Minkki Nurmi, Mitäpä jos (What if), mixed media, 2021
Minkki Nurmi is a queer, nonbinary and neuro-divergent visual artist and gardener. They work with personal emotions, experiences and situations, which get documented in their work.
What if nothing we create is ever really ruined? What if feelings of disappointment are just reactions to a result that was not what we planned for? What if instead of feeling angry, disappointed or frustrated with the outcome, we could be open for things to finish in a different way, or thinking about our so-called failure as an important part of process?
This drawing was a process of continuing to work on something that at one point felt like a failure but ended up being something else. This drawing was nothing I expected it to be and it transformed into a gentle reminder of thinking about things from different points of view.
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READA specimen-style diagram on flower assemblage in preparation for ‘rooting’ delves into the topics of how to re-assemble oneself to set roots somewhere. Do we change ourselves and re-assemble our features to be allowed to remain in the garden, or do we tend a small corner in a garden of our own? Often ‘belonging’ is a concept that exists within change. We can belong to many contradictory concepts, not necessarily following a specific blueprint.
Assembly Plant, 2022
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READI personally don’t like to be touched so I rarely get my hair done. I wanted to capture that moment of how it feels for me in the first hour of braiding since I can’t quite put it into words. There’s anxiety but also excitement. A feeling of foreignness but also of belonging, warmth and kinship. It’s ordinary and also a special occasion.
Untitled
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READI did the work improvising it along the way during spring and summer 2021. The picture resembles a message or a notice board. There are small bits of drawing/painting/text done on a piece of paper that I had with me for some months in my backpack. I liked the idea that the image and the paper have aged - that the passing of time has left its marks on the work.
It is Only the End of the World
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READWhat if nothing doesn’t actually ever get ruined? Or at least not that bad. Maybe it just finished completely different than you thought.
Mitäpä jos (What if)