Platform

24/07/2026

Welcome to eat a warm bowl of soup and listen to the artist-talk by artists Hanna Hoebeke Hannah Hoebeke and artist Li Actuallee Li

Thursday 30th of August at 18:00
Kyrkoesplanaden 20D

What is Cultural Soup?
Cultural Soup is an event where we invite the public to come eat soup together at Platform. Cultural Soup is held when a new artist ha arrived at the residency and the artist holds an artist-talk or presentation. The talk/ presentation is held in english.
The event is free and open to everyone, artists, cultural workers, someone who is interested in art or someone who just want to have a bowl of soup :)

Meet the artists:
Hanna Hoebeke is an artist from Ghent, Belgium, whose sculptures capture both personal and collective encounters. She transforms lightweight, everyday objects and people into solid clay forms, bridging the gap between the familiar and the unknown. With its strong physical presence, sculpture offers a unique way to foster interaction. Its ability to occupy space invites engagement, creates shared experiences, and brings people together—turning its tangible nature into a means of connection. Although her activism is not explicitly embedded in her work, it subtly informs her practice, reflecting daily life and interactions. Her sculptures embody the tension between the familiar and the unknown.

Li Actuallee Through repetitive gestures—whether a loop, stitch, or mark— Li constructs environments that evolve through re-articulation. Grounded in hope and utopian visions, their work honors the value of natural resources, including human labor. Repetition becomes a way to expand visual storytelling, connecting craft, q***rness, and ecology.
The Stitchpunk Manifesto begins with a simple but urgent principle: Mend and repair. Embrace upcycling and repurposing. It insists on using what is available to extend the life of objects, refusing the logic of waste. In a world shaped by speed and abandonment, I return to slowness, to attention, to the ethics of restoration. These values are not only conceptual but material 4 they guide my every gesture, each knot and thread, each choice to repair instead of discard.

13/07/2026

07/07/2026

Arist in residence portrait! Swipe to read about E.M. Parry`s time as an AIR at Platform ✨️.

Photos by Viktor Palm.

Q1: What influences your work?

A1: Q***r history - I think about my work as a kind of conversation with the past, a way of trying to make sense of the world now, and as it might be, through investigating where we’ve come from, and how we got here.

Q2: Have you noticed something new in your practice during your residency at Platform?

A2: Coming from a theatre-making background, I’ve always worked to tight timelines and deadlines; and my own work tends to be done in quite snatched bursts, juggled around other commitments. And in London, physical space tends to be very limited too. Having the luxury of both time and space in abundance during my stay here has felt very different - I notice my body is more relaxed, my thinking feels different, ideas can percolate and develop, there’s time for experimentation and mistakes, and swimming around in research just seeing what bubbles up.

Q3: Have you learned something new during your residency?

A3: I’ve learned a lot about Joan of Arc! And many more obscure gender-q***ring medieval saints.

Q4: What questions or themes are you currently working with?

A4: My current body of work is based in embroidery, and explores the idea of q***r identity as a kind of collaborative craft practice. Currently I’m building a body of work inspired by the life of Eleanor Rykener, a trans femme embroideress and s*x worker who lived in 14th century London. I’ve been trying to imagine her world by learning about medieval material culture, and spirituality. Saints have become a big theme in the work, which I hadn’t planned or expected at the outset.

Q5: How has the change of environment influenced your work?

A5: Having space to spread out is completely transformative - I have loads of my research up on the walls like a giant mind-map - being able to put all the research together like that, to see it and relate to it spatially, move things around, make connections, etc, is very important for my thinking process, and not something I’ve had space to do for a while. The environment of Vaasa itself has also found its w

29/06/2026

08/06/2026

loosey-goosey (adjective)
/ˌluː.siˈɡuː.si/

: notably loose or relaxed : not tense
a loosey-goosey attitude

Platform is loosey-goosey! And so is the theme of next year's residency!

In 2027, Platform invites working artists to explore the limits of their expression. What happens to our art when we define and limit it to conform into the lines of society? What happens to us as artists when we try to conform our art into the very norms that it so desperately wants to break free from? Who decides and what makes a professional artist? Can art be conformed into professional and less professional artistry?

Loosey-goosey wasn't self-proclaimed or a purchased certificate. It is a badge of honor given to us by a former artist who recognised our soft philosophy. We believe that the goal of a residency is to offer time and atmosphere for artists to reflect, grow and change.

With this theme we want to loosen up the loop. We are searching for artists that work with the topic of professionalism; artists that question it or completely reject result-driven societal pressures and norms.

