"2020 was the year when I myself chose to become sober after many years of suppressing my feelings. My wish is that more people would dare to open up and tell their stories, that we all would get better at sharing. I think sharing would help us feel less alone, and dare to push through the resistance that often comes from within. Since I became sober, I have been met with more and more deep conversations with people who have been touched by addiction in various ways. When I escaped myself, others encouraged me to keep escaping, when I chose to be sober, it seems people are willing to share their experiences and seek comfort in conversation.” – from Nadja Itäsaari's mermaid manifesto

In contemporary popular culture, the mermaid is often portrayed as adventurous and sometimes disconnected from the reality. Could the mermaid as a symbol, as suggested by Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky , instead mean the balance between emotion and logic?

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Ever since 1837, when "The Little Mermaid" originally written by HC Andersen was published, she has been depicted as a quietly suffering figure, or a beautifully singing adventure princess. Not least in stories about Sirens who lured sailors into the depths of the sea to die, she has been considered beautiful, mysterious, mythical or downright murderous.

Apart from this, the mermaid is an independent figure, a mixture of reality and fantasy, with her own interests - seemingly unaffected by the world she lives in.

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Excerpt from the performance:

I am a mermaid
I move along the deep water streams
integrated with the sea,
in the sea where all tears and
all deep feelings are allowed to exist.

I am allowed by the underwater streams,
I die with each sight I meet
of dead under water streaks.
When I gasp for breath
above the water surface,
I understand that there is much more than meets the eye
I aim with my eyes like arrows towards the mountain top...

the sun and the clouds
everything is bigger than me,
yet I am part of it all.
Sometimes I swim up to the water line
between earth and sky and gasp for more air
How did I become part of the deep?
How did I become a part of water?
How may I integrate into an element
assigned to me?