For Pixelache Festival 2026, Social Choreography Lab Helsinki will arrange and lead two workshops, infused by the haunting live music soundtrack of Kuupuu / Jonna Karanka.
Both workshops treat the body as something made together with others: porous, relational, tangled up in other people rather than sealed off on its own. The first uses the zombie, playfully, to think about interdependence, contagion, and survival that isn’t just about the lone individual. The second turns hand-poked marking into a slow, consensual encounter, something that builds trust and leaves a trace, on the skin and in how people relate to each other. Together, they’re asking the same question: how do we practice other ways of being together, through humour, touch, attention, and care, within precarious times?
Kuupuu’s sound will act as a porous membrane between the two workshops: slow, ritualistic zombie beats echoing the exercises in collective survival, and healing waves holding a field of care and attention. The mix becomes a third body in the room, an ambient presence between marking and being marked, contagion and connection. The sound itself is a form of social choreography, an invitation to listen, breathe, and imagine other rhythms of existing together.
Workshop 1: ZOMBIES – CONNECTING PEOPLE
Thursday 22nd October, 17:30–19:30 in Oranssi
Inspired by theories of interdependence, collective survival, and embodied relationality, this workshop uses humour, play, and performative experimentation to explore the zombie not only as a symbol of capitalist alienation, but also as a speculative figure for rethinking togetherness. Against contemporary narratives of self-sufficiency and competitive survivalism, we approach the zombie as a strangely networked being: porous, affective, contagious, and deeply entangled with others — a figure closer to Lynn Margulis’ idea of symbiogenesis than to the isolated individual.
Through simple embodied exercises, movement explorations, and discussion, participants will investigate the zombie’s physicality, rhythms, and modes of perception. Rather than treating the zombie only as a dystopian metaphor, the workshop opens a playful space to collectively imagine other modes of sensing, moving, and existing together within precarious times.
Workshop 2: MA(R)KING TOGETHER
Friday 23rd October, 17:30–19:30 in Oranssi
Stick n poke is a hand-poked tattooing technique that uses no machines. Slow, manual, and intimate, it exists outside the accelerated rhythms of industrial production and optimization. Every mark requires time, repetition, care, and consent. It cannot be automated, rushed, or infinitely reproduced.
This workshop approaches stick n poke not as a cosmetic service, but as a relational and embodied practice. The tattoo itself is secondary. The primary work is the encounter: the negotiation of boundaries, the building of trust, the shared silence, the attention between bodies, and the temporary social space that emerges through the act of marking.
The workshop will introduce the art of stick n poke, combining discussion, observation, and simple practical exercises around consent, gesture, touch, and symbolic marking. Rather than focusing on technical mastery or permanent results, the workshop explores marking as a shared social process: a fragile encounter that leaves traces not only on skin, but also in perception and relation.
About Social Choreography Lab Helsinki
Social Choreography Lab Helsinki is an artistic platform working at the intersection of embodiment, choreography, and political life through collective and collaborative processes. We explore how movement and bodily practices can help us reflect on and re-imagine personal, social, cultural, and political norms. By creating accessible spaces for learning, sharing, and community-building, we aim to support collective well-being in digitalised times marked by fragmented social relations.
Our practice is a continual exploration of the body: its potential, poetics, and political dimensions amid ecological urgency. We create participatory spaces that foster experimentation, celebration, and collective rituals, inviting diverse bodies to explore alternative choreographies of movement, joy, and community. Through workshops, performances, and community day-festivals, we investigate how bodies in motion can attune to ecological rhythms and cultivate new forms of care for the more-than-human world.
About Jonna Karanka (Kuupuu)
Jonna Karanka is a multidisciplinary artist and musician renowned for her experimental soundscapes and tactile visual art. Working under the moniker Kuupuu since 2003, she crafts lo-fi, dreamlike music that blends improvisation, loops, and electroacoustic textures. Her most recent release is the debut by Draamakuu, her duo with Draama-Helmi (Helmi Kajaste). Toinen vaihe was released in June 2026 on Fonal Records.
