Timjune Tianjun Li
李天竣
Tianjun Li (CN/FI), also known as Timjune, is a Finland-based visual artist, experimental vocalist, and musician working across photography, video, sound, voice, performance, and community-based practices. Li works with synesthesia and an exceptional four-octave vocal range to create imaginative sonic-visual landscapes where more-than-human beings emerge as metaphors for socio-ecological realities. Li holds a master’s degree in Visual Cultures, Curating, and Contemporary Art, with a minor in Sound in New Media, from Aalto University.
Li’s artistic work has been supported by Espoo Artist Grant, Saastamoinen Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Art & Tech Award by Aalto University and Genelec, and the Finnish- Danish Cultural Foundation, and they has been awarded residencies and fellowships, including Kone Foundation’s Saari Residence (FI), Nordic Culture Point’s B28 Residence (FI), SIM Residency (IS), Espronceda Institute of Art and Culture (ES), Island Connect program (EU), and was selected for the E75 Art Bus project by MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre and European Capital of Culture Oulu.
Their works have been exhibited and performed internationally in institutions such as Akureyri Art Museum (IS), Copenhagen Photo Festival (DK), Skissernas Museum (SE), Africa Foto Fair at MuCAT Museum (IC), Design Museum of Barcelona (ES), Northern Photographic Centre (FI), Contemporary Image Museum (CN), MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Center (FI), and Buffalo Arts Studio (NY). Their upcoming solo exhibitions will be held at Nykyaika Photographic Centre (FI) and Forum Box (FI) in 2026.
Li extends their practice into digital space through long-term projects like Singing Walk (2022–) and Echo, Echo, Echo (2025-). Performed as the digital avatar “Timjune,” these site-responsive vocal works circulate across continents, bypassing institutional and digital walls. Reaching more than 20 million views and 140k+ followers, they have formed a transnational artistic community.
In addition to their independent work, Li has collaborated with musicians and organizations, including Warner Music Group, contributing photography and visual storytelling for music releases.
Education
2022-2024 MA Visual Cultures, Curating, and Contemporary Art (ViCCA), Minor in Sound in New Media, Aalto University, FI
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2026 Forum Box, Helsinki, FI (Upcoming)
2026 Of Wind, Of Wing, Photographic Centre Nykyaika, Tampere, FI
2024 Today, Tomorrow, and the Tales from the Wind, Photo North - Northern Photographic Centre, Oulu, FI
Selected Project Exhibition
2026 E75 Art Bus: Tianjun Li: Echo, Echo, Echo, MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Center, FI
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Cerveira Art Biennial, PT (Upcoming)
2026 Culture Trail Commission, Saari Residence Kone Foundation, FI
2026 Tekniikan Museum, Helsinki (Upcoming)
2025 Onboards Biennale 2025, Antwerpen, BE
2025 Copenhagen Photo Festival, DK
2024 Aavistus Biennial of Audiovisual Art, Helsinki City Museum, FI
2024 Africa Foto Fair, MuCAT Museum, IC & Galerie Studer, Abidjan
2024 International Photography and Media Art Festival, M. Žilinskas Art Museum, Kaunas, LT
2023 Past & Present: Der Greif 15 Anniversary, Pinakothek der Moderne & ZIRKA, Munich, DE
2023 New Talents (1st Place Winner), Belgrade Photo Month, RS
2023 1839 Photography Award, Contemporary Image Museum, Chengdu, CN
2023 Buffalo Arts Studio, New York
Selected Performances & Concerts
2026 Arctic Sounds Festival (Supported by NAPA & Danish-Finnish Culture Foundation), GL
2026 Nordic House, Reykjavik, IS (Upcoming)
2025 MANIFEST: IO: Symposium for New Media and Electronic Art, Berlin, DE
2025 La Nature Festival and Photographic Exploration Project, BE
2025 Solo Concert at Aranya 阿那亚礼堂个人音乐会, CN
2025 A! Festival, Akureyri Art Museum, IS
2024 Rendered Voice, Skissernas Museum, Lund, SE
2024 Intent: Practice, Research, and Togetherness, Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP), Helsinki
2024 ADCE, Design Museum of Barcelona
2024 Solo Concert, Stockholm Fringe Festival, SE
2024 Outsider Art Festival, Mad House, Helsinki, FI
Selected Grants, Residencies & Fellowships
2026 Saastamoinen Foundation, Project Grant, FI
2026 Saari Residence by KONE Foundation, FI
2026 B28 Residency by Nordic Culture Point, FI
2026 IN SITU PLATFORM, EU
2026 Áras Éanna Arts Centre Residency, IRE
2026 Nordic Institute in Greenland (NAPA), Project Grant
2025 Art & Tech Award, Aalto Studios and Genelec, FI
2025 Artist Grant, Espoo City, FI
