Susan's Writings

Currently Napa offers a home for 15 talented illustrators

Walking along Eerikinkatu you can run into a cute, peculiar looking place called Napa. Inside you will find an exciting world of books, illustrations and art.

NAPA was established in 1998 as a small publishing house by Jenni Rope and Jussi Karjalainen. Its adventure began by publishing comics, art books and art comics. It was not until 2007 that it decided to grow and merge with Napa Gallery and later the same year with Napa Illustrations Agency, founded and directed by Marjo Granlund as the first illustration agency in Finland.

“The idea behind the illustration agency is to provide all the means for 15 young Finnish illustrators so they can concentrate on the essential thing: drawing,” explains Granlund. Napa Illustrations’ clients include advertising agencies, magazines and publishing houses. “All the illustrations are done by request, which are uniquely designed for each individual project,” she continues.

Illustrators and artists can also find a place for their exhibitions in Napa. This month, Napa Gallery will present an exhibition of Flip Books until 23 November, showing the creativity of artists who took part in the October flip book competition.

As Christmas is round the corner, Napa will soon open its own Christmas Shop. Those interested in buying directly from the artist will certainly find a present that is undoubtedly something out of the ordinary.

Susan Fourtane – HT
Jenni Rope – Image

Flixation is all about no-budget underground cinema, video mash up, amateur film art, performance and music. The creators of this underground cinema collective, Duncan Reekie, Clive Shawn and Caroline Kennedy, have been involved in underground films for the past 20 years.

Believing in underground cinema, Flixation, in collaboration with Art Contact, AV-Arkki, HIAP and Zodiak, brings the origins of cinema and its essence to the 21st century. The magic of the music hall and the variety theatre come along to show us a kind of cinema we have never seen before, “It is like what cinema used to be,” says Reekie who will be performing during a screening.

The audience will be taken back in time to the days of the cabaret. The films will be projected on the walls and the ceiling, creating a magical and unique atmosphere for the participants.

Susan Fourtane – HT

Plastic Soup, an environmental comedy written & directed by Zoë Chandler / The Finn-Brit Players

The FELT IF festival (Festival of English Language Theatre in Finland), organised this year for the third time, will bring together three English language theatre companies to Helsinki.

Theatre lovers will have the opportunity to see original material by local writers. A variety of plays by international contemporary writers like Bernard Show and Anton Chekhov are also on offer at the festival.

Reaching people interested in theatre in a foreign language can be tough work. “Without the budget to buy mass attention, it takes a lot of legwork. Naturally we’re quite close to many English speaking communities who are hungry for cultural activities,” says Matti Keltanen, one of the producers.

Susan Fourtane – HT