It’s always a special feeling when big projects wind up, leaving space for new ones to begin. Along with my university research work and doctoral studies, I have been co-leading the creative working group, We Who Smile with the art therapist and ethnomusicologist Elina Mantere. Over the past year we’ve had the pleasure of working on two non-research grant-funded projects, running artistic workshops in reception centres across Finland. In these projects, funded by the Kone Foundation and the Finnish Culture Foundation, we have collaborated with asylum seeking children and youth to create a series of ten cut-out and sand animations. While some of the project details are still wrapping up, all of these animations are now published and accessible on the We Who Smile website.
The good news is, Wihuri Foundation has just granted us funding to continue the series with two additional animations!
These animations, presented as either biographical accounts or imaginary stories with fictional characters, tell about the young participants’ own experiences of forced migration, asylum seeking and integration, as well as their hopes and desires for the future. In these creative works the children and youth tell their stories on their own terms and yet within them emerge connecting themes such as friendship, safety and finding a place to call home.
Here are some of the latest creations. This one, called Russian Terror, is a cut-out animation made with recently arrived youth staying in the Mänttä-Vilppula reception centre. Using the perspective of a fictional character, the youths’ speak about their experiences of the war in their homeland, Ukraine.
This one, called Titu’s Story was created with a group of young children staying at the Tampere reception centre, and tells, also through fictional characters, their experiences of adjusting to life in Finland, of attending school and making new friends.
Apart from animations, we have also over the years been running nature-art and picturebook workshops with refugee children and youth across Finland. These are also all showcased on our We Who Smile website. All of these projects have received very positive feedback from the participants and reception centres and have brought us no end of joy and inspiration. They have allowed us, as well as other viewers, a unique window onto the experiences of young people seeking asylum. We’re grateful to the foundations for their interest in, and support for these projects.
We hope you take a look!
Nick Haswell
28.10.2022