2025 Island Connect, Creative Europe Residency for Performing Arts, FR & ES
2025 Öre Residency Summer Artist, FI
2025 E75 Art Bus, Cultural Captial of Europe, MUU Contemporary Art Centre Helsinki, EU
2025 ESPRONCEDA Center for Art and Culture, PMP Project Selected Artist, ES
2024 Travel Grant, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, FI
2024 Art Lives Here Residency (Works acquired by Leonardo Hotels Collection), PL
2023 Theatre in Palm Residency Grant, Funded by Creative Europe, EU
2023 SIM Artist Residency (Aalto Art and Media Grant), IS
Selected Press & Talks
2026 Artist Talk, Finnish Museum of Photography & Nordic Culture Point
2025 Artist Interview, Yle (Finnish National TV Channel)
2025 Almanac, Struer Tracks: Biennial for Sound and Listening, Sound Art Lab, 2025
2024 Der Greif, Curated by Torbjørn Rødland (Launch during Paris Photo Fair)
2024 Feature Article, 假杂志 JIAZAZHI
2023 Cover Artist & Interview, Modern Weekly 周末画报; Featured Artist, NOWNESS Asia
李天竣（Timjune），是活跃于北欧的艺术家，以摄影、影像、声音、实验声乐与表演结合的实践而广受关注。他以联觉与超越越四个八度的音域，将“超越人类”的意象转化为关于迁徙、生态与归属的影像与声音的艺术叙事。李天竣毕业于芬兰阿尔托大学，获视觉文化、策展与当代艺术硕士学位，和新媒体声音艺术的辅修学位。
他曾获 2025 年芬兰埃斯波市艺术家奖，入选多个国际驻地与奖金，包括通力基金会 Saari 驻地（芬兰）、北欧文化点 B28 驻地（芬兰）、SIM 驻地（冰岛）、Espronceda 当代艺术文化中心（西班牙）。2025 年，他代表芬兰参与由欧洲文化创意计划支持的 Island Connect，并获选 MUU 当代艺术中心与欧洲文化之都奥卢 2026 推出的 E75 艺术巴士计划，该项目将在 2026 年开启欧洲巡展与现场表演。2026 年，他将在芬兰 Nykyaika 摄影中心与 Forum Box 举办个展，成为该著名机构历史上最年轻的个展艺术家之一。
他的作品已在欧洲、亚洲、非洲与北美的重要艺术机构与节展展出。在数字层面，他通过 Singing Walk（2022–）与 echo, kaiku, huisheng（2025–）等项目，将现场声乐即兴带入虚拟空间，以“Timjune”的数字身份演绎。相关作品突破地理与数字壁垒，在全球获得超过两千万次观看，并吸引十四万余名关注者，形成跨国艺术社群。
在独立创作之外，李天竣亦与音乐人及机构合作，包括 Warner Music Group 等为音乐作品贡献摄影与视觉叙事。
Tianjun Li’s Artist Talk at Finnish Museum of Photography, Nordic Culture Point, 2026
In conversation with Orlan Ohtonen (Chief-Curator of Exhibitions at the Finnish Museum of Photography)
Artist Interview with Tianjun Li (Timjune) - YLE (Finnish National TV Channel) (Excerpt, 2025)
Artist Feature on Der Greif, 2024
Selected Review
“When I first encountered the work of Tianjun Li, I experienced a sense of rare excitement. Having been engaged in art criticism and curatorial practice for many years, I have seldom come across, among the younger generation of Chinese artists living in the West, a practice that succeeds in constructing a coherent aesthetic and intellectual system. In Li’s work, I recognized this possibility.
They are a natural artist, a figure whose multi-layered yet integrated identity shapes a practice of remarkable consistency. Their dual role as visual artist and vocal artist generates a cross-disciplinary unity. What emerges is a distinctive narrative structure that is both imaginative and transcendent, and in my view, such interdisciplinary coherence is exceptionally rare and valuable in today’s artistic landscape.
Their work often calls to mind pioneers such as Meredith Monk and Susan Philipsz, who opened new paths for the voice in relation to space and memory. Yet Li extends their legacy in a different direction. The texture of their voice carries qualities of de-gendering and even the posthuman, moving beyond the confines of the individual body to become a channel that traverses species and perceptual boundaries. This “de-anthropocentric” vocal aesthetics enables their work to articulate new and resonant narratives around pressing and universal questions of migration, freedom, and ecology, narratives that are at once light in form and profound in impact. Equally distinctive is their visual practice. Through a highly personal vocabulary of color, grayscale, and an expansive surrealist sensibility, they construct images that dismantle aspects of reality often ignored or silenced. Their works balance the dreamlike with the weight of actuality.From a personal perspective, what I value most in their position is their refusal of passive cultural symbolization. As a young Chinese artist working within Western art contexts, they do not acquiesce to external demands for “Chineseness.” Instead, they ground their language in personal body experience, producing a practice that is both independent and resonant.
Moreover, I am genuinely impressed by their huge influence on social media. They have integrated social media as an active dimension of their practice, an open arena of dialogue between art and the public, and has evoked significant influence and response from the public audience. It is in this capacity that I see in them the potential to emerge as a figure of international significance, bridging China and the West, and perhaps, in time, as a cultural icon.”
Chen Lan (art critic and curator, 2025)
Review translated from Chinese.