Ajantasainen CV / Current CV: jaakkoautio.com/cv-fi · jaakkoautio.com/cv

JAAKKO AUTIO

Contemplative Sound Art
Spatial Listening Architectures

BIO

Jaakko Autio is a Finnish sound and media artist working in contemplative sound art. He builds spatial listening architectures: large multichannel environments where collective attention can settle and reorganize.

The works begin from breath, proximity and shared presence. Rather than delivering messages, Autio composes the conditions under which perception can settle. Meaning emerges through duration, embodiment and relational awareness, and environmental rhythms such as wind, water and voice gradually become perceptible within the space.

His approach is informed by more than two decades of contemplative practice rooted in the Theravāda tradition. It enters the work not as doctrine or imagery but as an embodied understanding of attention and impermanence. The works are not devotional, and they are not detached from social conditions. They have emerged from border regions, religious and vernacular traditions, care environments, archipelagic communities and situations of cultural displacement.

His current multi-year INTER series extends this inquiry into relational and ecological contexts. Recent works include INTER – Jurmo, a site-specific listening work in the Finnish Archipelago with the John Nurminen Foundation; INTER – SALATTU / Held, a 30-channel sound and video installation in Ylivieska; and Arrival / Saapuminen, an Oulu2026 project with choir and movement. The series follows the RE series (2024–2025), which culminated in RE-BIRTH (MUU Gallery, Helsinki, 2025), a 40-channel installation combining breath choir, spatialized piano, tactile low-frequency sound, headphone monologues and generative video. Earlier works include OWLA (Oulu Art Museum, 56 singers, 2023), Harmony in Displacement (26 Ukrainian and Finnish performers, 2024) and the ON THE BORDER series (2022–2025) at the Estonian–Russian frontier. His installations reached over 75,000 visitors in 2024.

In 2027 Autio opens INTER – KRISTINESTAD, a permanent outdoor sound installation commissioned by Community Art in Kristinestad Dux, and continues his writing at the Väinö Tanner Foundation’s Mazzano Romano residency. His Border Series audio paper has been shortlisted for peer review in Seismograf Peer.

He holds an MA from the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki (2013) and a BA from Metropolia (2008), and is based in Oulu, Finland.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work develops spatial listening architectures.

I build immersive sound environments where collective attention can settle before intensity gathers. Through breath, voices, low-frequency resonance and multi-channel composition, the installations form perceptual fields rather than narrative structures. The work is not a message but a field — meaning emerges through time, shared presence and embodied duration.

This process is not immediate. It depends on sustained attention and the capacity to remain within conditions that do not fully stabilise.

At its core, my practice investigates how experience organizes itself in space. Listening becomes both method and medium.

The installations do not require belief systems. They construct conditions in which perception can reorganise on its own.

Rather than producing effects, the work distributes attention.

These environments do not represent, but operate. They function as perceptual conditions in which understanding emerges through direct experience — not through explanation, but through being inside the field itself.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Spatial listening architectures, immersive multi-channel installations and perceptual environments.

Based in Oulu, Finland

jaakkoaution@gmail.com
+358 44 069 1113
instagram.com/jaakkoautio

PRACTICE

Jaakko Autio creates large-scale spatial sound installations that function as perceptual environments. Often built with 20–40 channels, his works form architectures for collective and durational listening, inviting sustained attention, embodied presence and shared spatial awareness.

The practice unfolds through long-term series, each developing a distinct spatial and relational condition over time. Rather than treating sound as playback or atmosphere, Autio approaches it as a way of structuring attention, proximity and experience in space.

