This spring marks ten years since I graduated and officially stepped into the world as a professional circus artist. Ten years since I threw my belongings into a suitcase, left school and its safe walls behind, and decided to build a life out of balancing on my head and on my hands — and dreaming up improbable things. It was the unknown that made it so exciting — and also terrifying. I remember thinking: Holy shit, how long will I actually do this? Is this really going to be it — my future? Or will I try for a few years and then realise it just doesn’t work?

Ten years might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but when your career path includes performing, glitter, chaos, bruises, standing ovations, empty audiences, van breakdowns, tours, travelling, training and more training, rigging, packing, spreadsheets, endless office hours, planning and re-planning, soul-searching, and a lot of duct tape
— ten years is something worth pausing for: 

I’ve performed in tents, theatres, streets, embassies, forests, beaches, and parking lots.
I’ve shared stages with strangers who became family.
I’ve co-founded not one, but two circus companies — 
Sisus and Based on Kimberly — each with their own pulse, vision, and brand of beautiful chaos.
I’ve written grant applications at 2 a.m., fixed costumes with safety pins, and built shows out of dead ideas and stubborn hope.
I’ve directed, produced, curated, collaborated, mentored — and been mentored.
I’ve watched circus evolve, and I’ve evolved right with it.

Somewhere along the way, I learned what this life is really about. Performing is only a small part of it. The real work happens behind the scenes — in hours of unpaid admin and invisible labour. Of course, the goal is not to work unpaid, and I’ve been lucky enough to get paid — eventually. Sometimes the paycheck arrived years after the actual work was done. Those first years were pure survival. Living with my parents or crashing on friends’ couches helped. No rent meant I could just about scrape by. I was alone, it was cheap, and I just needed to hold on. I honestly don’t know how I did it — but I’m proud of the younger me who somehow did. I’ve lost count of how many times people told me I should get a “real job.” I’m proud I didn’t listen. And anyway — if this isn’t real, what is?

After ten years, I know this much: the life of an artist is deeply unsustainable — and yet we sustain it. With part-time jobs, grants that barely cover the rent, and invisible hours of unpaid labour. And still, somehow, we create. We fill festivals, inspire strangers, and make something from nothing. But we shouldn’t have to survive like this to be taken seriously. We deserve infrastructure, trust, and fair pay.

Right now, I’m writing this blog at 9 p.m., while my child is sleeping and I’m about to start the office hours of the day. I remember a teacher once telling us to make all our artistic work before starting a family, because once you have kids, it just won’t be possible anymore. I like to think I’m proving him wrong. I guess that was never really about the art — it was about a system not built to support artists with care responsibilities. I hope we’re starting to shift that. I hope artists who are parents are no longer asked to choose between their child and their creative voice. Because those voices, our voices, matter. Because stories told by caregivers — by mothers — are just as vital. Maybe even more.

In 2025, being an artist sometimes feels like an act of resistance. We’re still explaining why art matters, still justifying budgets that wouldn’t cover a week of advertising for a tech start-up. The world keeps speeding up — algorithms, outputs, productivity — and we’re still here, making space for slowness, depth, connection. Art isn’t a luxury. It’s survival. It’s the stuff that helps us imagine better futures — or simply feel less alone in the now.

So here’s to ten years of saying yes 
<3 To the artists, friends and family who’ve held me up (literally and figuratively).
<3 To the younger me who dared to believe this could work.
<3 To the next chapter — whatever strange and wonderful shape it might take.

I promise to stay humble and curious, to know my value and to work hard.
I will keep exploring, keep learning, and stay interesting as an artist.
I will continue playing.
I will continue challenging myself — and my audiences — and at the same time keep my feet on the ground.

Thank you for watching, clapping, doubting, supporting, challenging, booking, ghosting, following, and believing.
I’ll be here — still trying to do what I love, one handstand at a time.

​We always said, my partner and I, that we wouldn't be the ones tiptoeing when the baby goes to sleep. But here we are.
Well—he’s not a baby anymore, but the house is quiet in the evenings. Not because he couldn’t sleep through noise, but because it just feels respectful toward this tiny human—now a toddler—who’s been up all day playing in the world, taking it all in, and is finally asleep. And we know how important that sleep is, so he can carry on tomorrow.
So there are nights like this, when I move through the house like I once moved on stage—quiet, calculated, soft and tender, looking easy. Not for fear of falling or fucking up the trick anymore, but because the child is finally asleep.

