You're a Big Girl Now

Miia Rinne, Mirka Raito & Niina Lehtonen Braun

5.1.–28.1.2025

Mältinranta Artcenter, Kuninkaankatu 2, Tampere, Finland

You’re a Big Girl Now
As a child I drew a lot, and I can still recall the moment when I understood that I was not able to create a
satisfying picture of my experience being in the world. No matter how hard I tried, I could not draw an image
that captures both the world I saw in front of my eyes and the ”I” observing it—all that was ”on the other side”,
behind my gaze, but still equally present in that moment: my memories, my dreams, my fears, my fantasies.
I can’t remember what age I was at the time, but I believe that moment has stayed with me because it was the
first inkling of my artist calling. The disappointment in my inability to fully express my existence in drawing
illuminated the fact that I nevertheless had to keep trying. For the first time I realised that I could not survive the
madness of life–the beauty and the horror of it–without somehow trying to portray it.

At some point, I switched from drawing to words, language becoming my main means of expression. For Niina
Lehtonen Braun, Mirka Raito, and Miia Rinne the media are painting, collage, moving image, and installation.

Their aim however is the same: an attempt to make visible and thus collective, even a fragment of the never-
ending process of being and becoming a human.

For me, their work is about how to exist; carrying inside both the child one once was, and the old person that one
will be; in the middle of the relentlessly forward flowing time; meaningful and meaningless details and memories;
dreams; amidst other people’s hopes and desires; one’s own hopes and desires; constant overlapping and layering;
convergence and divergence; social norms and obligations; desire for freedom–being imperfect; fumbling; human.
Their view is that of a woman. I recognise that too: the body and its weight, the constant metamorphosis,
the conflict between external demands and a personal strive for freedom, the strange joy of being part of the
continuum of life.

12.12.2024, Ida Pimenoff

www.mirkaraito.com
www.miiarinne.com
www.niina-lehtonen-braun.com