I'm a senior lecturer in Art History and co-director in the multidisciplinary research project "New Economies of Artistic Labour"(external)(2019-2024, Kone Foundation).

I have worked at the University of Turku in several research and teaching positions since 2002, with lengthy periods of research abroad. In 2014–2017, I was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow with the project ”Affective Fabrics of Contemporary Art: Stitching Global Relations” at the Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne, where I continue to supervise practice-led PhDs. My research also affiliates with SenseLab(external): A Laboratory for Thought in Motion (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada), where I spent a term as a visiting scholar in 2013–2014; I’m currently a member of SenseLab’s Australian Hub through my affiliation with The National Institute of Experimental Arts at the University of New South Wales, Sydney (CCAP: Contemporary Culture, Arts and Politics(external)). Earlier, I have held visiting researcher positions in Gender Studies, The University of Sydney (2006), in History of Art at UC Berkeley (2006–2007), at the Finnish African Cultural Institute of Villa Karo in Benin (2008) and more recently (2022) at the department of Art and Media Studies At NTNU (Norwegian University of Technology) Trondheim, Norway.

My areas of expertise include contemporary art, participatory research, arts-based and practice-led research, feminisms, activisms, (new) materialisms & posthumanisms, and research methodologies. I’ve developed new materialist research especially in the fields of arts and humanities for over 15 years by way of research projects, publications and event organisation. In 2014–2018, I was a managing committee member and country coordinator for New Materialism COST IS1307 mobility action, and co-convened the network’s largest working group ”New Materialism Embracing the Creative Arts” that had over 60 members from 16 countries. The results have been published in several special issues including Cultural Studies Review (2015)(external), Studies in Material Thinking (2017)(external) and Ruukku: Studies in Artistic Research (2018)(external), and in a book Methods and Genealogies of New Materialisms(external) (2024).

My monograph Ways of Following: Art, Materiality, Collaboration(external) (Open Humanities Press, 2018) continues my new materialist, art-based work and offers methodological insights on how to appreciate the materialities of art, and embraces new ways of being and thinking that they offer. The co-edited volume New Materialism and Intersectionality: Making Middles Matter(external), is forthcoming in February 2025.

Previously I was a senior researcher in the project Localizing Feminist New Materialisms(external) (Academy of Finland, 2017–2021), led by Dr Taru Leppänen (Gender Studies, University of Turku), where I studied minor activisms of gender and art. As part of this project, I co-ran a craftivism group for asylum seekers in Turku, and organised Feminist Colour-IN(external) events with Dr Kim Donaldson(external). In December 2018, Kone Foundation granted me, Dr Milla Tiainen and our multidisciplinary research team a 4-year research grant to study ”Changing Economies of Artistic Labour” in Finland; and after years of research we are now completing a book based on the field data collected during the project titled Art is work! (Taide on työtä!).

I'm responsible for Intermediate studies in Art History, and teach Candidate Seminar, plus courses such as World Art, Critical History of Museum Institution, and Art in Finland (in English). I also co-teach MA graduate seminar and PhD researcher seminar, and supervise PhD students. See Peppi for details of my current teaching. 

Earlier intermediate level course units that I have coordinated and taught include e.g. Art and Politics, Contemporary Art Intensive, and Embroidering Varieties of Gender (dept. of Gender Studies). 

I often integrate practical components into my teaching, such as visits to museums and exhibitions, and bring actual works of art to my classes. I enjoy teaching methodologies and analysis. I have a teaching certificate (University of Turku, Adult Education) and have studied University-level Pedagogy at the Universities of Turku and Melbourne.