Cinéstesia
Cinéstesia is a new initiative by Espoo Ciné dedicated to the crossroads between cinema, the visual arts, and the rich, ever-shifting territory in between.
Its activities span a curated screening programme developed each year in collaboration with an invited international curator, a two-day International Seminar on Film and Visual Arts, and an active strand dedicated to international exchange. Cinéstesia brings together artists, filmmakers, curators, programmers, researchers, and institutions working at the expanding edges of the moving image.
Supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation, the inaugural edition of Cinéstesia will take place as part of the Espoo Ciné International Film Festival from 21–30 August 2026, across venues in Helsinki and Espoo.
Main Guests
Cinéstesia welcomes UK-based film scholar, critic, and curator Erika Balsom as invited international curator. One of the most influential voices in contemporary writing on artists' moving image and the edges of cinema. Her curatorial vision draws together the work of two artists in focus: Ben Rivers, London-based artist and experimental filmmaker whose handcrafted, speculative works explore solitary lives and marginal worlds at the threshold of documentary and fiction. Alongside him is Beirut-based filmmaker and programmer Nour Ouayda whose practice weaves image, text, and sound into a cinema of sensory attention and quiet formal radicalism.
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International Seminar On Film and Visual Arts
Cinéstesia – International Seminar on Film and Visual Arts is a two-day professional forum dedicated to the moving image in all its forms. The seminar creates a space for critical reflection on the institutional, commercial, and material conditions that shape contemporary moving image practice. Across keynote lectures, panel discussions, and artist talks, the seminar explores some of the most current questions facing moving image practice. The conversations reflect on the shifting boundaries between cinema and the visual arts, as well as on the future of analogue film culture, while also examining the infrastructures, collaborations, and modes of circulation that shape how moving images are made, experienced, and exhibited nowadays.
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Screening Programme
Developed in collaboration with Erika Balsom, Cinéstesia unfolds across two screening sections that bring together filmmakers and visual artists whose practices inhabit the porous territory between cinema and the visual arts. Artists in Focus is dedicated to the work of Ben Rivers and Nour Ouayda, offering an in-depth encounter with two distinctive voices in contemporary moving image practice. Archives revisits pivotal moments in artists' moving image and avant-garde cinema through rarely screened works by Jean Matthee and Isaac Julien – a pioneering artist whose poetic moving image works reimagine Black histories, queer identities, and the legacies of colonialism – alongside a tribute to the legendary EXPRMNTL 4 festival, whose 1967 edition achieved near-legendary status.
On the other hand, a third screening section, Artisanal Films celebrates analogue cinema as a living and evolving practice. The section pairs a tribute to Helsingin Elokuvapaja (1991–1998) – a landmark artist-run lab that became a vital space for experimentation for a whole generation of Finnish visual artists – with Yet to Come, a programme offering a snapshot of emerging moving image practices connected to Finland, with a particular emphasis on artisanal, process-based approaches.
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Live Cinema Performances
Traces and Transitions brings together two live cinema performances — What Goes Around Comes Around and Capacity for Resonance — that engage analogue film as a living material. Together, they reflect on the tensions between technology, human beings, and embodied perception in an accelerated modern world. Through light, sound, and projection, the programme unfolds as both an act of resistance and an immersive sensorial journey.
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Cinéstesia is possible with the support of our partners and collaborators:
