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.
In this project, 100 letters were sent to the friends, relatives and acquaintances of the organizing team. The letter described how much we missed their hugs, which had been withheld for a year due to COVID. The addressees were asked to send us an item of clothing that was old, worn out, and had seen its last days in their closet.
READAn Equivalence of Our Distance
I 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.
READIt is Only the End of the World
A 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.
READAssembly Plant, 2022
I am fascinated by memories from my childhood in the ’90s. I remember that there were posters around Finland back then (and later on), attached to various places by some religious groups. The posters said in bold capital letters “JESUS IS COMING ARE YOU READY” written in Finnish.
READVulnerability is coming