INSTALLATIONS AND EXHIBITIONS

RE SERIES

2025 — Aine Art Museum, Tornio — Snowball Effect / RE-VERB, Chapter II
2025 — MUU Galleria, Helsinki — RE-BIRTH
2025 — Galleria Aski, Turku — RE-SOUND (with Akasaka)
2025 — Möhkönvirta Contemporary Art Exhibition — RE-DITUS
2025 — Galleria Villa Suruton, Savonlinna — RE-FLORIS
2025 — KITA Galleria, Joutsa — RE-VERB, Chapter I

INTER SERIES

2027 — Kulturhuset Dux, Kristinestad — INTER – KRISTINESTAD, permanent site-specific outdoor sound installation, commissioned by Community Art in Kristinestad Dux (forthcoming)
2027 — Kulttuuritalo Laikku, Studio, Tampere — INTER – BODY (forthcoming)
2026 — Oulun taidemuseo / Satula, Oulu — Arrival / Saapuminen, Oulu2026 project
2026 — Galleria Oiva, Akustiikka, Ylivieska — INTER – SALATTU / Held
2026 — Jurmo, Finnish Archipelago — INTER – Jurmo, in collaboration with the John Nurminen Foundation
2025 — One-to-One Festival, Oeiras, PT — INTER-WITHIN
2025 — One-to-One Festival, Oulu — INTER-WITHIN
2024 — Taidekeskus AHJO, Joensuu — Urbana Hortus / INTER-WITHIN

BORDER SERIES

2024–2025 — NART Galleria, Narva, EE — Possible Worlds
2024 — Demolition Art Exhibition, Helsinki — OrigiNation, Part IV
2023 — COMPOSTER Festival, Tallinn, EE — OrigiNation, Part III
2023 — Tampere-Maja, Tartu, EE — OrigiNation, Part II
2023 — Joensuu Art Museum, M_itä Biennial — OrigiNation, Part I
2022 — Porvoo Art Factory — On the Border, Part V
2022 — World Cities Culture Summit, Helsinki Opera House — On the Border, Part IV
2022 — KOGO Galleria, Tartu, EE — On the Border, Part III
2022 — NART Galleria, Narva, EE — On the Border, Part II
2022 — Tallinn Music Week, Narva, Kreenholm, EE — On the Border, Part I

PARALLEL WORKS

2025 — ARS Kunstilinnak, Tallinn, EE — Mirror
2024–2025 — Tartu Art Museum, EE — The Secrets of the Leaning Building
2023–2025 — Oulu Museum of Art / care homes — The Song of Time
2023 — Oulu Museum of Art — OWLA
2022–2025 — Table for Two — various locations, including Annantalo, Helsinki

GRANTS & COMMISSIONS (SELECTED)

2026 — TAIKE — Visual Arts Working Grant, 4 months
2026 — Community Art in Kristinestad Dux — residency and commission for INTER – KRISTINESTAD, a permanent site-specific outdoor sound installation at Kulturhuset Dux, opening 2027
2026 — TAIKE — Project grant, INTER – SALATTU / Held
2025 — TAIKE — 6-month working grant
2025 — Oulu2026 — Arrival / Saapuminen, group grant
2025 — Lumo Art & Tech — Arrival / Saapuminen, group grant
2025 — Valistustalo — Arrival / Saapuminen, group grant
2024 — TAIKE — Project grant, Possible Worlds / Narva
2023 — TAIKE — Regional funds, North Karelia; Northern Ostrobothnia & Kainuu
2023 — Kimmo Kaivanto Foundation
2023 — EVL Foundation for the Support of Science and Art
2021 — SKR — Residency grant, NART
2020 — AVEK — Intimacy
2019 — AVEK — From the Same Tree
2019 — SKR — Grace

RESIDENCIES

2027 — Väinö Tanner Foundation, Mazzano Romano, IT — Writer’s House residency
2027 — Takahuhti Artist Residency, Tampere
2026 — Kandamus Residency, Outokumpu
2026 — Community Art in Kristinestad Dux
2025 — AARK Residency, Korppoo
2025 — Tornio Museum Residency
2024 — Haihatus Residency
2024 — Old Mine Residency, Outokumpu
2023 — AARK Residency, Korppoo
2022 — NART Residency, Narva, EE
2018 — Gjesteatelieret, Vadsø, NO