WE OFFER: Accommodation, studio, travel expenses (one return trip, cheapest possible) and a working grant. We also offer a small production budget which the artist may reimburse by presenting original receipts of purchases, specifically connected to the project produced during the residency. The apartment is located near the city center in Vaasa and is not shared with anyone else. Platform holds a studio space in the city center, directly connected to our projectspace. The studio is dedicated to the artist and can be used any time during the day.

WE ASK: the artist to give a public talk, performance , presentation or workshop about their work or an introduction to themselves at the beginning of the residency. We expect the artist to be able to communicate in English, Swedish or Finnish.

FOR MORE INFO AND HOW TO APPLY, follow the link in our bio!
Deadline for applications 30.6.2026

04/06/2026

‼️ The email [email protected] is no longer in use ‼️

Please check our bio or web for the new email address✨️

19/05/2026

What's new at Platform? With summer fast approaching and lots of great things coming we're sending out the first newsletter of the year to our members today. Not a member yet? Become one today and stay in the loop of the goings on at Platform and support out work ❤️‍🔥

Read more in your inbox or at platform.fi.

04/05/2026

Welcome to eat a warm bowl of soup and listen to the artist-talk by artist E.M. Parry

7th May, 18:30
Kyrkoesplanaden 20D

What is Cultural Soup?
Cultural Soup is an event where we invite the public to come eat soup together at Platform. Cultural Soup is held when a new artist ha arrived at the residency and the artist holds an artist-talk or presentation. The talk/ presentation is held in english.
The event is free and open to everyone, artists, cultural workers, someone who is interested in art or someone who just want to have a bowl of soup :)

Meet the artist:
E.M. Parry is a trans*disciplinary artist and award-winning designer, working across scenography, performance, visual art and drag. Splicing genres and platforms, their work has been seen in the West End, international opera houses, pubs, clubs, cabarets, ships, museums and haunted basements. They work with, through and for q***r bodies, squinting at history, flirting with ghosts and the things that go bump in the margins.

14/01/2026

Finally the announcement is here!
We are happy to present you the artists of the 2026 residency program and are looking forward to meeting them!
 
liactuallee - Through repetitive gestures—whether a loop, stitch, or mark— liactuallee constructs environments that evolve through re-articulation. Grounded in hope and utopian visions, their work honors the value of natural resources, including human labor. Repetition becomes a way to expand visual storytelling, connecting craft, q***rness, and ecology.
The Stitchpunk Manifesto begins with a simple but urgent principle: Mend and repair. Embrace upcycling and repurposing. It insists on using what is available to extend the life of objects, refusing the logic of waste. In a world shaped by speed and abandonment, I return to slowness, to attention, to the ethics of restoration. These values are not only conceptual but material 4 they guide my every gesture, each knot and thread, each choice to repair instead of discard.
 
PS.
We received a record amount of applications for the 2026 residency. Initially we were incredibly thankful and proud of this, and we still are. But quickly we realised how tough the selection process would be and how many great applications we would have to turn down. This has been heartbreaking. All your applications are proof of the need for more opportunities for artists and the fantastic potential of the artist’s perspective. Platform will continue to work for more opportunities in the future and to develop the selection methods. Now we are looking forward to welcoming our selected artists to Vasa! And to see how their projects develop within the theme of ‘Practices of resistance, acts of repair’.

14/01/2026

Finally the announcement is here!
We are happy to present you the artists of the 2026 residency program and are looking forward to meeting them!
 
Hannah Hoebeke .hoebeke is an artist from Ghent, Belgium, whose sculptures capture both personal and collective encounters. She transforms lightweight, everyday objects and people into solid clay forms, bridging the gap between the familiar and the unknown.
With its strong physical presence, sculpture offers a unique way to foster interaction. Its ability to occupy space invites engagement, creates shared experiences, and brings people together—turning its tangible nature into a means of connection. Although her activism is not explicitly embedded in her work, it subtly informs her practice, reflecting daily life and interactions. Her sculptures embody the tension between the familiar and the unknown.
 
PS.
We received a record amount of applications for the 2026 residency. Initially we were incredibly thankful and proud of this, and we still are. But quickly we realised how tough the selection process would be and how many great applications we would have to turn down. This has been heartbreaking. All your applications are proof of the need for more opportunities for artists and the fantastic potential of the artist’s perspective. Platform will continue to work for more opportunities in the future and to develop the selection methods. Now we are looking forward to welcoming our selected artists to Vasa! And to see how their projects develop within the theme of ‘Practices of resistance, acts of repair’.