Comics in Action
Illustrating Me Workshops
Illustrating Me project highlights personal stories and experiences of people with refugee background in Finland. Comics have been created in our workshops held from 2016 onwards. Our partner organizations are Helsinki Pride Community, Asylum seekers’ Support Association (TuTu ry), reception centers and other associations supporting immigrants in Finland. This photo is from asylum seekers’ Right to Live demonstration in Helsinki where we organised a grassroots comics workshop. The illustrating Me comics gallery continues to publish new updates.
Living Language – Comics in Finno-Ugric Minority Languages
Living Language community art project organised comics workshops for Finno-Ugric minority language activists in Russia, Finland, Estonia and Norway in 2015-2020. The project used grassroots comics to support endangered languages. During the project we produced a website, many exhibitions and a FUgrics – Comics from the Finno-Ugric World book to showcase the comics made by the activists.
Imagining Peace – Anti-War Comics and Illustrations
The Imagining Peace exhibition consists of art pieces made by six artists with a Russian background and two artists with a Ukrainian background. The exhibition strictly condemns the offensive warfare that Russia has started in Ukraine and wants to show its support to Ukrainian artists as well as Russian anti-war voices. It travelled around Finland during 2022-24. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Finland-Russia Association and the Finnish Peace Committee.
Explore the Gap Project
Explore the Gap was a series of workshops organised in 2023-24 in Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Denmark. The project invited participants of different generations and explored themes of inclusion, mutual understanding and relationship to the environment in a globalized world through creating short comics.
Comics as a Tool for Social Campaigning
Check out the power of grassroots comics around the world! In 1997-2015 we organised dozens of workshops in Africa, Asia and in the Middle East. The participants were NGO activists and people of different communities who wanted to bring about social change. This Comics power rap was created spontaneously by grassroots comics workshop participants in Guwahati, India in 2008.