A material test with intestines for the project La Grande Bouffet.
Lotta Esko
My practice spans over two decades of painting and scenography, moving across scales, formats, and art contexts. In the past decade I have increasingly brought these roles together through collaborative work with musicians, dancers, and other practitioners, developing thematic and material dimensions of each project in tandem.
The body has been a persistent focus throughout: its vulnerability, animality, desire, and the unruly aspects of subjectivity. Through varied projects in painting, installation, video, and performance, I have explored bodily interdependence: how we are constantly being consumed by bacteria, fungi, and time, but also through intimacy and exchange with others, human and not. Touch, breath, and bodily fluids participate in a circulation of matter where nourishment, desire, and transformation are inseparable.
This attention to porousness has led me toward increasingly visceral material choices (edible sculptures, scenographies made from organic and biodegradable materials) seeking aesthetic experiences that implicate the audience bodily rather than only visually. More recently, the theme of cannibalism has become central to my work: a way to examine how bodies exist in states of mutual dependency while simultaneously shaped by systems of consumption, and how the boundary between self and other is continually unsettled.
The body has been a persistent focus throughout: its vulnerability, animality, desire, and the unruly aspects of subjectivity. Through varied projects in painting, installation, video, and performance, I have explored bodily interdependence: how we are constantly being consumed by bacteria, fungi, and time, but also through intimacy and exchange with others, human and not. Touch, breath, and bodily fluids participate in a circulation of matter where nourishment, desire, and transformation are inseparable.
This attention to porousness has led me toward increasingly visceral material choices (edible sculptures, scenographies made from organic and biodegradable materials) seeking aesthetic experiences that implicate the audience bodily rather than only visually. More recently, the theme of cannibalism has become central to my work: a way to examine how bodies exist in states of mutual dependency while simultaneously shaped by systems of consumption, and how the boundary between self and other is continually unsettled.
Ongoing project: Sweet Disaster
Residency demo-performance at Ehkä-production, 2025
Scenography: an Co-creation LOTTA ESKO
Choreography: KAROLINA GINMAN
Dancers: IIRIS HILDEN, LINDA HOLMA, MAIJA VIIPURI
Scenography: an Co-creation LOTTA ESKO
Choreography: KAROLINA GINMAN
Dancers: IIRIS HILDEN, LINDA HOLMA, MAIJA VIIPURI
Immersive installation,
cotton candy, hand blown sugar, metal, wood and plaster.
Immersive installation,
cotton candy, hand blown sugar, metal, wood and plaster.
Not about Mushrooms
Galleria Toinen Silmä, Helsinki | 13.11–23.11.2025
INSTALLATION: FANTASY AND FAILURE
FILM: DOMESTICATION GONE WILD
Director, Production Design: LOTTA ESKO
Cinematographer, Editor: VILMA TIHILÄ
Dance: KAISA NIEMI & JYRKI KARTTUNEN
Sound Design, Vocals: JAAKKO KULOMAA
Composer: SERGIO CASTRILLÓN
INSTALLATION: FANTASY AND FAILURE
FILM: DOMESTICATION GONE WILD
Director, Production Design: LOTTA ESKO
Cinematographer, Editor: VILMA TIHILÄ
Dance: KAISA NIEMI & JYRKI KARTTUNEN
Sound Design, Vocals: JAAKKO KULOMAA
Composer: SERGIO CASTRILLÓN
Installation: Fantasy and Failure
An amusement park for mushrooms.
Mixed media, painting on canvas stretched into space, alive and dried mushrooms.
Reflections informed by Jack Halberstam.
Film: Domestication Gone Wild
In the film the protagonist falls in love with mushrooms. He takes them with a wish of companion.
Anna Tsing: “Domination, domestication, and love are deeply entangled. Home is where dependencies within and among species reach their most stifling.”
An amusement park for mushrooms.
Mixed media, painting on canvas stretched into space, alive and dried mushrooms.
Reflections informed by Jack Halberstam.
Film: Domestication Gone Wild
In the film the protagonist falls in love with mushrooms. He takes them with a wish of companion.
Anna Tsing: “Domination, domestication, and love are deeply entangled. Home is where dependencies within and among species reach their most stifling.”
Coloured bread-dough, Copper.
A gaze of my skin, drains into me
Director and choreographer: VILMA TIIHILÄ, 2023
Art direction: LOTTA ESKO
Art direction: LOTTA ESKO
2nd Skins
Svenska teatern, Helsinki, 2023
choreography: FAVELA VERA ORTIZ
scenography: LOTTA ESKO
2nd Skins photos by Quentin Wachter, film stills Vilma Tihilä, rest of the photos by Lotta Esko
choreography: FAVELA VERA ORTIZ
scenography: LOTTA ESKO
2nd Skins photos by Quentin Wachter, film stills Vilma Tihilä, rest of the photos by Lotta Esko
Waxed recycled paper.