Who are we?

Mean Time Between Failures is an experimental performance art collaboration established in the year 2019 by artists Dash Che and Suvi Tuominen. They produce, choreograph, perform, teach and work as dramaturgs in the collective. For the past 5 years Mean Time Between Failures has developed a variety of performance works, engaged in discourses around art, and established collaborations with other artists, scholars and production platforms. 

Between 2023-2025 the duo has been working with a performance project that approaches the problem and concept of humor in performance making through various perspectives and histories. The project highlights East Slavic jesters, Skomorokhs, as its invisible protagonists and companions. The project is supported by Kone Foundation. Read more about the project here. 

What are the histories and values of Mean Time Between Failures?

Mean Time Between Failures is based on an artistic friendship that carries multivocality as its core. One of us identifies as a trans nonbinary person while another one as a cisgender woman. One of us is a trained archaeologist and bellydancer, the other one worked in queer underground performance, LGBTQ activism and organizing. One of us was born in Soviet Russia while another one - in the formerly social democratic society of Finland. One of us lived undocumented in the United States for five years participating in DIY art making and the underground economy. Another one traveled around Europe and the Middle East performing, learning and teaching oriental dance for years.
By having established a trustful work environment where failure and disagreements are embraced Mean Time Between Failures approaches the unsettling, complex and controversial. 

For Mean Time Between Failures sustainability in performance means working with the past, creating dialogue with other artists (even those already gone) and preserving legacies of performance art. In most of our works we aim to find an artist or an artwork from the past that we respond to or stay with while working. In addition, Mean Time Between Failures has created collaborations with other art workers that we sustain, example of such are collaborations with sound designer Oula Rytkönen and media artist Sini Henttu. 

Mean Time Between Failures are committed to find ways in which performance art by staying sincere and entertaining offers entry points for audiences coming from many different backgrounds.

Where are we based?

Mean Time Between Failures is based in Helsinki, Finland. 

What does Mean Time Between Failures mean?

Originally the name ‘mean time between failures’ was taken from the machines’ realm, for example, mechanical or electronic systems. It describes the elapsed time between inherent failures of the systems that can be repaired and depends on the definition of what is considered a failure.

For our system of the entanglement of two plus human bodies and a number of non-human bodies Mean Time Between Failures name gestures toward the ongoing presence of failure and mishaps. The name steadily frame our rigor, rage and curiosity as artists and bodies in relation to the political, social, imaginary and corporeal. 

Moreover, we view our collective as an open system that repairs itself by coming in close contact with what impacted its breakage in the first place. Our open system multiplies, drops its organs/parts – the art objects that are left around like spores – and goes through the processes of misalignment and realignment. This informs our artistic work methods and the relationship to each other as artistic collaborators.

We find that it is curious and playful that the word ‘mean’ has so many meanings in English whether in a verb, an adjective, or in a noun form. We relate to the multiplicity of meanings here. While in sciences ‘mean’ means ‘an average’ or ‘a middle way,’ in other realms of language it stands for ‘unkind’ or ‘vicious.’ In the past, ‘mean’ was used when pointing at someone of a low birth or social class. In informal English ‘mean’ can signify ‘a very skillful or effective.’ We rotate and roll through all of these meanings in our collective art practice. Sometimes we choose to be simply mean and angry, other times – average.