filmmaker • theatre director • interdisciplinary artist • performer
Sakari Laurila (he/him) is a filmmaker, theatre director and interdisciplinary artist whose practice exists at the confluence of critical theory, psychoanalysis, and performative arts (including theatre and cinema). With an M.A. in Film from West London University (2008), Sakari creates work that challenges conventional boundaries between academic discourse and artistic expression.
Their creative practice is informed by psychoanalytical theory on the logic of desire and its manifestations in contemporary social dynamics. By discovering how unconscious drives, as well as social and material alienation, shape human behavior and social structures, his aim is to inspire experiences and dialogue on illusions, fantasies and stuck conventions that govern our emotions, thinking and behaviour, thus aiming to recognise the underlying mechanisms that govern interpersonal relationships and cultural phenomena.
As a theatre creator, Sakari has collaborated with choreographer Lia Haraki on several theatre works including Sexy Yuppies and Death by Karaoke—performances that employed the body as text in contexts of crumbing fantasies, to examine how desire circulates within and between subjects. These productions used research based methodologies and aimed to discover how language mediates desire and constructs subjectivity.
Sakari’s collaborations with the SRSLYours theatre company, notably in Man on the Roof, further explored these themes through a lens combining history of intellectual critique to theatre history from ancient drama to Chekhov. These works have been recognised for their sophisticated integration of theoretical concepts with accessible theatrical forms.
In the realm of cinema, he has developed a distinctive approach to documentary and narrative filmmaking on contemporary political topics that draws on critical and feminist film theory and economical theory frameworks. His current film projects—including two fiction features and a documentary examining democratic processes in Europe—utilise research based material with cinematic language combined to experimental narrative building.
Since 2018, he has maintained a significant collaborative relationship with philosopher Niklas Toivakainen, producing a body of work that bridges philosophical inquiry and artistic practice. This partnership has generated experimental performances, critical writings, and public dialogues that expand the boundaries of how theoretical concepts and critique can be embodied and experienced through performing art.
As artistic director of an ecological art residency and initiative in the mountains of Cyprus (residency.armascreative.fi), he creates space and concepts to explore the intersections of ecology, other-than-human realities and new forms of possible future communities. His work on this field reflects a commitment to collective meaning-making and the development of new paradigms for artistic research and to generate new modes of understanding and being in the world.
He also runs a theatre production platform Lumimaa (lumimaa.org) and a performing art and cinema collective and a production house Armas Creative, together with its other members (armascreative.fi)
CV and more information, please contact: sakari (at) lumimaa.org
Facebook: facebook.com/zakarias.larsson.54