Roi Vaara

all images - untitled, Amorph Festival, Helsinki, Finland, 2001 photo: Dan McKereghan

Roi Vaara is one of the most internationally recognized performance artists in Scandinavia. He was born in 1953 in Moss (Norway), but grew up in Helsinki, Finland, where he has caused constant controversy in the art world and cultural life since the early '80s. His critical point of view is not to attract public sensation but to challenge the way we are looking at things. He studied in the University of Art and Design 1972-75 in Helsinki and art research in Jyväskylä University 1976-77. In early 80's Vaara was active in Ö-group which made installations and actions. Vaara has made performances since 1982. He is one of the founders of Muu (1987), an association for interdiscplinary art in Finland. Since 1988, Vaara has participated in performances of Black Market International (BMI), whose work proposes performance art as a simultaneous form of communication. Vaara was in Künstlerhaus Bethanien's international atelier program in 1997-1998. Vaara has organized and curated performance events, i.e. "Poikkeustila", which became the first nation wide performance festival Finland. Vaara received a state award from Arts Council of Finland in 2000. In 2001 Vaara organized performance festival "EXIT" in Helsinki, which assembled about 300 artists from more than 30 countries. Vaara was the proposer and one of the founders of IAPAO (International Association of Performance Art Organizers) in Essen 2003. Vaara has performed in the most prominent performance art festivals around the world, as well participating in Kassel Dokumenta, Germany (1993), Venice Biennalle, Italy (2001, 2005), Havana Biennal (2004), and Manifesta 5, San Sebastian, Spain (2004). In 2005 Vaara received Ars Fennica Prize in Finland. Mr. Vaara has presented over 300 different performances, having taken place in about 200 international exhibititons/festivals in more than 30 countries.