Finnish language is one of the national minority languages in Sweden. The number of speakers has, however, decreased during the past decades. After the governmental initiatives of language revitalization – of which the most visible outcome so far is probably the establishment of national language centers for these languages, including Finnish – I felt a strong need to explore new virtual methods for language revitalization.

To advance this goal, I was involved in organizing a virtual workshop with a focus on media pedagogy and, in more particular, comics, together with the cultural association Rusukki in Uppsala, in Fall 2022.

In the workshop, Finnish-speaking families from around the country could participate in an evening-workshop where we drew comics together, by using Finnish as our working language.

 

Visa detta inlägg på Instagram

 

Ett inlägg delat av Kuvakivaa (@kuvakivaa)

As a result, we collected the children and young people’s comics into a book that was edited by me and Leena Huss, and published by the Archives of the Finnish Minority in Sweden. In the book Sarjakivaa! Ruotsinsuomalaisten lasten sarjakuvia virtuaalisesta kielenelvytyksen työpajasta – Serier tecknade av sverigefinska barn från en virtuell workshop i revitalisering av det nationella minoritetsspråket finska (2022), there are 14 comics created by 11 young Sweden-Finnish artists. These comics are commented by professional comic artists from Sweden and Finland, as well as accompanied by a couple of articles written by the editors.

 

Visa detta inlägg på Instagram

 

Ett inlägg delat av Kuvakivaa (@kuvakivaa)

More information on the book is available on the project homepage kuvakivaa.se. Many are looking forward to continued activities, and we have had some preliminary ideas about working with different target groups. The Archives of the Finnish Minority in Sweden is looking forward to continued collaboration in publishing more books as a way of documenting contemporary expressions of Sweden-Finnishness, so if the series will ever get continued is basically up to further funding.