MiklagårdArts is a change-maker platform, enabler, and connector to promote transnational and transcultural collaborations.

MiklagårdArts stands for a structure where collaboration becomes a sustainable and meaningful practice to design impactful projects and create diverse content in collaboration with existing arts and cultural institutions.

We want to help build a healthy and supportive society by cultivating understanding, radical inclusion, and empathy through the arts.

MiklagårdArts is one of the founding alliances of UNTITLED, a global, cross-sectoral alliance for social imagination and experimentation.

We facilitate

artistic interventions to merge internationalism and locality. We promote transnational collaborations with established arts and cultural institutions of the city to make Helsinki more international and diverse.

We build bridges

to unleash the potential between arts & science and arts & well-being; we want to unlock the territorial borders between tech-developers and traditional cultural institutions.

We curate & ınıtıate

tailor made artistic ideas and stimulate creative clashes that arise when one confronts an unknown artistic milieu. We are curious and open-minded. We want to inspire creative minds and souls for innovative multi-genre projects that will enrich the practices of Finnish arts and cultural institutions.

We celebrate

#diversity #equity and believe that values of #inclusion will foster cognitive diversity in the Finnish arts and culture sector. We want to help build a healthy and supportive society by cultivating understanding and empathy through the arts.

We seek to spark sustainable

working structures for independent cultural players. We are innovative. We promote new forms when it comes to artistic work, structure, business models, and the dialogue between arts & audience. Acquiring new ways of artistic collaborations will help us achieve an accurate understanding of the world where culture continuously develops alongside human beings.

Key
collaborators

The Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China.jpg

Ceyda & Erik

Ceyda Berk-Söderblom
*Post-national and transborder professional with roots in Mediterranean cultures, bridging diverse ideas, communities, and perspectives across borders.*

Founder and Artistic Director

Short bio:

Ceyda Berk-Söderblom is a cultural manager, curator, festival programmer, and expert of DEI. She is a senior project manager and researcher at the Trans Europe Halles (TEH), and leads the Cultural Transformation Movement project, a four-year project that aims to transform cultural organisations with full engagement of under-represented communities. Ceyda is also in charge of developing TEH’s relationship with the academic sector to be updated on the relevant academic literature on social justice, spatial justice, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and other topics relevant to underrepresented communities.

With over 20 years of experience in the field of arts, Ceyda has curated programmes internationally and worked closely with world-known institutions, orchestras, artists, and ensembles. In 2015 she founded MiklagårdArts, a facilitator and connector for promoting transnational and transcultural collaborations. Ceyda is a public advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion, focusing on policies, practices, norms, and institutions through her practice and her non-profit work as a board member and chair of Globe Art Point (2017-2021). She was an expert in the working group on cultural policy, immigration and cultural diversity appointed by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (2020) to prepare policy guidelines and the Art, Culture and Diverse Finland Report.

Since April 2024, Ceyda has served as the Chairperson of Culture for All Service, one of the most established advocacy organisations in Finland within the arts and culture sector. The organisation is committed to promoting cultural services that are accessible, inclusive, equitable, and mindful of diverse audiences and arts professionals.

Ceyda is a long-term content collaborator of Stop Hatred Now. an intercultural and anti-racist platform initiated by UrbanApa arts platform in collaboration with several art and intercultural organisations.

Originally trained as a journalist, she has a degree in communication, critical thinking, business administration, arts management, and leadership in arts; received her MA from the University of Arts Helsinki, majoring in social inclusion and cultural diversity. Ceyda is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and holds a “Bene Merito” honorary distinction from the Republic of Poland.

Long bio:

Based in Helsinki and Lund, Ceyda Berk-Söderblom is an independent curator, cultural entrepreneur, manager, festival programmer and DEI expert with more than 20 years of experience. She has worked with diverse cultures as the programmer of international festivals with close ties to world-known institutions, orchestras, artists, and ensembles. Ceyda has an extensive international professional network and specialist knowledge in programming, curating, cultural branding, co-creation, fundraising, sponsorship, advocacy and lobbying.

She currently works as a senior project manager and researcher at the Trans Europe Halles (TEH), and leads the Cultural Transformation Movement project, a four-year project that aims to transform cultural organisations with full engagement of under-represented communities.

Ceyda is originally from Izmir -historically Smyrna-, an 8500-year-old city located on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Being born and raised in a city right in the middle of historical landmarks such as Ephesus, Pergamon, Sardis, and Klazomenai, she has been constantly surrounded by culture. She grew up in a cosmopolitan family and has always been fascinated by complex and fluid social identities.

Her initial experience of arts was recognising the endless horizons of literature under her late grandmother's guidance, who was a poet. This very first encounter with art haunted her child soul and sowed the seeds of her life’s passion, path and field of work.

