Esteetöntä community art piece brings new perspective to urban space

Esteetöntä community art piece has been selected for the 2025 Oulu August Festivals' program. This year’s open call focused on accessibility.

Esteetöntä is a performance that offers a new way of thinking and a fresh perspective on urban space: what is it like to experience a city from a wheelchair and to be assisted? The piece is created by theatre professional Hilkka Hyttinen originally from Oulu, photographer Susanna Lyly originally from Haapajärvi, and sound artist Esa Nissi from Oulu.

Participants in this free event will experience the city while sitting in a wheelchair, accompanied by an assistant. They will have the opportunity to empathize with the experience of a person with reduced mobility and to observe urban space and its challenges from a wheelchair user’s perspective. During the journey, participants will document the city under guided instructions. The event will also include wheelchair users acting as experts by experience.

After the wheelchair tour, participants will be interviewed about the challenges and successes they encountered. Based on these experiences, the sound artist and photographer will create a new piece combining photos taken during the journey and an audio composition. This media artwork will be available for the public to experience both during the event and online via Northern Cultural Stream channels.

The community artwork will take place in August, during week 34. Detailed dates and locations will be announced later.

Oulu August Festivals highlights the talents of artists and art organizations from Oulu and Northern Finland. This year, seven works or events applied for the programme, from which the Oulu Cultural Events Association board selected Esteetöntä to complement the festival’s other programme.

The open call is carried out in collaboration with the Oulu Cultural Events Association's Saavuta – Equal Access to Cultural Events for All Project. The project is funded by the North Ostrobothnia ELY Centre through the European Social Fund, as well as by the municipalities participating in the project: Oulu, Ii, Kuusamo, and Raahe. The project is part of the Oulu Cultural Events Association's Oulu2026 Delta Life Project.