 and 19 October 2024, acclaimed Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer Sonya Lindfors returns to Beursschouwburg, Brussels with her groundbreaking performance, One Drop.
Sonya Lindfors returns to Beursschouwburg with ONE DROP
Confronting the echoes of the ‘one drop’ rhythm and the ‘one drop rule’ with power, anti-racist love and resistance, Sonya Lindfors’ dance performance ‘One Drop’ comes to Beursschouwburg, 18 & 19 October 2024.
The Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes Launches pARTir Project With Support From The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture
pARTir is a collaborative project designed to promote cross-cultural exchange and facilitate the international mobility of artists.