Homa Shokri is a Helsinki-based performance and video artist. Her work explores political violence and the uninhabitability of bodies, often drawing from personal and collective experiences of oppression. With a background in dramaturgy and directing, her practice challenges dominant narratives about how fear and violence mobilise bodies, engaging with themes such as necropolitics and resistance.
At the festival, Shokri presents Ashla, a performance developed from an ongoing project of the same name. The work investigates how hidden violence dismembers the body—physically and psychologically—through movement and image. Ashla integrates fantasy, techno-inspired movement and collective bodily scores as responses to unseen structures of fear and control.
This project is a collaborative and process-based work developed together with the following working group: Homa Shokri (concept and direction), Christy MA (choreography), Sonjis Laine, Sointu Saraste, Chen Nadler (performers), Alina Ostrogradskaya (sound design) and Oskari Kaarne (light design).
*(Ashla اشلاء), derived from Arabic word, refers to a body that has been brutally torn into pieces.
Curators’ comments: “Ashla is a striking, powerful, and impactful proposal. The work addresses the effects of systemic violence on people’s lives in a comprehensive way. The artist’s clear thinking resonates and is physically palpable.”
Read more about the performance here.
