SOLA festival 2025
The annual festival for experimental music and moving image celebrates its 10th birthday!
SOLA unfolds again to the speakers and cinema screen of WHS Teatteri Union on Friday the 31st of October and Saturday 1st of November as it has done since 2015.
This year the moving image program consists of a live-cinema performance by the Helsinki-based experimental filmmaker Joakim Pusenius and a selection of works by the Chilean filmmaker Malena Szlam. Pusenius's performance uses a self-made projector and a film made with a DIY slit-scan camera a.k.a. "finish line camera". The end result is somewhere in between photography and early cinema.
Malena Szlam's three films give form to lyrical approximations of the natural world. Her works are attentive to the geopolitics of natural phenomena, focusing on geology, earth science, and volcanology.
The music program of SOLA moves through different aural worlds like the electronic music made with branches, twitches and old oscillators of "The Käkkyräs Unlimited" a group spearheaded by Jukka Nousiainen, all the way to the bass clarinet free improvisation of Heikki Nikula.
Lumi Mannermaa works with augmented toy instruments, free improvisation, experimental instrument building, social media streams and uses absurdity as a medium for communication.
Pilar Miralles presents part of her PhD research project, which explores a relationship with the world that is not based on the current logics of disposability through the notions of remembrance, listening, and presence.
Miio Holopainen's solo violin music lingers on details, errors, coincidences, slow changes and repetition.
Otto Iivari uses the multi-channel sound system of WHS Teatteri Union to present ambisonic electro-acoustic composition.
Yoichi Kamimura explores the hidden sound-scapes of the natural world with deeply focused field recordings, especially different sounds from ice.
And finally; Shakeeb Abu Hamdan performs with an unorthodox setup of drums, bells and cymbals which he augments and amplifies with surface transducers, microphones, pitch and rhythmic modulation effects, modified megaphones and other electronic devices.
Warmly welcome!
More info about the program:
https://solafestival.fi
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Friday 31.10.
18︎
The Käkkyräs Unlimited︎
Joakim Pusenius︎ (live-cinema performance)
Yoichi Kamimura︎
** break **
20.30︎
Miio Holopainen︎
Malena Szlam - MORFOLOGÍA DE UN SUEÑO - Morphology of a Dream (DCP, 5'30)︎
Shakeeb Abu Hamdan︎
************
Saturday 1.11.
18︎
Pilar Miralles︎
Malena Szlam - ALTIPLANO (DCP, 15'30)︎
Heikki Nikula
** break **
20.30︎
Lumi Mannermaa︎
Malena Szlam - ARCHIPELAGO OF EARTHEN BONES — TO BUNYA (DCP, 20'30)︎
Otto Iivari︎
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CW: flashing lights/ strobe effects in Malena Szlam’s films
Tickets
Friday 31.10. 15e
Saturday 1.11. 15e
Friday & Saturday 25e
Discount tickets (for students, unemployed, low-income, pensioners):
Friday 10e & Saturday 10e
Tickets from WHS Teatteri Union website:
https://teatteriunion.fi/elokuva/sola-festival-2025/
The festival is supported by the Helsinki City – Culture & Leisure Division. It is organised by the non-profit Välirivi ry with collaboration of WHS Teatteri Union.
Also check out other Festivals in Helsinki, Entertainment events in Helsinki, Music events in Helsinki.
