March–May. Exhibition 30.4.–30.5.2026. The collection of works in Sirkka's room consists of short texts and handmade sheets of paper. "Participate in the piece, turn the page and place yourself within the narrative. Seize this chance to be and become and active audience member of this work and leave yourself amongst the words", urges the artist.

Zoe Grace Marquedant holds an MFA from Columbia University and has worked in both advertising and journalism since graduating, writing for everything from beer bottles to medicine bottles. She has also worked as a stablehand, brewery worker, gardener, and postal worker, all of which have influenced her writing and its form in (un)expected ways. These experiences have stoked her curiosity about the balance between medium and message, and a desire to play with the interaction between reader and written word. She is currently a columnist for Talk Vomit and works in residencies here in Finland and elsewhere, writing poetry, short texts, and papermaking.

DEAR READER -exhibition is written, printed and exhibited as a foil to the falling literacy rates and aching attention spans of the current moment. (“Not I!” you cry. Then prove me wrong. Read on.) Marquedant does not explain the work any further, but asks the viewer to interpret the words, her/his motives and their meanings for themselves. The viewer and readers can participate in the work, turn the page, and place themselves within the narrative. Seize this chance to be and become an active audience member of this work. For now, leave yourself amongst the words.

As a RaumArs community artist Zoe Grace Marquedant also led PAGEMAKING workshops as part of the Rauma’s 2026 Children’s Culture Weeks. In this role, she devised an art class for 1st–5th graders at the Lappi, Vasarainen, Kodisjoki, as well as the Rauma Freinet school here in town.

During the class, the artist invited participants to create their own “blank page,” going from pulp to paper. In doing so, she hoped not only to educate the audience about artistic practice but also to address the assumptions and expectations of perfection when it comes to creating artwork. As seen in the exhibition, a piece of handmade paper is often textured, untidy, and fibrous, but it is also entirely unique and irreplicable. It is both unconventional and beautiful. It is markedly not a bleached sheet of A4; it’s a canvas with feathery edges. It is both its own art object and a representation of the potential that exists in a person to create.

Marquedant chose papermaking because it is both logistically and spiritually messy. The thin swill like oatmeal, the wet sponge, that familiar smell. There is something playful about pulp that she feels allows us to enjoy the process without the fear that we are “doing it wrong.” After a drying period, the students were tasked with confronting the blank page that they had made. No doubt, throughout childhood, they had written, drawn, painted, crumpled, folded, and found themselves engaged in all those acts of creation that happen between a maker and a paper. To fill this space, to make is at the genesis of so much art. It takes bravery.

One of the goals of this process was to instill in her fellow papermakers the joy in making without judgment and to help them engage with the unknowns and the oh-nos of learning a new skill. In this age of “artificial intelligence” and the endless scroll of the screen, Marquedant also hoped to present the opportunity of the page, to remind them of their kinship with it. In exhibiting their work, she wants to celebrate their creations, their imaginations, and to challenge the thought that one cannot make art unless they are a trained and proclaimed artist. We are all artists. Should we only take the time and effort to begin, to continue, to do.

@zoenoumlaut

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Our American guest artist has stayed in Finland for a long time. Se has previously held residencies at Villa Sarkia in Sysmä and Art Center Salmela in Mäntyharju, as well as at Farm Studio in India, Dogo Residenz für Neue Kunst in Slovakia, and Bridge Guard residency in Switzerland. She has been a Research Ecologies & Archival Development fellow at the School of the Commons at the University of the Arts Zurich. Moreover, her manuscript, Making a Living, was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. Marquedant's work has been featured in Butter Magazine, In the Mood, 13tracks, and elsewhere. Nowadays she is a columnist for Talk Vomit.