Tuesday 9 July 2013

Comics workshop at the Homelessness Fair, Hyvinkää Art Museum

"Zero Euros and Hungry", a detail from one of the workshop's comics 

Katja Tukiainen wrote this post for our blog:

"During two sunny days in May 2013, in the comic workshop at Hyvinkää Art Museum I learned what homelessness looks like in a Southern Finnish town. I had invited 12 persons to participate in a social comics workshop. I invited people who had experiences of homelessness. I got 14 devoted participants. They all came to tell their stories in the format of comics. Those people were young adults and older, looking like you and me. They looked not like classic vagabonds or bearded men who live under the bridges. 

They had a lot to tell about homelessness in today's Finland, what it feels like and what are the reasons behind it. Reading these stories made me first silent and then filled me once again with a burst of need to do something. These stories do tell us that you can do a lot as a self made man, but the society also has a big responsibility. It is not fair to say that every one is an architect of her/his own fortune.

The workshop gave a voice to the participants. They were free to say what they wanted in their comics. These comics are real stories, black humour and poetic metaphors. The comics' originals were installed in the museum, and the huge weather-proof prints are displayed on the street of Hyvinkää city for the whole of this summer."

- The Homelessness Fair 14.6.-1.9.2013 at Hyvinkää Art museum has documentaries about homelessness, curated by artists Jani Leinonen and Riiko Sakkinen. A social comics workshop about homelessness was instructed by visual artist Katja Tukiainen.


Ballhead, a comic about visibility in society.
"Your own home, expensive as gold"
A newspaper clipping from a local newspaper



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