At the 41st Helsinki Comics Festival, taking place on 19 and 20 September at the Cultural Centre Stoa, a panel on comics about the war in Ukraine will be held. The festival’s website provides details.
This year’s festival theme is “Together”. Ukrainian comic artists Ivan Kypibida, Sofia Sulii and Yuliia Vus will take part in the event and share their experiences of creating stories.
As part of the festival, Kypibida and Vus will also hold an open comic-making workshop. The workshop will be conducted in English and Ukrainian.
In addition, an exhibition of Ukrainian-Finnish comics will run at the Stoa Gallery from 3 to 20 September.
According to the organisers, the project aims to bring together contemporary Ukrainian and Finnish comic creators and highlight support for Ukraine.
“Comic culture is emerging in Ukraine, and Ukrainian comics will be presented at the Helsinki Comics Festival for the first time this year,” the festival’s website says.
Alongside works by Kypibida, Sulii and Vus, the exhibition will feature comics by Ton Melnyk and Sofia Tomilenko.
The comics will be published in the Kuti magazine at the end of the year.
The exhibition is organised in cooperation with the Ukrainian publisher Vydavnytstvo, contemporary comics association Kutikuti and the Helsinki Comics Festival, with support from the WSOY Literary Foundation, Finnish Comics Professionals and Culture Moves Europe.
About the Helsinki Comics Festival:
-
an annual free comics festival organised by the Finnish Comics Society;
-
first held in 1979;
-
the festival features public discussions, a comics fair, exhibitions and other events.