The year 2026 began at Theater Quo Vadis’ new premises in Hermanni, Helsinki, with a residency by director-screenwriter Carmen Kautto and her team. Otherwise, QV UG is still keeping its doors closed while awaiting the permission decision from the city authorities – we are hoping to open the space to the public in spring 2026.
The land of mermaids
“What is sin?
Sin is mild fanaticism
Sensible half-madness
Lukewarm half-restlessness”
Directed and written by Kautto, the performance, bearing the working title Land of Mermaids, is based on the works of poet Zinaida Gippius (1869–1945) and delves into the queer history of 19th-century St. Petersburg’s literary and artistic scene. Combining theater and music, the work is built around gender identity, sexuality, and the building of community and collective space. In her poetry, diaries, and life-performance, Gippius passionately seeks an alternative to gender binary and constructs a queer identity that combines her experiences of her own body and love, her theological thinking, and her resistance to heteropatriarchal norms.
Director Kautto sums up the working group’s first residency time:
“We explored the images evoked by Zinaida’s poems in a spatial and physical sense, encountering the recurring characters in them – stubborn mermaids, devils shedding silent tears, a girl who does not exist, the inner electricity waiting to be released. We looked at each other and did portraits of each other, trying to see each other as Leon Bakst once saw Zinaida in 1906. We searched for the boundary between the secret and shared space through dressing up and being looked at, listening to the interpretations of Zinaida’s contemporaries:
“Zina was a strange creature, I often thought; as if she had come from another planet. Her brick-red cheeks, her dyed hair, which resembled a wig: it was as if she had consciously molded herself into some kind of parody of femininity. She wasn’t just a poet, her whole being and dress sense was poetry: loud and provocative.”
The performance is a co-production between Theatre Quo Vadis and the France-based Collectif Boxon Sentimental, and is part of Kautto’s project combining artistic work and cultural-historical research. In addition to Kautto, the Finnish-French working group includes actors Benjamin Dequiedt, Minerva Kautto, and Anna Korolainen Crevier, costume designer Marion Duvinage, and lighting and video designer Alpi Vaalaja. The dramaturg for the performance is Quo Vadis’ artistic director Louna-Tuuli Luukka. The work is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Taike, and the Kone Foundation.
The work will premiere in the beginning of 2027 and is part of Quo Vadis’ main program. More detailed performance times and locations will be announced later.
QV UG offers a cozy home for marginal art and subcultures
QV UG – Quo Vadis Underground is a new performance space concept in Hermanni, Helsinki, where Quo Vadis, previously a nomadic theatre, has been based since the summer of 2025. QV UG is a guest stage and multi-arts event space where Quo Vadis will begin to build a communal audience and collaborative culture that strives for radical hospitality. The project focuses on uncompromising artistic content and community activities, and aims to respond to the needs of Helsinki’s performing arts scene by providing affordable rehearsal and performance space, for example. The project is funded by the Kone Foundation and the City of Helsinki.