KEMÊ BIOGRAPHY & STATEMENT
Kemê (b. 1983) is a neurodivergent, polydisciplinary artist, poet, and parent of Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Spanish descent based in Helsinki. She perceives the arts as living technologies—portals that move us through different simultaneous realities and states of consciousness, and as tools for deeper connection and understanding.
Her practice, often manifested through personal and communal rituals, is intuitive and expansive, embracing photography, textiles, illustration, performance, installation, and text as interwoven languages. Through them, she seeks to bridge the rigid constructions we build and carry with our fluid, ever-changing nature. From those bridges, she explores themes of memory, care, connection, myth, representation, dreams, and symbols, with a special interest in how we access ancestral and diasporic knowledges.
Currently, Kemê’s research centres on protection, inspired by her personal relationship with the Hamsa/Fatima’s Hand. Leading her led to the questions of how to hold shared architectures of protection and translate symbolic meaning.
When she speaks, her voice resonates with a low frequency—calm, grounded—just as her artistic voice gravitates toward works that whisper, inviting you aside for a quiet conversation. Still, there are days when she will sing from the top of her lungs.
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Since 2015, Kemê has been an active figure in the Nordic arts scene, working both independently and collectively toward structural transformation within the arts. She has served as a facilitator, advisor, artistic content producer, and critical friend for several arts and cultural institutions. More info about Kemê as culture worker/facilitator.
*Kemê is currently (2025) working with a one year Artists working grant from Taiteen edistämiskeskus
