Latest news with #Moomins
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
City taken over by week of Moomin celebrations
Characters from a series of beloved children's tales are set to be brought to life by a series of city events. The residents of Moomin valley were created by Finnish illustrator and writer Tove Jansson, with the first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, published in 1945. A giant picnic and floating artworks are just two of the free family activities in Gloucester to celebrate 80 years of the iconic Moomin stories. Gloucester Guildhall has been picked as one of four UK arts organisations to run a programme of events marking the milestone, with installations across the city centre. Artist Dana Olărescu, who has spent a year working on floating artwork with a sail bearing a quote from the first Moomin story, said the project was "about connecting people". With the celebration also falling on Refugee Week many of the events also focus on themes of welcoming and belonging. "I always think a the city is so much richer when there's diversity in it," Ms Olărescu said. "We get to hear multiple perspectives and see things in a different light." From 14 to 22 June, a light and sound installation named 'Welcome Chorus' - featuring songs of welcome from across Gloucestershire playing as spectators move through a mass of glowing orbs - will be open to the public in the Guildhall. Ms Olărescu's artwork will also launch from Gloucester Docks on 14 June, and will star in two performances on 20 June accompanied by live music by local artist Zariq Rosita-Hanif. Families will also be able to get a closer look throughout the week by taking part in free paddle boarding workshops run by the National Waterways Museum. The programme of events will culminate in a Moomin-themed picnic in Kings Square on 21 June, with free dishes from around the globe for families to try. Councillor Caroline Courtney, cabinet member for culture and leisure at Gloucester City Council, said the week's themes of "family, belonging and community" were "perfect for our city that has throughout its history welcomed people from all over the world". Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Venue to celebrate 80th anniversary of Moomins The Moomins in love and war Gloucester Guildhall Gloucester City Council
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
City taken over by week of Moomin celebrations
Characters from a series of beloved children's tales are set to be brought to life by a series of city events. The residents of Moomin valley were created by Finnish illustrator and writer Tove Jansson, with the first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, published in 1945. A giant picnic and floating artworks are just two of the free family activities in Gloucester to celebrate 80 years of the iconic Moomin stories. Gloucester Guildhall has been picked as one of four UK arts organisations to run a programme of events marking the milestone, with installations across the city centre. Artist Dana Olărescu, who has spent a year working on floating artwork with a sail bearing a quote from the first Moomin story, said the project was "about connecting people". With the celebration also falling on Refugee Week many of the events also focus on themes of welcoming and belonging. "I always think a the city is so much richer when there's diversity in it," Ms Olărescu said. "We get to hear multiple perspectives and see things in a different light." From 14 to 22 June, a light and sound installation named 'Welcome Chorus' - featuring songs of welcome from across Gloucestershire playing as spectators move through a mass of glowing orbs - will be open to the public in the Guildhall. Ms Olărescu's artwork will also launch from Gloucester Docks on 14 June, and will star in two performances on 20 June accompanied by live music by local artist Zariq Rosita-Hanif. Families will also be able to get a closer look throughout the week by taking part in free paddle boarding workshops run by the National Waterways Museum. The programme of events will culminate in a Moomin-themed picnic in Kings Square on 21 June, with free dishes from around the globe for families to try. Councillor Caroline Courtney, cabinet member for culture and leisure at Gloucester City Council, said the week's themes of "family, belonging and community" were "perfect for our city that has throughout its history welcomed people from all over the world". Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Venue to celebrate 80th anniversary of Moomins The Moomins in love and war Gloucester Guildhall Gloucester City Council
BBC News
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Gloucester taken over by week of Moomin celebrations
Characters from a series of beloved children's tales are set to be brought to life by a series of city events. The residents of Moomin valley were created by Finnish illustrator and writer Tove Jansson, with the first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, published in 1945.A giant picnic and floating artworks are just two of the free family activities in Gloucester to celebrate 80 years of the iconic Moomin stories. Gloucester Guildhall has been picked as one of four UK arts organisations to run a programme of events marking the milestone, with installations across the city centre. Artist Dana Olărescu, who has spent a year working on floating artwork with a sail bearing a quote from the first Moomin story, said the project was "about connecting people". With the celebration also falling on Refugee Week many of the events also focus on themes of welcoming and belonging. "I always think a the city is so much richer when there's diversity in it," Ms Olărescu said. "We get to hear multiple perspectives and see things in a different light." From 14 to 22 June, a light and sound installation named 'Welcome Chorus' - featuring songs of welcome from across Gloucestershire playing as spectators move through a mass of glowing orbs - will be open to the public in the Guildhall. Ms Olărescu's artwork will also launch from Gloucester Docks on 14 June, and will star in two performances on 20 June accompanied by live music by local artist Zariq Rosita-Hanif. Families will also be able to get a closer look throughout the week by taking part in free paddle boarding workshops run by the National Waterways Museum. The programme of events will culminate in a Moomin-themed picnic in Kings Square on 21 June, with free dishes from around the globe for families to try. Councillor Caroline Courtney, cabinet member for culture and leisure at Gloucester City Council, said the week's themes of "family, belonging and community" were "perfect for our city that has throughout its history welcomed people from all over the world".
