The series Now is Now, created between 2014 and 2017 in France, Finland, and the USA, exemplifies Hänninen’s interest in everyday emotions and experiences that, although every human being is unique, can be felt and shared by everyone. Certain psychological patterns connect people and generate an emotional community. In this way, a personal experience or private perception can acquire a more universal meaning. Now is now refers to the relationship between the present and the history, as well as our constantly recurring chance to choose – it explores the importance of the present as well as time itself and its relativity. The past is just a memory, and the future is a construction of the mind. Between these two is the here and now, the only moment on which we have direct influence.

The aesthetically precise works themselves are tender and devoid of all superfluous requisites and effects. The predominant colors are black and white, whereby Hänninen formally creates a link to her earlier works from the year 2000. The result is a minimalist aesthetic that opens a tremendously large associative space and confronts the viewer with his or her own memories and experiences. The photographs show distinctly reduced still lifes of crumpled paper which – partly showing texts – come from Hänninen’s work books of recent years, during which the artist was confronted with many personal challenges. The objects displayed in front of a dark background on the other side are less subjective. They present ideas linked to topics such as environmental changes – a threat of global importance in both present time and the future.