EN / FI
Jaakko Autio is a Finnish sound and media artist based in Oulu. He makes multichannel spatial listening installations in which recorded voices, breath and environmental sounds are given places in a room or landscape. Visitors can move between sounds, sit with them and find their own distance.
His background in theatre sound design shapes how he works with space and time. Speaker placement, pauses, volume and seating form the composition together. A visitor may approach one voice, stay at the edge or hear the relationships between several voices change as they move.
More than two decades of contemplative practice in the Theravāda tradition inform his work with attention, duration and rest. He develops installations with people connected to a place, drawing on local voices, everyday sounds and shared recordings. Projects have taken him to border regions, care environments, religious and vernacular traditions, and archipelagic communities.
The ongoing INTER series develops listening situations in relation to particular places and communities. Recent works include INTER, Jurmo, made with the John Nurminen Foundation in the Finnish Archipelago, and INTER, HELD, a 30-channel sound and video installation in Ylivieska. Earlier works include RE-BIRTH (MUU Helsinki, 2025), OWLA (Oulu Art Museum, 56 singers, 2023), Harmony in Displacement (2024) and ON THE BORDER at the Estonian–Russian frontier.
Upcoming projects include Arrival / Saapuminen, an Oulu2026 work with choir and movement at Oulu Art Museum in November 2026. 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.
MA, Sound Design, Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki (2013). Bachelor of Culture and Arts, Film Sound Design, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (2008). Sound design, composition and sound dramaturgy for theatre, dance and performance since 2007.
