Work: The blank poem Joy
Jenni Turunlahti, Instructor of Literary Art
The Finnish song Toiveiden keinu encourages us to put our wishes and dreams into words in order to make them come true.
I became a Instructor of Literary Art in 2020 in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. I had long worked in early childhood education as a private family day carer, and I want to develop my own skills and our family business which provides early education services. The latter part of the training was distance learning due to the Covid-19 restrictions. In reality, the Covid-19 pandemic and the related restrictions only sped up my decision to stop working as a family day carer and to become a full-time word artist and word art instructor. However, uncertainty about the future was always present, and this is still the case. However, I am very happy with my decision to focus on word art, and I am grateful that I can now work in very diverse art and training projects. Because I graduated during the pandemic, I learned flexibility, applications and plan modifications of many types from the very beginning, and these skills and lessons learned will certainly be useful to me in the future. For instance, my idea behind the design and implementation of Lasten muuttuva puistorunokirja (the changing park poetry book for children which includes the blank poem Joy) was that no restriction on gatherings could stop implementing it. I hope that in the future, my work will be seen in an urban environment which is freely and easily accessible. For my part, I would like to be involved in lowering the threshold for experiencing and creating art.