Jonna Lehto
“Tails and Tailbones,” for which Jonna Lehto was awarded a CAF grant, is both a playful and serious performance that journeys into the fierce discord and the distant peace between large carnivores and humans. Combining documentary and physical expression, the work delves into the relationship between humans and wolves — the treatment of wolves, and all the emotional terrain where the wolf wanders in us. The project unfolded in two phases: two art-based workshops and three performances in November 2025, developed in collaboration with the Wolf Action Group of the Finnish Nature League, whose members served as co-facilitators and contributed documentary audio material. Workshop participants deepened the work’s thematic scope and revealed how little urban residents knew about wolf conservation.
The project landed at a charged political moment — the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was actively amending hunting law to permit wolf hunting — giving the performances added urgency. In December 2024, the Council of Europe had backed an EU proposal to downgrade wolves’ protection status from “strictly protected” to “protected.” Northern Europe is seeing growing “wolf hate,” as media reports more wolf sightings in human habitats and debate intensifies without real dialogue. Jonna sees performance as a possible forum “for thinking about where we want to take this world and what we want to become in this world, living side by side with other species.” Following the run, she received performance and workshop requests from eastern and western Finland, regions where wolves are present and the debate most active.
Jonna Lehto s a dance and theatre artist exploring kinship, communality, and communication with different beings, working across collaborative community and performing arts projects.
Photo of Jonna Lehto: Visa Knuuttila
