Johanna Ruotsalainen (b. 1983) is a Finnish composer and visual artist, currently working as a junior researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Lapland. In recent years, Ruotsalainen has collaborated with some of the most prestigious international contemporary artists, ensembles and festivals, such as the Lapland Chamber Orchestra (FI), the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse (FR), the Mise-en Ensemble (NY), the Ensemble Avantgarde (GE) and the ToolBox Percussion (CHN). She has also received the prestigious Hanns Eisler Composition Fellowship in 2020. Originally from the Arctic region, Ruotsalainen aims to increase the inclusion of marginal voices in the globalized, Western-centric and historically colonialist definition of high art: Culture is used to maintain differences by giving visibility and the experience of belonging only to certain stories. The criteria for artistic quality are traditionally not verbally expressed in detail, but are hidden behind peer and expert evaluations. Artistic quality presented and perceived as universal can obscure the mechanisms that maintain inequality, leading to discrimination based on country of origin, for example.