Biography

Jenni Nikinmaa is a playwright/performer from Finland, banished to the Western outskirts of Europe as she doesn’t like sauna. Now she lives in Ireland and writes weird, wonderful, off-beat comedic plays about grim autobiographical experiences with unblinking kindness and touch of otherworldly magic and designs binaural soundscapes and site-sympathetic work. 

Jenni is interested in immersive work where people interact with their physical surroundings and living beings. As an artist working in site-related context, she was recently part of RESONANCE PERFORMANCE PROJECT at Rosorcas Festival of Circus Arts, and participated in the Context Creators residency with Cikada Circus. Most recently Jenni has been working with Big Telly Theatre Company on Faust-ish at Belfast International Theatre Festival. A site-sympathetic promenade experience The Enchanted she created toured in 2023-2024 from Birr to Cork and Galway. Currently, Jenni is rehearsing the monologue Sheep! For a premiere in May 2026.

She was shortlisted for Alpine Fellowship Theatre Prize in 2020, holds an MA in Playwriting & Dramaturgy from The University of Galway and is a FUEL artist from 2023 with Druid Theatre Galway. Jenni is supported by Arts Council of Ireland, Kone Foundation in Finland and multiple others.

Artistic project

A cult extraordinaire of strange beings, who approach their objects of study through most scientific methods while giving the lord of chaos a slight tickle. A mission to find the most human human ever. What makes us human? Who is the most human? And where are they? 

Being: Human is a durational walkabout performance infiltrating gatherings of people, such as festivals. Two or three performers, one-on-one interactions, playful engagement. 

Based on the artist’s experience of a life where they tried to be someone else to fit in, constantly looking for this book of instructions given to other people that enabled them to be human. A practice of looking at people, seeing them, becoming them and then moving on. In the pick me world of selfies and social media, the cult of Being: Human never chooses anyone – because there is no such thing as the most human human ever.

Format: walkabout

Size of audience: multiple one on ones

Specific location: crowds

Timing/duration: durational