Hypebeast
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Acne Studios Taps Moomin and Friends on Another Collaborative Capsule
Summary Like many of us,Acne Studioscan't get enough of Tove Jansson'sMoomins. After an initial collaboration back in November of 2024, the fashion house is reconnecting with Jansson's characters for another full-length Fall/Winter 2025 collaborative range. This go around, the pair, who share Scandinavian roots, presents a 16-piece unisex lineup of both apparel and accessories, spanning jersey, denim and knitwear stamped with sketches of the animated Moomins gang. Arriving as the latest release in Acne Studio's 'Face' series, the extensive release comes dipped in a vibrant pallate of colors, leaning into the whimsical aura of the magical Moomins land. Other characters – Little My, Snorkmaiden, Stinky and the Hattifatteners – materialize in the form of embroidered patches and printed graphics, landing on some of Acne's signature silhouettes such as the brand's 1981 jeans and striped shirting and sweaters. Footwear rounds out the release, with a pair of classic lace-up sneakers stamped with Acne's Face logo and further elevated with removable metal Moomin patches. The full Acne Studios x Moomins drop lands online at Acne's officialwebstoreon May 28, followed by an in-person drop at all Acne Studios stores worldwide on May 30.
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on the Moomins at 80: in search of a home
All Moomin fans will recognise the turreted blue house that is home to the family of gentle, upright‑hippo‑like creatures. The stove-shaped tower is a symbol of comfort and welcome throughout the nine Moomin novels by the celebrated Nordic writer and artist Tove Jansson. Now the house is the inspiration for a series of art installations in UK cities, in collaboration with Refugee Week, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Moomins. Taking the motto 'The door is always open', building will begin next week on a 12ft blue house outside London's Southbank Centre, just a stone's throw from Westminster. All of the installations, by artists from countries including Afghanistan, Syria and Romania, deal with displacement: in Bradford, the Palestinian artist Basel Zaraa has created a refugee tent in which to imagine life after occupation and war; in Gateshead, natural materials are being foraged to build To Own Both Nothing and the Whole World (a quote from Jansson's philosophical character Snufkin); and a Moomin raft will launch from Gloucester Docks. Begun in the winter of 1939 and published in 1945, the first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, was a 'fairytale', as Jansson called it, born out of the darkness of war. A mother and her son set off across an unfamiliar land – overcoming dangers, natural disasters and hostile creatures – in search of their missing family and a place to build a new home. It was the story of millions of refugees after the second world war, and an all-too familiar one across the world today. In their themes of loneliness, a search for identity and freedom, the Moomin books speak to anyone who feels that they don't belong. In Finn Family Moomintroll, the inseparable Thingumy and Bob (reflecting the nicknames of Jansson and her lover, the theatre director Vivica Bandler) arrive in Moominland speaking a strange language and carrying a suitcase containing a ruby, a metaphor for their secret love – homosexuality was illegal in Finland until 1971. Growing up on a housing estate outside Liverpool, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the children's laureate, was astounded that 'a book written by a bohemian Finnish lesbian' seemed to be speaking directly to him. According to Philip Pullman, Jansson should have won the Nobel prize in literature. All the inhabitants of Moominvalley come in wildly different shapes and sizes. Tiny, furious Little My is adopted by the Moomin family because 'no one else dared'. The Groke, a symbol of gloom who turns everything she touches into ice, is simply looking for warmth and is not to be feared. Unlike Paddington, that other postwar refugee, this is the newcomer narrative as acceptance rather than assimilation. Today, the Moomins have become a brand, valued more for being cute than kind. Jansson would doubtless be thrilled that her legacy is being used as part of Refugee Week to foster understanding rather than to flog pencil cases and oven mitts. Moominland is a fairytale, far from our 21st-century refugee crisis. But this magical world provides a quietly radical message of tolerance, inclusivity and hope. Moominvalley might be described as 'an island of strangers', to borrow the prime minister's unfortunate phrase, and is all the better for it: it is a place where you don't have to fit in to belong. As Jansson writes in the preface to The Moomins and the Great Flood: 'Here was my very first happy ending!'
