Aapo Nikkanen is an artist, researcher, and hypnotherapist.

His current work focuses on hypnotic performances and photography. In 2024, he earned a hypnotherapist’s degree, and he runs a hypnotherapy cabinet in Paris. Alongside his artistic practice, Nikkanen researches and periodically writes about new technologies. He teaches and gives workshops in art and design universities across Europe, and occassionally does design commissions and collaborations.

In his performances, the guests visit speculative realities through hypnosis. The content of the pieces deals with the development of new technologies, their asymmetrical power concentration, and their potential political, ecological, and psychological impacts.

In the portraits taken by Nikkanen, the subjects are in a hypnotic trance at the moment of capture. The slow-paced photography sessions use hypnosis as a tool to construct brief moments in which the models can fully embody desired emotions, mental states, or even entirely fictional constructs. The technique allows a temporary detachment from the social roles and masks that typically define behavior, and lets the models embody different realities.

The work of Nikkanen has been shown internationally for the past 10 years. Hes work has exhibited in numerous international institutions, including Le Crédac, Palais de Tokyo, and Fondation Ricard in Paris, Design Museum in Helsinki, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Casa Encendida in Madrid, and de Appel Art Center in Amsterdam. In 2016 co-founded Parisian art space and collective The Community, where he acted as the Director of Art until departing in 2020.