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.

Jenna Sutela will exhibit in the Finnish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. She will participate in the group show New Humans: Memories of the Future of the extended New Museum opening in spring 2026. Her works have been presented at Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2025), the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2024), the Swiss Institute in New York (2023), the Helsinki Biennale (2023), at the Haus der Kunst in Munich (2022), the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki (2022), the Shanghai Biennial (2021), the Liverpool Biennial (2021), the Kunsthall Trondheim (2020), the Serpentine Galleries in London (2019), and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2019) among others. In 2019 and 2021 Sutela was a visiting artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) in Massachusetts.

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