Sonja Jokiniemi works as a choreographer, performer and artist. Jokiniemi is based in Helsinki, Finland and Lausanne, Switzerland. She graduated from the Performing Arts programme at DAS Theatre in Amsterdam 2013 and with a BA degree in Contemporary Dance at Laban Centre in London 2006. Additionally she has completed a study in Expressive Arts therapy from Inartes Institute in Helsinki 2020.
In her work, Jokiniemi engages the practice of drawing, human and non-human actors, textile making, questions of language and communication and exploration of bodies and sensations as a way to think around networks of things and beings, their ordinary and uncanny relationships. She is interested in alternative modes of storytelling, of objects and processes traditionally located as women´s craft. She engages in a quest for manual labor, haptic relationship to the surrounding world and aesthetics of intimate resistances.
Sonja’s work has been supported by many performing arts venues such as STUK-A House for Dance, music and Image (BE), Zodiak Centre for Dance, Moving in November festival and Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum (FI), MDT (SWE), BUDA Kunstzentrum (BE). She has recently exhibited at Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art in Copenhagen and Dr.Guislaan Museum in Ghent. Jokiniemi has been awarded three grants by The National Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike): a one-year artist grant for 2017, a three-year artist grant for 2018-20 and a five-year artist grant for 2021-2025.