In 2015, she followed her heart, decided to settle in Helsinki and started a new chapter in her life. She founded MiklagårdArts and leads its development as a change-maker platform by focusing on inclusiveness, internationalisation, innovation, and bridge-building. Ceyda curates projects to promote creative clashes that arise when one confronts an unknown artistic milieu. One of her projects, a collaboration with the Finnish National Museum, Studio Aleppo [Helsinki], has been awarded the "Production of the Year-2017" by Taku ry–The Finnish Art and Cultural Professionals Trade Union.

She has been interested in exploring the complex trans-mutual process of change in humans both on a personal and a societal level. She is one of the founders and a member of the Executive Committee of the Experience Research Society (EXPRESSO). It’s a global network of experience-researchers and professionals across disciplines and aims to increase the scientific and societal impact of experience research and well-being.

Ceyda was one of the founding members of the UNTITLED - initiated by Demos Helsinki - a social imagination and experimentation process to bring pioneering thinkers and doers together to form unlikely alliances and initiate real-world experiments.

Ceyda also engages in public advocacy for equity, diversity and inclusion within the Finnish art scene by focusing on policies, practices, norms and institutions. In 2020 she worked as an expert in a working group on cultural policy, immigration and cultural diversity appointed by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture to prepare proposals for cultural policy guidelines and the Art, Culture and Diverse Finland Report.

In April 2024, she was appointed Chair of the Board at Culture for All, a Finnish organisation that is committed to promoting cultural services that are inclusive, equitable, and mindful of diverse audiences and arts professionals.

In 2019, Ceyda took up the position of the Chair of the Board of Globe Art Point (GAP) - an independent umbrella association to promote equality, equity, diversity and inclusion of foreign-born artists and cultural workers in Finland – where she served as a chairperson (2019-2021) and board member (2017-2019).

Between 2017-2019 she was a member of the Steering Group at Avaus / Opening project of Culture for All and a member of the development group of the “Friends of Finland” network.

In 2018, she was invited as an international expert by the Lithuanian Council for Culture to evaluate the applications and provide competent recommendations for the Council for a 3-year grant programme.

Before settling in Finland, Ceyda worked for the Izmir Foundation for Culture, Arts and Education (IKSEV), in her home city of Izmir, one of Turkey's most established art institutions. A non-profit, non-governmental Foundation is the organiser of two international festivals and a national composition contest, home to a music academy and museum. She held positions as Festival Coordinator and Main Producer at the International Izmir Festival (a member of European Festivals Association) and Programmer at Izmir European Jazz Festival (a member of European Jazz Network) for more than 14 years. Both festivals are flagship cultural events of the country, with high-level international visibility. Ceyda also worked for the other initiatives of IKSEV, such as Academy IKSEV, a pedagogical platform for master classes in the field of music and dance, and the Dr. Nejat Eczacıbasi National Composition Contest, which aims to encourage young Turkish composers of contemporary music.

During those years, Ceyda initiated transnational collaborations, including Martha Graham Dance Company’s Panorama project for the first time in Europe; presenting the award-winning RE-RITE, an immersive/interactive installation that features a film of the Philharmonia Orchestra playing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; co-organizing Yolda / Onderweg / En Route’ project, a musical celebration of the 50th year of Turkish migration to Belgium; initiating “Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe (EFFE)” Hub for Turkey, a project of the European Festivals Association (EFA) co-financed by the European Union; organising the Atelier for Young Festivals Managers of the European Festivals Association (EFA) in Izmir. She has curated programmes internationally, including artistic programmes celebrating diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands and Turkey and Poland.

In 2010, as the head of a grant team, she enabled a grant project financed by the Izmir Development Agency to found MUZIKSEV, the first traditional instrument museum in Turkey.

During her time (2002-2015) at International Izmir Festival, she has presented companies such as Béjart Ballet Lausanne, The Tokyo Ballet, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Dutch National Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Martha Graham Dance Company and Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve; and orchestras such as Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini conducted by Lorin Maazel, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino conducted by Zubin Mehta, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala conducted Myung-Whun Chung, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Daniele Gatti, Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert, Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Kzysztof Penderecki, Orchestra Luigi Cherubini conducted by Riccardo Muti; and soloists such as Emanuel Ax, Giora Feidman, Gheorghe Zamfir, Ian Anderson, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Julian Llyod Webber, Lucia Micarelli, Alexander Ghindin, David Lively, Janis Vakarelis, Cyprien Katsaris, Michele Campanella, Shlomo Mintz, Krzysztof Jabłoński, Mario Frangoulis, Yannis Markopoulos, Jose Carreras, Cesaria Evora, Emma Shapplin, Jane Birkin, Katia Guerreiro, Omara Portuondo, Robin Gibb, Buika, Pink Martini, Natalie Cole, Alexander Markov, Alexander Rudin, Chick Corea, Yuri Bashmet, Uto Ughi, Mischa Maisky, Hille Perl, Lee Santana, Rachel Podger, Yo-Yo Ma, Hüseyin Sermet and Itzhak Perlman.

