Miradonna Sirkka is a contemporary circus and performance artist, director and performer based in Helsinki, Finland. Her works of art are multidisciplinary blends of performance art, installation, video, sound and media art. Inspiration arises from pleasure, emotions that are too big to handle, disgusting and top secret thoughts, human contact and everyday awkwardness. Every detail is thought through too many times and then dipped into a sugar bowl and dug out gruesomely realistic. Plasticity, pine forest, femmeness and grittiness all feature in the works.
Miradonna graduated as a circus artist from Turku University of Applied Sciences and as a Master of Arts from Aalto University in Visual Culture and Curating Contemporary Art. She also studied media art as a master exchange in Tama Art University in Tokyo. Miradonna is the founder and co-Artistic Director of Recover Laboratory, a multi-disciplinary group. Miradonna’s and Recover Laboratory’s works have been seen in Finland and internationally.
Alpi Vaalaja is a lighting, space and video designer. Alpi works extensively in various fields of art and design, from performing arts to lighting design for public spaces. In their work, they look for intuitive spaces that produce powerful subconscious and bodily experiences. Alpi has worked together with several artists and groups in Finland and abroad at the forefront when it comes to both aesthetics and content, e.g. Janina Rajakangas, Recovery Laboratory, Blaue Frau.
Nonstop Paradise is a hedonistic celebration that destroys everything, just like the lifestyle of the 2020s. The thoughts are simple, but extremely romantic, and therefore doomed. Beauty floats upside down and turns into terror. The most touching connection is the recognition of the ugliness of the other and of the self, and obviously the eventual death.
Meet Alpi Vaalaja and Miradonna Sirkka at CirkusExpo 2026. The performance Nonstop Paradise is in the preview selection.
recoverlaboratory.com
miradonnasirkka.com
alpivaalaja.com
Trailer of Nonstop Paradise