Video History Project

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Torsten Zena Burns

Torsten Zenas Burns is a video artist and media arts educator based in Finland. He holds a BFA in video from the New York State College of Art & Design at Alfred University and an MFA in New Genres (video and performance art) from the San Francisco Art Institute.

His video, photographs, sculptural installations and electronic publishing projects explore re-imagined educational practices, speculative bodies, experimental space programs, post-humans, improvisational movement, zombie and afterlife relationships, humanimal stories, appropriated 1970s television, cryptid mythologies, family archives, Scandinavian folklore and ecological fictions. He has collaborated with Monika Czyzyk, Darrin Martin, Hanne K. Burns and, as Halflifers, with Anthony Discenza. His work is distributed by Vtape, Rhizome Art Base, Video Data Bank and Electronic Arts Intermix.

Residencies include the Ucross Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Experimental Television Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the L.M.C.C. World Views Studio Program, Smack Mellon, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, The Outpost, Signal Culture and f.eks. (AIR). Screenings include the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pacific Film Archive, Chicago Underground Film Festival, European Media Arts Festival, Impakt, Melbourne International Film Festival, Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Busan International Video Festival. He received a visual arts grant from Taike, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, in 2022. He is a board member of Vartiosaari Artists ry and co-runs the artist house studios and residency program on Vartiosaari island, Helsinki.

Portfolio: torstenzenasburns.myportfolio.com

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"Torsten Zena Burns." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/torsten-zena-burns.

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Last modified 16 September 2026

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