Joel Härkönen

Joel Härkönen is a Finnish theatre director, performance designer and rap artist working between institutional theatre, independent artistic practice and pedagogy. He holds an MA (2021) in Theatre Directing from the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and currently works as a resident director at Kajaani City Theatre. Härkönen has also taught at the Theatre Academy, focusing on collaborative creation.

In his artistic practice, questions of social sustainability, process-based and ensemble-driven creation within institutional theatre, and the dismantling of patriarchal norms have become central. Having been raised as a boy and grown into a man in the role of a theatre director, Härkönen reflects critically on the structures that have shaped him, his body, emotions, and position of authority. He strives to create artistic processes that make space for vulnerability, collective presence and deep listening. 

Alongside scenographer Veli-Ville Sivén, he forms the artistic duo redukt_, whose work explores new artistic ecologies within and beyond theatre institutions. Together they curate redukt_studio, an artist residency and shared workspace in Helsinki and develop an artistic practice they call “doing for real” (“oikeesti tekeminen”).