Jenna Sutela

Jenna Sutela (*1983 in Turku, FI) uses biological and computational systems to create audio-visual works, sculptures, images and performance art. Working with artificial neuronal networks or bacteria and with the help of her own systems and algorithms, the artist uncovers patterns and meanings that are hidden in disorder. With her collaborative approach she points to decentralised organisation, she questions social hierarchy, broaches the issue of communication between species and the connection of awareness and the material world. Her procedural works are based on latest scientific research and reflect its socio-political impact. Sutela’s work promotes the idea of a symbiotic network and the renunciation of an anthropocentric world. Her oeuvre illustrates that humankind does not exist in a void, but in symbiotic ecosystems with bacteria, mould, computers and many other elements, some of which remain incomprehensible.

Sutela’s works have been presented in solo exhibitions at Kunsthall Trondheim (2020) and at the Serpentine Gallery in London (2019). Additionally her work has been shown at Haus der Kunst in München (2022) at the Liverpool Biennial (2021), the Shanghai Biennale (2021) and at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2022), at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai (2021), at the ZKM in Karlsruhe (2020), at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2019) and at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (2018). In 2019 and 2021 Sutela was a visiting artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) in Massachusetts.

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