Interview with the tyttörakkauszine's working group
We interviewed Iida Hägglund, Helka Saariniemi, Jenni Räsästä, Vilma Vantola and Eeva-Maaria Halonen, the working group of the tyttörakkauszine performance-installation. tyttörakkauszine will be performed at Mad House from 1.-11.10.2025.
Photo: working group
Mad House: Ihanaa, että normalisoitte epäonnistuneita tyttöyden narratiiveja ja puratte kankeita asetelmia, kuten tunkkaisen suorituskeskeistä bossleidiyttä ja harmitonta ja keveää tyttöysihannetta <3 Voitteko vielä avata mitä teille sad girl -estetiikka tässä esityksessä tarkoittaa?
tyttörakkauszine working group: Mourning is a gesture of liberation. It is a way of reclaiming agency over our bodies, our identities and our lives. It is resistance and resting in sadness. We don't paint a glossy hyperpositive picture of girlhood, but we show the sadness and the difficulty of being that comes with girlhood. We want to avoid directly criticising the image of the girl/woman and present it as it is for us. Girlhood and femininity are so bound up in patriarchal imagery and assumptions that it is hard to know where patriarchy ends and we begin. However, in the performance, we bring a sense of silliness alongside grief, as it is also resistance and taking up space.
Concretely, during the rehearsal process, we have explored different ways of grieving and dealing with grief. We have written texts, done exercises and discussed our different ways of expressing grief in relation to girlhood. We have wanted to approach the process of creating the performance gently and without performing.
ps. the work is also dreamlike.
MH: What could this be as a performance? How do the paper zines you relate to the live performance you're creating?
trz working group: We have made paper zines and left them around the city to be found. The paper zines have been a way to connect with our potential audience before the performance, to address the diverse issues surrounding girlhood, and a way to communicate beyond our performing arts bubble. We plan to continue making girl love songs after the show season.
The collage-like aesthetic of the zine is reflected in the materiality and form of the work. The zine format has inspired us to create a fragmentary and richly themed whole. The zine performance can contain different types of material that do not necessarily have a direct and clear relationship to each other. This is what our girlhood is like.
MH: You are a group of designers and you direct and perform together - what is it like for you to work collectively without a separate director or performers?
trz team: working without a director or performers, we have been able to put our own professional skills, our design work, at the heart of the performance. It has been wonderful to think together about the ways of being and doing that work best for us as designers. Because we are also performers in our work, we have been able to reflect on what is the most natural way for each of us to be on stage, and to be responsible for our own limits. In our collective work, the themes of design, performance and content have infiltrated and overlapped in our discussions more freely than in traditional performance-making processes.