As the programmer of the Izmir European Jazz Festival (2002-2015), the first and only festival building its programme around European jazz in Turkey, she presented musicians such as Paolo Fresu, Jacky Terrasson, Aydın Esen, Jacques Loussier, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Claudio Fasoli, Louis Sclavis, Urszula Dudziak, Erkan Oğur, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Ulrich Drechsler, Fahir Atakoğlu, Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez, Andy Manndorff, ICP Orchestra, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, Tomasz Stanko, Burhan Öçal, Tuluğ Tırpan, Wolfgang Puschnig, Kerem Görsev, Alan Broadbent, Ernie Watts, Yuri Honing, Edmar Castaneda, Marcin Wasilewski, Stefano Battaglia, Benjamin Herman, Dainius Pulauskas, Ondrej Krajnak, Gregory Privat, Timucin Sahin, Loren Stillman, Christopher Tordini, Gene Jackson, Maciej Obara, Tom Arthurs, Erik Truffaz Pascal Schumacher, Francesco Tristano, Mateusz Smoczyński, Michel Wintsch, Bänz Oester and Gerry Hemingway.

She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism at the Faculty of Communication of Ege University, her Business Administration and Management diploma from Dokuz Eylül University, her Executive Management Diploma at London College of Management; her Master of Arts degree at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki with a secondary subject: cultural diversity and social inclusion with her thesis, Diversity and Inclusion: a mission-critical task for today’s arts managers - Understanding diversity and inclusion management in the arts and culture sectors in Finland; and studied at the Business of Culture, Aalto University Executive Program for Leaders in Arts and Culture.

Ceyda holds a "Bene Merito" honorary distinction from the Ministry of International Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Ceyda, who has an incurable passion for literature, contributed to Andante Magazine, a monthly classical music magazine in Turkey, and worked as a blogger at the European Festivals Association blog spot, festival bytes.

As a co-editor, she published “Crossing Boundaries! European Contemporary Circus”, a visual book that includes the best examples of the circus in its contemporary narrative. Her essay “Unveil Creative Chaos - A Call to Storm the Bastille,” commissioned by the Berliner Festspiele, was published in the Jazzfest Berlin 2018's Magazine.

In-house Artistic Partner

Erik Söderblom is a festival director, stage director, pedagogue, script writer and a public advocate of the art.

One of the most influential figures in Finland’s performing arts scene, Erik was born into a well-known Swedish-speaking artistic family. His father, Ulf Söderblom, served for 30 years as Chief Conductor of the Finnish National Opera and and was one of the founders of the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Erik began playing piano and cello in childhood and has been immersed in the arts ever since.

He studied philosophy and arts at the University of Helsinki, continued with theatre studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and then pursued opera directing at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich in the class of the legendary August Everding, supported by a special talent scholarship from the Henrik Steffens Foundation. Erik later returned to Finland to attend the directors' class at the Theatre Academy of Helsinki, where he earned a Master of Arts degree.. During those early years (1982–1985), Erik also conducted the Chamber Strings of Helsinki. With this ensemble, he launched his very first festival — a week of concerts marking the 300th anniversary of J.S. Bach’s birth — laying the foundation for what would become Finland’s highly regarded baroque music tradition.

From 1988 to 1990, Erik worked as Director of the Turku City Theatre. In 1990, he co-founded Q-teatteri Helsinki with a group of young and talented artists — actors, directors, writers, and set designers of his generation — developing it into a bearer of the progressive and radical impulse into a hub for progressive and radical theatre. At Q-teatteri, he directed an acclaimed series of productions that included new Finnish works as well as classics like Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Twelfth Night, and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Many of these productions toured festivals in Finland and abroad. Today, Q-teatteri is regarded as one of Finland’s leading theatre companies. Erik served as Chairman of the Board and Artistic Director from 1996 to 2002. On Erik’s initiative, Q-teatteri founded Baltic Circle, a network for independent theatre groups around the Baltic Sea. In 2000, he established this as the Baltic Circle Theatre Festival, serving as its first Artistic Director and setting the vision for its future. Today, the festival is an internationally recognized platform for contemporary theatre and performance..

In 2009, Erik was appointed Artistic Director and CEO of the Helsinki Festival — Finland’s largest arts festival, running since 1968 under the Helsinki Events Foundation. The festival’s programming spans classical and world music, theatre, dance, circus, visual arts, and large-scale city events. Under his leadership, which concluded in October 2015, the Helsinki Festival grew into one of Europe’s most prominent multi-disciplinary arts events and the largest of its kind in the Nordic countries, increasing its annual audience by 25% to over 300,000 and expanding its budget by 20%.

