Eevi Oittinen & Livia Schweizer (finland)

Visual artist Eevi Oittinen and musician Livia Schweizer’s interdisciplinary dialogue creates a non-linguistic space for imagination rooted in exploration, play and the intersections where abstract visual art and sound meet.

In NART residency, Oittinen & Schweizer will explore how their project Collage Music can connect to the local communities in and around Narva. Ongoing since 2025, Collage Music is a series of interactive performance-workshops driven by two simple open questions: “How shapes and colors can sound like?” and “how this question can lead to a partecipatory real-time creation?”

During the interactive performances visual collage materials are assembled and rearranged together with the audience, to build an ever-evolving music score that will become a canvas for live composition by flutist Livia Schweizer. By experimenting with collage, drawing, and painting, Oittinen & Schweizer will be exploring how this work can be crafted together with local children, and with different collaborators. At its core, Collage Music is a playground, seeking ways to make participatory contemporary art feel accessible, grounding, and deeply meaningful in everyday life.

The duo will spend 10 days together, working toward organizing workshops and events that invite people to explore the potential of this interdisciplinary world. Throughout the whole
residency Eevi Oittinen will continue investigating the boundaries between visual art, graphic scores, and sound, seeking opportunities to collaborate and exchange interdisciplinary ideas with local artists and community members.

About the Artists

Eevi Oittinen is an interdisciplinary artist and painter from Helsinki, Finland, engaging contemporary music and visual art together. Originally an oboe player, now turned painter,
Oittinen has received a bachelor in music from Sibelius Academy in 2017 and graduated from Free Art School in 2025. Expressive, colourful, full of movement – vivid brushtrokes and rhythm – musicianship is strongly present in Oittinen’s abstract visual language.

In 2025 Oittinen received a grant from Anita Snellman foundation for her graduation exhibition, where she presented a paintings in oils and mixed media imbued with a sense of musicality, playing with the in-between of painting and notation, as well as a series of interdisciplinary performances.

In 2026, Oittinen continued working on audio-visual themes in Villa Karo residency in Finnish West-African cultural instutute in Benin, where she took part in Early Career Peer Mentoring programme supported by Finnish Culture Foundation (SKR). Studying rhythm and audiovisual synesthesia by drawing, Oittinen collected series of sketches that are, at the time of writing, being assembled as a visual score for improvised music.

In search of performing in direct dialogue with music, Oittinen founded audiovisual duo Fragments with musician Libero Mureddu in 2024. In fully improvised performances, Oittinen creates hand painted visuals with an old-school analogue overhead projector as her instrument, experimenting with materials and techniques. She has also been featuring various artists in

Helsinki experimental music scene, including Tölöläb, Wilson Tanner-Smith, Pajuh and Sunnuntaikvartetti cello quartet.

In 2027, Oittinen will be working in NART residency together with musician Livia Schweizer on their community project Collage Music, active since 2025, a series of interactive performances where colours and shapes become music in an inviting, playful, low-treshold environment.

Livia Schweizer is a Helsinki-based flutist, improviser, and artistic researcher dedicated to the intersection of contemporary performance, community engagement, and intercultural dialogue. Originally from Italy, she moved to Helsinki following her graduation from the Conservatory of Livorno to study at the Sibelius Academy.

Currently a doctoral researcher at Uniarts’ Sibelius Academy, Livia is driven by a deep curiosity for non-conventional notation and alternative definitions of the musical score. Her research focuses on how graphic and alternative scores can facilitate collaboration between artists from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. This quest for new sonic languages has led her to participate in projects across Benin, Brazil, Aotearoa / New Zealand, the US, and Europe, exploring how sound and music can foster cross-cultural connection and diversity.

Livia is also a co-founder of the Helsinki-based new music ensemble Earth Ears, with whom she has premiered numerous works by Nordic composers such as Jukka Tiensuu, Mioko Yokoyama, Jarkko Hartikainen, Jacob Ridderberg, Tytti Arola, and Torkell Nordal. Additionally, she is a member of the new music trio Suut with saxophonist Anna-Sofia Anttonen and soprano Meeri Pulakka, and she is part of an ensemble exploring open scores between Finland and Estonia alongside Sergio Castrillón, Jaak Sikk, and Kristian Kannuke, and regularly collaborates with musicians such as Adriano Adewale, Nathan Riki Thomson, Libero Mureddu, and Iida-Vilhelmiina Sinivalo. She frequently works on interdisciplinary projects with visual and multidisciplinary artists including Inka-Maria Jurvanen, Eevi Oittinen, and Aaro Murphy. One of the most special sounds that Livia heard is the sound of the tiny wings of a hummingbird flying near the ear.