TRIÁLOGO is a site-specific music performance in which flamenco singer Anna Murtola, electronic music artist Josu Mämmi, and a long-abandoned space engage in a three-way dialogue that reaches across time.
The idea for a performance combining flamenco singing, electronic music, and abandoned spaces was born already in 2024, when Oulu-born flamenco singer Anna Murtola invited electronic music artist Josu Mämmi to collaborate. At that time, a pilot version of the work was performed at Toppila’s AaltoSiilo as part of the Post-Industrial Dance event. Now the piece will grow into its full-scale version within the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture programme. The June performances will take place at the over 120-year-old Maunula Mill in Oulainen and at AaltoSiilo in Oulu, a former woodchip silo of the old Toppila Oy factory that is currently being transformed into a cultural venue after years of waiting for a new purpose.
The soundscape, history, characteristics, and stories of the performance venues also influence the other two participants in the trialogue, shaping the content of the performance itself. “We spend time in these places getting to know their soul; we’ve had the opportunity to interview people who worked in these buildings, hear stories and memories, and learn a great deal about the kind of work that once took place there. We’ve also explored archival materials such as newspaper articles and historical records,” says flamenco singer Anna Murtola, who created the concept behind the work.
Murtola has been fascinated by abandoned houses and old industrial buildings since childhood. She also has what may seem like a surprising background in the study of antiquity — she was originally supposed to become an archaeologist before flamenco singing swept her away. “With this work, we wanted to give value and attention to these silent places and to memories and soundscapes that are almost gone.”
Murtola’s artistic partner in the project is Josu Mämmi. Also born in Oulu, Mämmi is a versatile composer, musician, percussionist, electronic music artist, sound designer, DJ, and producer. He explains: “The meeting of electronic music and flamenco feels like a fascinating and fertile starting point for music. The concrete sounds discovered through the spaces bring timeless affects into the whole, and in this project we are always encountering both something old and nearly forgotten, as well as something new and fresh.”
Echoes of real memories and preservation of stories
During the creative process, the artists have searched for — and found — people who once worked at the performance sites. Interviews with these men have provided valuable insight into things such as the smell and atmosphere of the old Maunula Mill when it was still operating, or the sounds that filled the Toppila silo while people worked there. They have also uncovered dramatic stories and even ghost tales. Parts of these stories, told in the narrators’ own voices, will also be heard within the performance alongside the music. Photography by Oulu-based photographer Janne-Pekka Manninen serves as the artistic documentation of the project. All material created during the project — including interviews and photographs — will be archived in the collections of the Northern Ostrobothnia Museum.
The TRIÁLOGO performance opens doors to already closed “in-between spaces” — places with histories as industrial workplaces or public spaces, but which now risk disappearing after falling out of use for one reason or another. The work invites audiences to honour these places and the memories they contain, and to experience once more something that may already have been forgotten. Deeply moving flamenco singing, rooted in human emotion, meets urban electronic music and the unique qualities of the spaces, bringing memories back to life, if even for a moment more.
Anna Murtola & Josu Mämmi: TRIÁLOGO
📍 Maunula Mill, Oulainen
Sat 13 June 2026 at 16:00
Sat 13 June 2026 at 18:00
Part of the Oulainen Music Weeks 40th anniversary programme
In collaboration with the City of Oulainen
Tickets – Oulainen 🎟️
www.hs.fi/menokone/events/248109
📍 AaltoSiilo, Oulu
Fri 26 June 2026 at 19:00
Sat 27 June 2026 at 16:00
Tickets – Oulu 🎟️
www.hs.fi/menokone/events/247420
Part of the official Oulu2026 cultural programme.
Supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Oulu Cultural Foundation.