And I do think: this is the real circus.
Or at least, this is my circus right now.
Not the polished act of tricks in front of lights and eyes, but this strange, suspended world of lullabies, milk-stained shirts, and hours that stretch and bend like limbs in midair. The 3am feedings. The way your body becomes a landscape for someone else to live on.
The way time collapses into piles of laundry and love and longing.

I have been upside down my whole life, training and performing and touring the world.
But nothing--nothing—has ever asked for more faith than this: to hand over my body, my time, my self to a tiny human
with no script, no rehearsal, and no guaranteed catch. But at the same time, knowing I will always be there to catch him.
Motherhood rewrites the script in a language you never learned— and still, somehow, you become fluent.

I used to mark time in show seasons and premiere dates. Now I mark it in centimetres grown, first words whispered,
and the strange magic of tiny socks appearing in every corner of the house.

And still, the circus calls. I sneak into the studio when I can, body tired but still loyal. I stretch. I swing. I don’t learn new tricks, but at least I maintain the old ones. I would love to learn new ones, but there’s no time for that right now. The time will come. I know it.
I remind myself of the life that existed before this one, and realize—it isn’t before.
It’s braided into now. I’m not returning to who I was. I’m expanding into who I am.

We talk so much about balance in circus. But real balance isn’t stillness. It’s a dance between gravity and resistance.
Between ambition and surrender. Between holding on and letting go. Between being the performer and being the home. 

Motherhood is the longest act I’ve ever performed— a thousand invisible moments that no one will ever see but me. To be stretched beyond recognition and still sing. To disappear from the spotlight and still shine. To fall apart and keep loving.

There is nothing soft about this softness. It is a ferocious kind of tenderness. The kind that builds empires out of empty coffee cups and lullabies. So if you’re somewhere between the worlds— between stage and stroller, between risk and responsibility, between art and caretaking—know this: You are not less.

You are more.
We are more. 

I often wonder how people arrive at certain places—physically, digitally, or otherwise. Perhaps you are here because you are an artist, or maybe a friend, a neighbor, or a distant relative who stumbled upon this. Maybe you read my grant application and are quietly assessing whether I deserve a slice of that ever-elusive funding pie.
However you got here, I’m glad you did.

My name is Inka. I was born in Helsinki in 1992, and by the age of ten, I found my way into the world of circus. It happened the way many childhood obsessions do—by accident, or perhaps, by fate. My mother, my best friend Milla, and I attended a performance of Winter Circus Hurjaruuth. We were mesmerized. After the show, Milla and I decided, with the certainty that only ten-year-olds possess, that circus was our calling. Our mothers, supportive, found a youth circus program, and we stayed.
​
Now, I am a professional circus artist, a mother, a woman living in Berlin. Life has a way of leading you down unexpected roads. Eight years ago, I met my partner, and soon after, I packed up and moved to Germany. Life abroad comes with its own set of complications—the language barriers, the bureaucratic labyrinths, the small but significant cultural misunderstandings. But here we are, carving out a life, building a home, raising our child.

Becoming a mother soon two years ago reshaped my everyday life in ways I never could have anticipated. I often find myself thinking about how I want to create art, what kind of art I want to make. Motherhood is, of course, one of the topics I find compelling, but my passions stretch in so many directions. Lately, I’ve been particularly drawn to the idea of revisiting abandoned creative concepts—giving them a second life, reshaping them into something unexpected. I’m currently working on a project that explores this very theme, questioning what happens when we refuse to discard the ideas we once thought were failures.

I have always been curious—drawn to movement, to sound, to the endless possibilities of travel. When I was younger, I traveled constantly: I was eager to see new places, meet new people, and immerse myself in different cultures. That same sense of exploration and spontaneity shapes my work in circus—finding balance in the unknown, embracing each performance as an adventure of its own.

I sometimes wonder if my constant pursuit of new things is more than just curiosity. More than once, I’ve suspected I might have adhd. If so, it would explain a lot—the way my mind jumps between ideas, the way time seems to slip through my fingers like sand. Maybe one day, I’ll find out. Maybe understanding it would give me better tools to navigate this life. Though, to be honest, I think I’ve done just fine

For now, I do what I have always done—move forward, chase ideas, and find ways to turn the abstract into something real. I love that I do not know exactly where the next step will lead, but I trust that the journey itself is worth it.

What keeps you moving forward?