Arja Kärkkäinen (born in 1986 in Helsinki) is a Finnish installation artist based in Helsinki.
She holds an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki, and in 2007-2012 she has graduated in a BA on Fashion Design from Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Design.
She always studied to be a cloth designer but later on, because of her passion, she started to work in the art field but as she is strongly influenced by her previous studies sometimes she still finds her inspiration from her former education as a designer: she started from painting but successively she realized that working with video, spacial installation and project were the perfect tools that would permit her to realize her storytelling-kind she is into.
Arja Kärkkäinen was an award winner of several prize among which Squeeze it Franco Jesurun Award (2015), Trieste Contemporanea, and Lindstrom Awards (2012),1st prize Motionworks.
She took part in several group exhibition in Finland and abroad such as 01/2017 Lux in, Helsinki Videokanava Festival (2016) in Helsinki, Mother’s Nerves (2016) in Helsinki, Lahti Pride Cismattaako? (2016) in Lahti, Plan B art festival (2016) in Borgarnes, Iceland, EMAP 2016 9th Ewha international Media Art Presentation, in Seoul, SURPLUS workspace (2015), Gallery Kalleria in Helsinki and participated at This Human World 2016 festival trailer, artist residency in Campos de Gutiérrez (2014) Medellín, Colombia where she participated in the group exhibition Ghosts and Traces, in Casa Tres Patios, and Midnight Sun Film Festival (2013), Sodankylä, Finland.
She collaborates with of B#Side War Festival vol III edition in occasion of the Video Art Day event with her work City of Sigmund in Gradisca d’Isonzo.
