50 Over 50: Stop Trying So Hard - Minna Väisänen's Digital Freedom
- Kristine Schomaker
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Minna Väisänen is making animations with Grok. At 56, they're exploring what happens when digital tools tear down old gatekeeping. You don't need to beg a production house for gear anymore—you just open a laptop and build your own world. The speed and access are wild.
And yes, for women especially, that shift mattered. The old art structures were rigged—"genius" was a word reserved for men with handlers and mistresses. Digital tools let women skip the permission stage. You can self-publish, animate, composite, distribute—all without waiting for anyone's blessing.
Back in art school, the sound studio looked like a spacecraft. Now it's an app. Love it. Learn it in five minutes. No hassle. They're working with AI tools now—photography, vector graphics, AI-generated images, and animation colliding to explore human fragility, responsibility, and empathy.
The hardest part isn't the work. It's the noise around it. Everything's "content" now, and you're supposed to feed a machine that never sleeps. Art's become a side effect of promotion instead of the other way around.
Someone just turned 50 and wants to start making art—what do they tell them? Art isn't a race. If you start now, you're already decades ahead of anyone who's waiting for permission.
Do they try to keep up with what matters in the art world? Not really. The Instagram feed keeps them updated enough.
What do artists their age bring to the table that younger artists don't? Confidence—not arrogance, just the kind that lets you make choices without needing constant validation. That alone changes the game.
What keeps them going when everything feels impossible? What else is there to fill early pension days?
What do they wish they'd known when they were younger? Stop trying so hard. They are not going to give you a chance. Let go.
You're less anxious, more ruthless, and strangely freer than you ever were in your twenties.
They make work that exists in the tension between stillness and motion, control and accident. Their practice is less about spectacle and more about what lingers—the quiet, often uncomfortable truths that survive after novelty fades.
Minna Väisänen is a Finnish director and visual artist working in comics, animation, and digital media.
They adapt the collaborative comics of Bi/etterminds (created with Paul Hayes) into animations—The Pool, Peephole to the Past, Building, The Year-Long Golf Course, Grief, Not Ethnic Enough, Monastery of Small Failures, and Soldiers Without Borders—exploring memory, identity, isolation, and the subtle forces shaping everyday life.
At 56, they're making animations with Grok. The sound studio that looked like a spacecraft is now an app. Digital tools tore down the gatekeeping. You don't need permission anymore.
Stop trying so hard. They are not going to give you a chance. Let go.
You're less anxious, more ruthless, and strangely freer than you ever were in your twenties.
Connect with Minna: Website: bietterminds.wordpress.com Instagram: @bietterminds
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