b. 1952. Finland. Has for a number of years been a prominent figure in Finnish performance. She has adopted Optimist as a last name to counterbalance the Finnish melancholy, and since 1989 she has travelled the world and made over 160 performances. She is a professor of mathematics, specialising in chaos theory. Through her optimistic maths, she explores symbols of food, love and sexuality. In order to question the scientific logic, she combines feminism with abstract mathematics and absurd humour. Irma Optimist is the head of the performance scene LÀ BAS in Helsinki.

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