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Improv Sessions XIV: Grisell Macdonel and James Andean

  • museum of Impossible Forms 4 Keinulaudankuja Helsinki, 00940 Finland (map)

Improv Sessions XIV: Grisell Macdonel and James Andean

Grisell Macdonel (MEX/FIN): Prepared double bass.

James Andean (CAN/UK): Intimate electronics and sound objects

19:00 to 23:00, at Museum of Impossible Forms, Keinulaudankuja 4 E, 00940 Helsinki. Kontula.

Museum of Impossible forms is excited to present its first Improv Series of 2020 with artists James Andean and Grisell Macdonel.

From February to July 2020 the artistic organisations Interkult, Museum of Impossible Forms, Catalysti Association of Transcultural Artists and Korvat Auki Ensemble, together with the Sibelius Academy and the Laponia Improvisations school, merge forces to produce the Helsinki Experimental Series: A performative/listening experience.

“Within the main aspects outlining the curatorial process of the series are: Improvisation, music genre and art aesthetics diversity, and re-thinking paradigms of expertise.” 

This series intends to highlight and support experimentalism in music, sound and performance art in Helsinki, as well as it offers to the artists the possibility to share their work and to interact with other artists in situ.

Grisell Macdonel is a double bass player and musicologist. Her research combines her perspective as musician and her approach as musicologist. Along with art music, musical improvisation is one of her main fields of interest in which she focuses on free improvisation and musical experimentation with the double bass. Her improvisations are inspired by diverse aspects such as, the idiomatic nature of the double bass, intimate feelings, Mexican and Finnish ancient myths, nature as she experiences it, and political statements.

James Andean is a musician and sound artist. He is active as both a composer and a performer in a range of fields, including electroacoustic music, improvisation, sound art, and audiovisuals. He is a founding member of several groups and ensembles, including Rank Ensemble, LOS duo, and VCA. In 2019 his debut acousmatic cd ‘Assemblance(s)’ was released on the empreintes DIGITALes label. He is Senior Lecturer at Music, Technology and Innovation – Institute for Sonic Creativity at De Montfort University.


Museum of Impossible Forms is a cultural space, located in Kontula, Helsinki. It is a contested Space and it represents a contact zone, a space of unlearning, formulating identity constructs, norm-critical consciousness and critical thinking. Impossible Forms are those that erase and facilitate the process of transgressing the boundaries/borders between art, politics, practice, theory, the artist and the spectator. For 2019-2020, Museum of Impossible Forms operates under the curatorial theme of ‘The Atlas of Lost Beliefs (For Insurgents, Citizens and Untitled Bodies)’.

Museum of Impossible Forms is a Safer Space. We follow a  Safer Space policy to create a welcoming, inclusive, awesome environment.

Events at the Museum of Impossible Forms are completely free and accessible without prior booking.

Museum of Impossible Forms is accessible by lift with thresholds up to 4cm on the way. The toilet has no thresholds but is not spacious enough to meet accessibility standards. The nearest accessible toilet is located at Kontula metro station.

For directions, please refer to this Map.