Johanna Ruotsalainen (1983, she/her) is a Finnish composer and visual artist, currently working as a senior lecturer in music theory and composition in Oulu UAS and as a dissertation researcher in University of Lapland. In recent years, Ruotsalainen has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed international contemporary performers, ensembles and festivals, such as Ligeti Quartet (UK), Mise-en Ensemble (NY), Gewandhaus Orchestra (GE) and ToolBox Percussion (CHN) and she is the holder of the prestigious Hanns Eisler composition Scholar of 2020. Coming from the Arctic area, Ruotsalainen is working to increase the inclusion of marginal voices to the globalized, Western-centered and historically colonialized definition of high-arts: Culture is used to perpetuate differences by giving visibility and experience of belonging only to certain stories. Criteria for artistic quality are not traditionally verbalized in detail but are hidden behind peer and expert evaluations. The artistic quality presented and perceived as universal can obscure the mechanisms that maintain inequality, which produces exclusion based on for example place of origin.