Visiting Experts: Mareike Dobewall

Save the date for an open lecture by the Stockholm-based director, scenographer, composer, and educator Mareike Dobewall.

Dr. Mareike Dobewall is a director, scenographer, composer, and educator based in Stockholm since 2016. With a diverse professional background that spans film, theatre, dance, opera, installation art, radio, and sound performance, she brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to her work.

In 2021, Dobewall completed her PhD at Stockholm University of the Arts in the Performative and Media-based Practices program, with a specialisation in Opera. Her thesis, “Voicelanding – Exploring the Scenographic Potential of Acoustic Sound in Site-Sensitive Performance”, underscores her expertise in site-sensitive practices within sound art and the performing arts.

Dobewall’s work is not bound to a genre but rather crosses the boundaries of genres and includes various art forms. She has a passion for working in situ and with environments. Over the past three years, she has developed several “nature scores” – patterns found in nature that are transformed into musical scores and interpreted in collaboration with musicians – demonstrating one of the many ways she engages with her surroundings. In January 2025 she began working on her artistic research project “Winter’s silence – Searching for a Music of a Hibernating Forest”, supported by the KONE Foundation.

Photograph by Mareike Dobewall.

Sound-Body-Space

Educated and trained in singing, acting, theatre direction, filmmaking, scenography, and choreography, Dobewall’s work spans music composition, performance creation, mixed-media arts, and artistic research. Her practice is guided by ideas and situations, allowing them to shape the form and direction of her engagement and the artworks she creates. “Everything I have ever experienced becomes a part of me and influences what I do, and I embrace that fully”, Dobewall describes.

“About ten years ago, a good friend called me a “spatialist”, and I felt seen. I realized that much of my expertise lies in working with space(s). But this expertise isn’t about mastery; rather, it’s about continually engaging with the unknown, staying curious, and learning from the spaces I encounter. My spatial practice is something I trust deeply, while I remain a perpetual student of it.”

Across all the disciplines she works in, three elements consistently interact: sound, body, and space. These are both her materials and tools – the core of how she creates and thinks.

Photograph by Mareike Dobewall.

In her Visiting Experts lecture she will share insights into her transdisciplinary practice and the ways these elements interact in her work. “Through a series of exercises, we will explore space, body, and sound together.”

Visit Mareike’s webpage.

The upcoming open lecture is part of the Visiting Experts series where international experts in the arts and sciences, invited by Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, share their knowledge.

Time

12.2.2025 at 17:30 – 19:00

Location

Sörnäinen campus

Sörnäisten rantatie 19

00530 Helsinki

Kookos

Further information


The venue at Kookos is room 535.

Location on map

See directions