Dr. Timo S. Tuhkanen (b. 1983, Muscat, Oman) is an artist, composer, writer, and conductor. Their work combines acoustic and electronic music, ceramics, sculpture, performance, and research into touch. Timo studied Tabla & Indian Classical Music at the Oriental Music School of Jerusalem (2002). He received a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) (2008) and a Master of Music at Brunel University of West London (2009), and their Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Music, University of Leeds (2019).
Timo is the founder of Microtonal Music Studios in Helsinki where they are also the director of artist run cooperative gallery Myymälä2 and Villa Eläintarha artist residency.
Timo’s artistic work ties experimental materiality to storytelling and mixed-modal experiences to include sound, sculpture, text, performance, algorithms, institutions, interventions, and installations that come together to tell a coherent story. Their work deals with trauma, touch, memory and experimental materiality and the subject matters often adapt inside an occupied environments of urban landscapes, digital platforms, and social-spaces. Timo like’s to describe their work as lived-through narrative fiction, or mythopoetics, where life, storytelling, learning, and art become intertwined and entangled through sensorial experiences. Timo was born in Muscat, Oman and grew up in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and also lived in France, England, Italy and finally in Finland. Their artworks try to go beyond nation states, individualism, religion, and colonial hegemonic and patriarchal practices to find queer, fluid non-European objects, conditions, and spaces for experimenting with the real.
Timo has working between contemporary art and music since 2010 at international biennale's, residencies and kunsthalles. From 2022-2025 Timo worked with the support of Kone Foundation on their project Microtonal Music Studios, an experimental project questioning the possibilities of resource development in art through relational practices by combining institutional elements from contemporary art and music. Timo is currently aa Affiliate Research at the University of Turku Faculty of Humanities Department of Musicology where they research historical and cultural aspects of touch in music, as well as an artistic researcher in the project the Atlas (of creative mechanisms):[conducting-curating]at die Angewandte University of Applied Arts Vienna and supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in their PEEK-program (Programm zur Erweiterung und Erschliessung der Künste). For this project he studied conducting with Jorma Panula, Petri Sakari, Peter Wiegold, Juha Törmä as well as participated in masterclasses with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Eva Ollikainen. In 2025 Timo received a 3-year grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland to develop their practice and artoworks in 2026-2028.
Their work as a composer and artist have been featured in BAM - Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo, Palermo; Manifesta12, Palermo; 3éme Biennale di l’Art Contemporain Casablanca, Marocco; XXV Mänttä Art Festival, Mänttä, Finland; 1st ARS PORI MEGASTORE, Pori; European Mediterranean Art Association, Nicosia, Cyprus; Emma Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland; FILE Festival, São Paulo, Brazil; Moscow Philharmonica, Moscow, Russia; Kallion New Music Days, Helsinki, Finland; Alvar Aalto -museum, Jyväskylä, Finland; Dimitria Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece; Time of Music Festival, Viitasaari, Finland; AAVE-Festival, Helsinki, Finland; Musica Nova Festival, Helsinki Finland; Canterbury Jazz Festival, Canterbury, UK; and the Royal Festival Hall, recorded live on BBC3 Hear and Now, London, UK.
In 2026 Timo edited and published the first Microtonal Music Studios Reader titled Music Outside Keys and Cultures: Social, Cultural, Political and Personal Perspectives. It is available to download for free from the microtonal music studios website below:
https://microtonalmusicstudios.com/book-lauch-microtonal-music-studios-reader-i-music-outside-keys-and-cultures-social-cultural-political-and-personal-perspectives/
Timo is the founder of Microtonal Music Studios in Helsinki where they are also the director of artist run cooperative gallery Myymälä2 and Villa Eläintarha artist residency.
Timo’s artistic work ties experimental materiality to storytelling and mixed-modal experiences to include sound, sculpture, text, performance, algorithms, institutions, interventions, and installations that come together to tell a coherent story. Their work deals with trauma, touch, memory and experimental materiality and the subject matters often adapt inside an occupied environments of urban landscapes, digital platforms, and social-spaces. Timo like’s to describe their work as lived-through narrative fiction, or mythopoetics, where life, storytelling, learning, and art become intertwined and entangled through sensorial experiences. Timo was born in Muscat, Oman and grew up in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and also lived in France, England, Italy and finally in Finland. Their artworks try to go beyond nation states, individualism, religion, and colonial hegemonic and patriarchal practices to find queer, fluid non-European objects, conditions, and spaces for experimenting with the real.
Timo has working between contemporary art and music since 2010 at international biennale's, residencies and kunsthalles. From 2022-2025 Timo worked with the support of Kone Foundation on their project Microtonal Music Studios, an experimental project questioning the possibilities of resource development in art through relational practices by combining institutional elements from contemporary art and music. Timo is currently aa Affiliate Research at the University of Turku Faculty of Humanities Department of Musicology where they research historical and cultural aspects of touch in music, as well as an artistic researcher in the project the Atlas (of creative mechanisms):[conducting-curating]at die Angewandte University of Applied Arts Vienna and supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in their PEEK-program (Programm zur Erweiterung und Erschliessung der Künste). For this project he studied conducting with Jorma Panula, Petri Sakari, Peter Wiegold, Juha Törmä as well as participated in masterclasses with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Eva Ollikainen. In 2025 Timo received a 3-year grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland to develop their practice and artoworks in 2026-2028.
Their work as a composer and artist have been featured in BAM - Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo, Palermo; Manifesta12, Palermo; 3éme Biennale di l’Art Contemporain Casablanca, Marocco; XXV Mänttä Art Festival, Mänttä, Finland; 1st ARS PORI MEGASTORE, Pori; European Mediterranean Art Association, Nicosia, Cyprus; Emma Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland; FILE Festival, São Paulo, Brazil; Moscow Philharmonica, Moscow, Russia; Kallion New Music Days, Helsinki, Finland; Alvar Aalto -museum, Jyväskylä, Finland; Dimitria Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece; Time of Music Festival, Viitasaari, Finland; AAVE-Festival, Helsinki, Finland; Musica Nova Festival, Helsinki Finland; Canterbury Jazz Festival, Canterbury, UK; and the Royal Festival Hall, recorded live on BBC3 Hear and Now, London, UK.
In 2026 Timo edited and published the first Microtonal Music Studios Reader titled Music Outside Keys and Cultures: Social, Cultural, Political and Personal Perspectives. It is available to download for free from the microtonal music studios website below:
https://microtonalmusicstudios.com/book-lauch-microtonal-music-studios-reader-i-music-outside-keys-and-cultures-social-cultural-political-and-personal-perspectives/
