Minttu Saarinen’s “Läpi” (Through) is an exhibition about movement, transition, and change – things a person is compelled to pass through, chooses to pass through, or sometimes simply ends up passing through. The exhibition examines doors, gateways, and openings, as well as their concrete and metaphorical meanings. It asks what happens when something is crossed, penetrated, or allowed to pass through.

In Saarinen’s works, glitter and fur function as both materials and symbols. Glitter represents the shimmer of water and ice, the wet tip of a cat’s nose, or a glistening speck on a concrete wall – small, seemingly insignificant things that nonetheless sustain life. Fur, in turn, evokes primal power, survival, protection, and intimacy. It connects to animals, the body, and cultural narratives, as well as to imagery associated with power, vitality, and fertility.

In Saarinen’s work, these materials relate to Finno-Ugric folklore and its ways of depicting the body, womanhood, fertility, and various interfaces. The exhibition continues Saarinen’s long-standing research into Finnish vulva symbolism.

Sometimes we pass through without noticing. Sometimes we have to trudge through. Sometimes we enter through the wrong opening and emerge from a completely different one. We get through something, or something is taken through, read through, looked through, or lived through. Sometimes, something just flutters.

The personal nature of the exhibition is deepened by the presence of a work by Saarinen’s friend, the sculptor Jari Männistö. Saarinen had originally applied for the exhibition slot together with Männistö. Männistö passed away a year ago. The exhibition features one of his glass works, which he felt resonated with Saarinen’s reflections on the female body, Finnish vulva symbolism, and themes of transition.

Saarinen’s works are playful and rich in material. They embody a blend of humor and melancholy, beauty and strangeness. Alongside small details, the works grow into vast wholes – much like life itself.

“I work with my hands to see what I am thinking. I look in order to understand what I hear. I repeat movements until they become rituals. I build works that are extravagant because I believe that is what humanity is like: melancholic, slightly comic, perpetually unfinished, and always terribly dramatic.”

– Minttu Saarinen