Artists

Czech singer and multi-instrumentalist Barbora Xu (Barbora Šilhánová) has been working in Europe and Asia, exploring local poetry, string instruments, and vocal techniques while composing music. Her work is deeply inspired by nature — the calmness, fragility, and softness experienced in the natural light and soundscapes of forests; the fullness of the human voice combined with handmade instruments.

With her latest album The Garden of Otava reaching no. 7 at the World Music Charts Europe in 2025, Barbora was also awarded the Mention of the International Jury at the world music competition Premio Andrea Parodi in Sardinia only a few months later.

“Barbora Xu” is an artist name combining Barbora’s actual given name and her legal Chinese name, given to her later in life. The idea behind combining those two names was to amplify her individual attraction to Chinese language, medicine, tea, music, martial arts…

“We all stand with our feet on the ground that someone walked before us. We draw from what our ancestors gave us and look over the horizon to find the things we need to find in order to live in motion forwards. I have been captivated by Chinese culture since I was a child and this is why I decided to learn as much as I could. The culture is so different from ours and yet stemming from the same deep original source. Bridging our different traditions in music, joining our esthetic perspectives in one artistic project is my way of showing respect and promoting peace and acceptance across the globe on an individual level.”

Barbora started her music career while studying to be a China expert. Upon graduating from her Master’s, she took a break from international relations and started performing on guzheng and kantele. Already within the first years of her music career, Barbora was chosen for the venerated UK music project Making Tracks, doing a tour around the UK high-end venues such as the King’s Place in London. At the same time, she was accepted to the prestigious Finnish arts university, the Sibelius Academy. This has been a gate-opening experience for the young artist. In 2021, Barbora’s first album was released by the award-winning German label Nordic Notes. The album Olin Ennen was immediately acclaimed by the international music community, placing no. 11 in the WMCE and no. 21 in TWMC, picked for the German Record Critics’ Award and the Podwireless Best of 2021.

Wiebke Pandikow is a craft- and material-based visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She has been working mostly in the field of jewelry since 2013, developing her own techniques to turn discarded plastic bags into wearable pieces and sculptures. More recently, she has turned to ancient basketry techniques to transform this ambiguous modern material. Alongside that more small-scale work, she has also turned toward land art, creating site-specific installations using only material found in the immediate environment in Finland as well as Sweden as part of a project called Land Jewelry.

Wiebke creates site-specific art installations, using materials sourced from the immediate environment. These pieces have two main functions: as a kind of stage for Barbora Xu’s concerts, but also as a connector between forest and human audience. They are a non-invasive and temporary human intervention, interacting with and benefiting from a diverse forest environment without harming it. The pieces are strongly influenced by the specific location of each forest and the moment in time that they are created, incorporating aspects of spontaneity and improvisation. This creates unique pieces of art for every forest venue. They live and change over time with the environment around them. Eventually, they disappear, all material returning to the forest.

Mikko H. Haapoja is a media artist, music producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Helsinki, Finland. Haapoja works with various music genres — from acoustic to electronic. In his solo project Unheard Landscapes, Haapoja plays Finnish traditional bowed lyres and live electronics combined with his field-recordings from around the globe. Since 2010 Haapoja has captured the sonic image of Helsinki in his project Helsingin reitit — The Routes of Helsinki. The latest piece of the series Keskusmetsä (The Central Forest) represented Finland in EBU’s Prix Palma Ars Acustica competition in 2023.

Haapoja’s art has been exhibited in various galleries and museums in Finland and internationally — for example, in Tokyo, New York, and Berlin. Meanwhile, Haapoja has recorded many acclaimed global music albums such as Okra Playground’s Turmio, Nathan Riki Thomson’s Resonance, and Sarah Palu’s Ikivirta, nominated for the Etno-Emma 2021.