Drifts curates, produces, and commissions exhibitions, events, artworks, and performances year-round in collaboration with local and transnational practitioners and institutions.
Performative two day Symposium at Casco Art Institute in Utrecht, Netherland on 4–5 July.
A curator and researcher, Nikolay Smirnov, and Drifts’ artistic director, Soko Hwang, co-curated and co-organised the event.. This performative symposium brought together artists, scholars, and curators from Finland and the Netherlands to explore esotericism and alternative spiritualities through the lens of artistic practice. Symposium consisted of performance and conversation exploring the potential of esotericism and alternative spiritualities as tools for revolutionary, anti-authoritarian, and decolonial change.
It questioned dominant narratives that dismiss these spiritualities as inherently reactionary, instead examining how artists engage with ancestral, mystical, or primordial knowledges in ways that can be both liberatory and ambiguous. By focusing on artistic practices, the symposium highlights the tensions between radical, transformative approaches and the contemporary appropriation of similar aesthetics or beliefs by reactionary groups, raising critical questions about the political stakes of engaging with esoteric traditions today.
Participants
Kristiina Koskentola, Anders Kreuger, Jussi Nykänen, Birgit Menzel, Anna Tessmann, Go-Eun Im, Pia Lindman, Lotta Petronella, Minna Henriksson, Gluklya, Soko Hwang, Nikolay Smirnov and Jussi Koitela.
Partners & Supporters
Casco art institute, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Kone Foundation, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland
N.E.R.D.S. – a.k.a. North European Resonance and Dissonance Society – is an alliance of organisations working with experimental and innovative music in the Nordic and Baltic regions. By 2025, the network has doubled in size from its beginning, going from 7 member organizations to 14, and started a new working period with the support of the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture.
The new season of N.E.R.D.S. started in August 2025 and concludes in November 2027. The network’s cultural workers are using this time to foster collaboration, exchange information, and develop projects, while amplifying the Nordic-Baltic innovative music realm.
During 2025 N.E.R.D.S. met monthly (August–September) online. This working period included internal workshops, meetings and exchanges which strengthened skills related to digitalization, economic sustainability, and creativity in production and promotion.
Working period focused also on the mutual promotion of upcoming events among partner festivals on cross-platform marketing (social media). N.E.R.D.S. website was established to create a shared info space for like-minded event organizers, musicians, and listeners in Nordic and Baltic countries.
Project is led by Skanu Mezs festival(Riga, Latvia).
Performance series curated to showcase Nordic experimental sound and live music in Denmark, Sweden and Norway
Spanning across three cities – Malmö, Copenhagen, and Bergen – the project highlighted the regional diversity of the electronic and experimental scene. By connecting underground talents across Scandinavia, the showcase fostered a unified yet multifaceted Nordic sound identity through high-impact live performances.
Participants:
Alice, Copenhagen: Asta Norborg (FASCIA), Harald Bjørn (Soli City), Ilavenil Vasuky Jayapalan (Nagaver) Inkonst, Malmö: Alsa Ojala (Keiska), Marleena Lampinen (Moonilena), Pieter Christophssen (Hekla) Östre, Bergen: Pauline Hogstrand, Ingri Høyland, Puyain Sanati
Partners & Supporters
Upnode is a festival network between Norberg Festival, Intonal Festival, Alter Festival, Ekko Festival, Insomnia Festival, Extremechill Festival and Proton Agency. Funding: Nordic Culture Fund
About Upnode
Up Node is a network of Nordic festivals for experimental music and sonic arts. The project is formed through collaboration between the festivals and organisations of Alter (DK), Extreme Chill (IS), Insomnia (NO), Proton (DK), EKKO (NO), Drifts (FI), Intonal (SE) & Norbergfestival (SE). The partners are all established independent actors from across the Nordic Region. All partners are established and credible independent actors in the Nordic cultural field and share a common starting point in community-led and community-oriented organisation and work towards presenting emerging artistic expressions and cross-disciplinary programming.
Collaboration across the Nordic partners is important to create solidarity among organisers who face similar challenges. A synergy between Nordic festivals who all promote experimental acts increases their visibility and ability to impact the regional cultural scene.
Project is led by Norberg festival(Norberg, Sweden).
Drifts Festival and Under The Leaf book fair commissioned experimental poems and graphics to artist Jaakko Pallasvuo for producing wearable arts.
Credits
Artist: Jaakko Pallasvuo
Production: Drifts, Under the Leaf
Photography Concept: Justin Ugochukwu
Photography:Justin Ugochukwu, Viivi Iida, Ilona Paivasaari
Models: Jesse Esselin, Moriamo Ahmed
Casting: Ahmed Barakat, Phan Nguyen
Monsters was a series of multidisciplinary art performances hosted by Else Collective and co-produced with Drifts, Mad House Helsinki and Pixelache.
Curated and led by Else Collective, the project explored the theme of Monsters as a reflection on forms of uncontrolled wildness that challenge societal norms, gender binaries, Western scientific rationalism, and colonial ideologies. Through audiovisual performances and screenings, Monsters examined transformative and ambivalent states between human and beast, rationality and intuition, control and liberation, and reality and fantasy.
Participants:
Lauri Lohi, Riikka Lakea, Moona Pennanen, Soko Hwang, Tashi Iwaoka, Erika Sirola, Hollowland
About Else Collective
Else Collective is an art collective that engages with heterogeneous cultures through multidisciplinary practices across exhibitions, events, and collaborative projects. Else creates spaces for experimental artistic practices. Based in Helsinki and founded in 2022, the collective comprises artists and curators Soko Hwang, Laura Bestle Morales, Trang Chung, Aala Nyman, and Phan Nguyen.
Faster Harder Stronger engages in conflicting images of the post-Soviet gentrification in the Estonian capital Tallinn. The posters as a triptych form reconstruct the contradictory relation between the historical decay of Soviet architecture and the signs of nationalism, global tourism in Tallinn.
In the city, images of the medieval Old Town are represented as a national symbol and landmark in the context of global tourism and capitalism. On the other hand, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Linnahall, a public space constructed during the Soviet period, has been in semi-ruin. Some industrial factories which evoke memories of communal production have also been ruined or transformed to commercial places as Estonian land property shifted from state-owned land to privatization.
Soko Hwang is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and curator based in Helsinki. His artistic and curatorial practices had the focus in observing and deconstructing, from an anti-colonial perspective, the violent history, the national narratives and colonial legacies of euro-centralism through experimental video works, photography and installation.
Julia Trofimova is a fashion and textile designer. Her research and design projects explore the relationship between social noise and design, as well as subculture and hybridity. Her works examine the ways in which fashion design can be used as a vehicle to enhance engagement with society.