COLLECTIONS

2025 — Aine Art Museum, Tornio — RE-VERB, collection acquisition

SELECTED COLLABORATIONS

2025 — RE-SOUND, with Akasaka
2024 — Meeting Point, with Akasaka
2021 — Waiting Room — dir. Haapoja & Gustafsson
2019 — Waiting Room — Zone2Source, Amsterdam

SELECTED THEATRE WORK — SOUND DESIGN

2007–2026 — Selected sound design, sound dramaturgy and composition for theatre, dance, performance and radio drama

2017–2026 — Body Notes — MimoArt Company, dir. Lindahl
Sound design / sound dramaturgy for an award-winning touring production. Premiere at Stoa, Helsinki, 2017; selected presentations include Macedonian National Theatre, Skopje, 2019, Best Piece Award; Theatre Olympics, 2023; Tanssin talo, Helsinki, Special Edition, 2024; and Stoa, Helsinki, Taidetestaajat programme, 2025–2026.

2017–2025 — Helsinki City Theatre — sound design, selected productions, including Vihainen leski / Angry Widow, main stage, dir. Virtanen, 2019
2017 — Vakavuusongelma / Gravity Problem — Kouvola City Theatre, dir. Linnapuomi
2014–2015 — Kokkola City Theatre — Head of Sound, resident position; selected productions: Onnellinen perhe, Säikky, Metsäjätti, Marian lapset

Selected collaborations with choreographer and director Mirva Mäkinen, 2018–2020

TEACHING (SELECTED)

2026 — University of Lapland — sound art and environmental listening
2026 — Uniarts Helsinki, Theatre Academy — course on sound design and dramaturgy
2025 — SAMK, Kankaanpää — media art course
2023 — Uniarts Helsinki, Theatre Academy — guest lecturer

EXPERT ROLES

2026–2029 — Taide- ja kulttuurivirasto (Kuvi), Finland — member of the national Pool of Experts for arts and culture; peer review of artists’ grant applications, prize nominations and statements on community funding

TALKS & PANELS (SELECTED)

2026 — AVARA Art&Tech, Lasaretti Aurora-sali, Oulu, 18–20 November — panelist, “Sound as a Spatial Element”, with prof. Ioannis Zannos and a Struer City of Sound representative, moderated by Kati Nuora; shared listening session (forthcoming)
2026 — Kuule, Satula, Oulu, 26 November — public listening event (forthcoming)

WRITTEN WORKS

2026 — Meri kuuntelee meissä — trilingual artist book (Finnish/Swedish/English), connected to the site-specific work INTER – Jurmo, John Nurminen Foundation; sent to print August 2026

2026 — SALATTU — artist book, connected to INTER – SALATTU / Held, Galleria Oiva, Ylivieska; sent to print August 2026

2026 — ON THE BORDER / Border Series — audio paper in development for Seismograf Peer, Aesthetic Alliances; shortlisted for full submission and peer review, full paper deadline 15 November 2026

2026 — Tilallisen kuuntelemisen arkkitehtuureja / Spatial Listening Architectures — long-form writing project on spatial listening, perceptual ecology and sound as architecture, supported by TAIKE; Finnish and English editions sent to print August 2026

2013 / 2026 — Sound Without Fixed Meaning / Ääni ilman valmista merkitystä — revised edition of MA thesis on presence, Jerzy Grotowski and the inner work of sound design

2008 — Space, Time, and Silence in Theatre Sound Design — BA thesis, Metropolia

MEMBERSHIPS

Oulu Artists Association
AV-Arkki
Helsinki Artists’ Association
Teosto
Gramex
Kuvasto
MUU ry
Teme / SVÄL
Nordic Artists’ Union

EDUCATION

2010–2013 — Uniarts Helsinki, Theatre Academy — MA, Sound Design
2003–2008 — Metropolia University of Applied Sciences — BA, Film Sound Design