Audience Ambassadors Seminar

Name: Audience Ambassadors Seminar
Start: 2026-03-26T13:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-03-26T16:30:00+02:00
Location: Turun Kaupunginteatteri

Schedule

Thu Mar 26 2026 at 01:00 pm to 04:30 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Turun Kaupunginteatteri | Turku, LS

Time: Thu 26 March, 13:00–16:30
Venue: Turku City Theatre, 2nd floor foyer
Coffee and snacks will be served.
The conversation will be held in English.
Register by 17 March at 16:00 at Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/audience-ambassadors-seminar-tickets-1981992601224?aff=oddtdtcreator

New Performance Turku invites the public to an open seminar presenting the results of the Audience Ambassadors pilot programme developed for the 2025 biennale. The programme explored creative tools for facilitating people’s engagement with performance art and Live Art, supporting audiences in learning about these art forms while becoming more comfortable discussing and sharing their experiences and reflections.
In spring 2025, a training programme was organised by the Curator of Audience Engagement, María Villa Largacha, with the support of Producer of Audience Development Maria Laitila, for a selected group of art enthusiasts who became Audience Ambassadors for performance art. The group developed their own activities around self-chosen themes, received tutoring, and implemented their proposals with diverse communities in connection with the New Performance Turku Biennale performances in September 2025.
The seminar will share the outcomes and learnings of this pilot, alongside the launch of a publication featuring the Audience Ambassadors’ stories of their experiences and discoveries throughout the process. The event offers an open space for dialogue with local specialists in audience development, artists, academics, and professionals from various art venues in Turku. It will address the challenges of audience engagement work, examine creative responses implemented in different contexts in Turku, reflect on lessons learned, and consider how art producers and institutions can strengthen their capacity to reach and engage diverse publics.
The Audience Ambassadors pilot was supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taiteen edistämiskeskus) and The Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen kulttuurirahasto). As an outcome of the 2025 pilot programme, the seminar aims to build pathways for developing future audience engagement initiatives with partner organisations and to take the first steps toward creating a platform for sharing knowledge and meaningful experiences with varied publics of art.

SEMINAR PROGRAMME
13:00
Opening remarks and introduction to the afternoon programme
Leena Kela
13:15–14:00
Audience Ambassadors: From Objectives to Discoveries
María Villa Largacha
14:00–14:40
Audience Ambassadors presentations
14:40–15:00
Coffee, tea, and snacks
15:00–15:40
Audience Ambassadors presentations (continued)
15:40–16:20
Commentary on Audience Engagement
Katja Kirsi, Aatu Pyy and Kaija Kaitavuori

SPEAKERS
Katja Kirsi
was an Audience Development Specialist at Zodiak – Centre for New Dance in Helsinki (2005–2022). Her work focused on developing meaningful, inclusive, and participatory relationships between contemporary dance and its audiences. She has extensive experience in audience engagement, co-creation processes, and long-term audience development strategies within the performing arts field. Currently she works as the Managing Director of the Reality Research Center (Todellisuuden tutkimuskeskus), an arts collective and organisation based in Helsinki.
Kaija Kaitavuori
works as a lecturer at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and as a visiting lecturer and docent at the University of Helsinki. She received her PhD in 2015 from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Her theses investigated participation in contemporary art. The scope of her current research spans contemporary art, cultural policy and sociology. She has previously held senior roles at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and the Finnish National Gallery, working in museum education and institutional development.
Aatu Pyy
has worked at the Turku City Theatre since 2022. Before his current position as audience engagement coordinator Pyy has worked as a theatre secretary at AB Dance Company and a museum assistant at Sibelius Museum. Pyy has also worked as a freelance DJ since 2014, both in public and private events. In his current position Pyy, among other things, produces events, guided tours and workshops at the Turku City Theatre, and works with a wide range of partners, with the aim of strengthening and developing the visibility, reach, and accessibility of theatre. Pyy studied musicology, museology and media studies at the University of Turku, earning a master’s degree in 2019.
María Villa Largacha
is an independent curator and educator with an academic background in Philosophy and Curating and Contemporary Art. She has worked with public art programs as editor, facilitator, and public program coordinator in Colombia. Her focus for more than a decade has been designing and organizing initiatives for discussion, collaboration, sustainability, and social change through participatory methods and experimental pedagogies. She has taught creative writing and curatorial practices at MA level in Helsinki and has been co-curator of the New Performance Turku Biennale before developing the 2025 Audience Ambassador program. She is currently a doctoral researcher working with transformative approaches to adult education at Tampere University.