Erik left a strong mark on the Helsinki Festival’s evolution. He significantly expanded its scope by introducing city-wide happenings with tens of thousands of participants and secured funding to bring top international orchestras to Helsinki each year. For his final edition in 2015, he curated a special country focus, Focus China — the most comprehensive presentation of Chinese art and culture ever seen in the Nordic countries. Supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the programme showcased over 500 Chinese artists through drama, dance, music, film, photography, installations, and new media. Since 2015, the Helsinki Festival has been awarded the EFFE Label recognizing its artistic quality and international impact.

In 2015, Erik became the in-house artistic partner at MiklagardArts, an independent, self-funded creative platform addressing the significant demographic shifts in Finnish and Nordic societies through artistic interventions, while championing diversity, equity, inclusion, and the internationalization of the arts ecosystem.

In 2016, he was invited to join the Artistic Committee of the Tampere Theatre Festival, Finland’s most prominent international performing arts festival, as a curating member.

Between 2017 and 2024, Erik served as the Artistic Director and CEO of Espoo City Theatre. During his tenure, he transformed the theatre from a traditional city institution into a responsive and relevant performing arts house, establishing it as a trendsetter in the Finnish performing arts scene. This rebranding and contextual repositioning included the much-debated—and at times scandalous—name change of the theatre to “& – Espoo Theatre”. The theatre, located in the capital region of Finland, produces its own performances and annually hosts 15–20 guest performances from around the world, becoming increasingly relevant and accessible to an audience with a growing diversity of cultural backgrounds. In 2024, impressed by the theatre’s success, the Espoo City Council made the long-awaited decision to build a new venue. The new theatre, designed by leading Finnish architects, is set to open in 2028. Erik, together with the Cultural Department of the City of Espoo, developed the strategy for this new building.. He actively fostered co-creation with different organisations, including the Aalto University and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern , emphasizing anti-disciplinary artistic expressions and methods, as well as the intersection of the arts with artificial intelligence and extended reality. Thanks to Söderblom’s visionary leadership, & – Espoo Theatre achieved national acclaim and was honored as Theatre of the Year in 2025..

With over 60 premiered drama productions and 40 opera productions to his name, Erik is recognized not only as a leading theatre director but also as one of his country’s most accomplished opera directors. His work includes award-winning productions of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio (Entführung aus dem Serail) and The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) at Pori Opera, Don Giovanni for the Helsinki Festival, and a massive outdoor staging of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer) in Turku, featuring top-ranked singers like Juha Uusitalo, Matti Salminen, Päivi Nisula, and Jorma Silvasti. Among his standout projects are a staging of J.S. Bach’s St John Passion with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, and a semi-concertante performance of Shostakovich’s long-forgotten opera parody Orango for the Helsinki Festival, performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen. He presented his artistic farewell as Artistic Director of the Helsinki Festival with a widely acclaimed semi-staged production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, featuring Florian Boesch and Karita Mattila in the lead roles. Worth mentioning is also his much spoken-of reinterpretetion of Mozart´s Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 2023.

As a trained musician, Erik brings a unique ability to interpret even the most intricate contemporary music scores. He has directed the world premieres of several Finnish operas, including Tapio Tuomela’s Mothers and Daughters, Lars Karlsson’s Rödhamn, and Mikko Heiniö’s The Hour of the Serpent—all at the Finnish National Opera—as well as Veli-Matti Puumala’s Anna Liisa for the Helsinki Festival. In 2019, Erik brought to life FLASH FLASH – The Two Deaths of Andy Warhol, a bold and unconventional work by Juhani Nuorvala and Juha Siltanen, which has since been hailed as one of the most striking pieces of contemporary Finnish music theatre in recent decades.

Beyond his artistic work, Erik has made a strong impact as a theatre educator. In 1998, he founded the legendary music theatre class at Turku Polytechnic, and in 2000, became Professor of Acting at the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. From 2005 to 2009, while continuing as professor, he also served as Vice-Rector of the university, contributing to the strategic merger of Finland’s major arts institutions — the Theatre Academy, the Academy of Fine Arts, and the Sibelius Academy — into what is now the University of the Arts Helsinki.

His deep interest in history led him to write the script for the four-part television series The Activists, produced by Finland’s national broadcaster YLE in 2019..

Mentorship is another important part of Erik’s work. He has supported a number of young artists, directors, and festival professionals in Finland and abroad. As part of this role, he collaborated with the European Festivals’ Association for the Festival Readings in Sochi in 2016.

Erik has served on various committees for the appointment of professors and lecturers at Nordic theatre academies, is an expert consultant for the Stina Krook Foundation and as a member of the Delegation for the Swedish Cultural Foundation.

Since 2016, he has also been a member of the European House for Culture.

In 2018, Erik was honored by the French government as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters).