Latest news with #Moomins
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!'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tove Jansson's Moomin books explore the power of adventure and transformation
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the first Moomin tale, The Moomins and the Great Flood. In the book, Moomintroll and his friends embark on a journey to find their home after a great flood devastates Moominvalley, meeting odd creatures and new friends along their journey. The book was first published in creator Tove Jansson's native Swedish in 1945. However, the first Moomin book to have an English edition was in fact the third of the Moomin books, Trollkarlens Hatt (The Hobgoblin's Hat). It was translated by Jansson's friend Elizabeth Portch and reached its widest English-speaking audience when it was published by Puffin Books in 1961 as Finn Family Moomintroll. At the beginning of the story Moomintroll finds a magical top hat. It can transform anything that is placed inside of it into something else entirely – and so the adventures begin. This is part of a series of articles celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Moomins. Want to celebrate their birthday with us? Join The Conversation and a group of experts on May 23 in Bradford for a screening of Moomins on the Riviera and a discussion of the refugee experience in Tove Jansson's work. Click here for . Unlike the Swedish-language edition, Portch's translation of Finn Family Moomintroll begins with a letter from Moominmamma. It's written in a curly cursive and dotted with love-hearts and an image of an apparently 'hand-drawn' troll. The letter is addressed to a 'dear child' who is 'overseas'. In it, Moominmamma expresses disbelief at the idea that there may not be any Moomins 'there over' and that the child she is addressing may 'not even know what a troll is' (hence the illustration). Moominmamma's wonder at the differences in custom between her own land and 'your country' is based on an assumption that the two must be somewhat alike. Similarly, her explanation of what Moomintrolls are depends on their difference from the 'usual common trolls', which means there must be familial similarity between them. Both Moominmamma's wonder at and explanation of difference assume an underlying essential similarity or sameness between Moominvalley, where she lives, and the reader's home. This is significant in a story that explores ideas of foreignness and translation, change and transformation. Though the adventures in Finn Family Moomintroll might be said to only truly begin on the spring morning when Moomintroll, Sniff and Snufkin find 'a tall black hat', the book opens with the Moomins settling down for their winter hibernation and closes with the valley in autumn. The changes wrought by the Hobgoblin's hat are 'quite different' because 'you never know beforehand' what they will be. However, their extreme nature is framed and contained by a world in which there are known and predictable changes in the seasons, as well as routine – though sometimes dramatic – changes in the weather. The Hemulen is unperturbed by the hat's transformation of eggshells into fluffy little clouds that Moomintroll and his friends are able to ride. That's because he is 'so used to [them] doing extraordinary things'. But when Moomintroll is transformed by the hat into 'a very strange animal indeed', so much so that his friends do not recognise him, it's a very different matter. A moment of real jeopardy occurs when Moomintroll's own mother does not seem to recognise him either. But this is soon dispelled when Moominmamma looks 'into his frightened eyes for a very long time' and quietly declares: 'Yes, you are my Moomintroll.' This moment of recognition breaks the spell and Moomintroll changes back into 'his old self again'. One of the crucial features of the hat is the changes it makes are only temporary and this, together with Moominmamma's reassurance that she will 'always know [Moomintroll], whatever happens', suggests an ultimately unchanging essence to things that cannot be denied. On the other hand, the book suggests that some change is to be embraced. Sniff's desire for things to stay the same 'for ever and ever' is portrayed as immature and wrong-headed. As is the Muskrat's obsessive quest for peace and stillness which ends up with his apparent, though temporary, transformation into a monster. Snufkin's point that 'life is not peaceful' offers a gentle rebuke to the Hemulen, who also wishes to 'live his life in peace and quiet'. But perhaps the clearest indication of the book's attitude to changelessness is the monstrous Groke. She is motivated by an unwavering drive to recover the 'King's Ruby', not because this thing which 'changes colour all the time' is 'the most beautiful thing in the world', but because it is 'the most expensive'. The Groke's inability to appreciate the ruby aesthetically is presented as being rooted in her own immutability. That the Groke's hostility to change is itself deadening, becomes evident when she sits 'motionless' before the Moomins and their friends, staring at them in a way that makes them feel 'she would wait for ever' and eventually departs leaving the ground behind her frozen in the wrong season. This, then, is key. Adventure, transformation and change in Finn Family Moomintroll are both necessary and desirable, but they are also contained within a reassuring frame of reliable predictability. The final lines of the English translation are: 'It is autumn in Moomin Valley, for how else can spring come back again?' This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Sue Walsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Beegu review – Alexis Deacon's mellow yellow alien adventure hits the stage
If you took one of Tove Jansson's Moomins, sprayed them with custard, added a third eye and stretched their ears then you might end up with Beegu. The yellow alien from Alexis Deacon's popular picture book now crash-lands in a comical show for children aged three to seven. Director Debbie Hannan's adaptation often forgoes the contemplative grace of the original and whips the audience into chants for the befuddled, far-from-home heroine. Bee-gu! Bee-gu! The themes of curiosity, care and found family remain intact. A cuddly looking Beegu (movement and puppetry direction from Laura Cubitt) is principally controlled by Emma MacLennan, who also voices the alien's inquisitive chatter. During her odyssey on Earth, Beegu is ignored and insulted by busy grownups ('bit early for a Halloween costume,' sneers one) but warmly welcomed by some friendly schoolchildren. On the Unicorn's main stage you might think this would lead to some extravagant circus skills but their games, rendered in slow motion, instead have a simplicity that young audiences will recognise from their own playground. The same goes for the cheerleading routine that involves a litter of fluffy puppies whizzing through the air. There is amiable audience interaction from three other performers, Lucy Havard, Lawrence Hodgson-Mullings and Aryana Ramkhalawon, who rattle through a range of supporting roles. The use of Teletubbies-style sun and moon characters, with projected faces, emphasises the message about looking out for one another but their rather solemn narrative is often superfluous. With a skyline of swerving apartment blocks on wheels, Jean Chan's designs honour the spareness of the book. Chan and lighting designer Will Monks deliver a luminous scene in which Beegu plays music on the playground's railings, wonderfully accompanied by Deanna H Choi's compositions. The withering teacher wearing cat-eye glasses becomes a 10ft tall terror. Beegu is principally an observer (despite all that chatter, she has no visible mouth) and puppet designer Jonathan Saville has done well to make her this sympathetic. At 50 minutes, the story never feels drawn out and Beegu's meet and greet session with the audience proves the book's point that children have a gift for forming friendships. At the Unicorn theatre, London, until 4 May.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A Finnish Writer's Portrait of American Loneliness
Taking stock of your life can be simpler when you're half a world away from home. For Tove Jansson, arguably Finland's most famous writer of the 20th century, a vacation in 1971 marked an unexpected turn following a tumultuous year. After more than two decades of acclaim thanks to her fictional creatures, the Moomins, Jansson, then 57, was on the brink of potential burnout. Instead of coasting on her reputation as a beloved children's author, she was trying something new, writing novels for adults. In the middle of this career pivot, in 1970, her mother died, compounding Jansson's feeling that her life was changing irrevocably. 'I am going around in a great sense of unreality, calm, but so alien,' she wrote to friends. She needed an escape. That vacation—culminating in a long trip to the United States—upended her outlook on the balance of work and life, as well as on the key subject of her fiction: a sense of home. Throwing out a packed work schedule, Jansson submerged herself in not only an entirely new landscape, but also an alien culture undergoing post-'60s social upheaval. This experience changed the tenor of her work, and it helped her become the author Americans continue to discover more than 50 years later. Though Jansson's global fame still derives from those cheeky Moomins captured in comics and illustrated novels, her books for adults are rich and complex, revealing the stickiness of human coexistence. Jansson conveys a wry, layered empathy rooted in her Nordic traditions, informed by her queerness, and tested by her encounters with American morals and migratory habits. Thanks to a steady parade of recent reissues with introductions by Ali Smith, Lauren Groff, and others, this mature work has quietly developed a readership in the United States. A recent film adaptation of her sweet autobiographical novel The Summer Book may win new converts, but true enthusiasts will seize on the latest rerelease, Sun City, which explores an aspect of American life—the isolation of the aging—that often goes unseen. Before her American journey, Jansson had been living a life both idyllic and in many ways restricting. She'd been raised by well-known Finnish Swedish artists and remained inseparable from them, leaving art school in Stockholm at 19 to return home to Helsinki, where she would continue her education while writing and creating commercial artwork to better support her family. By 1970, she was tending to her aging mother, Ham, and in a relationship with her longtime partner, Tuulikki Pietilä, that was technically illegal. In Helsinki, the couple lived separately in neighboring studios, though they spent summers in a house on the island of Klovharun, where they could live together in relative privacy. Within a year of Ham's death, homosexuality was decriminalized in Finland. Jansson felt as though a chapter of her life had ended. Fulfilling an old dream, Jansson and Pietilä took an eight-month journey. Beginning with a business trip to Japan, they gradually made their way to the continental United States. In New Orleans, Jansson completed The Summer Book, which idealized her spartan life on Klovharun. The next book she wrote, mostly after returning from the U.S., couldn't be more different: Sun City depicted a Florida retirement home with none of the sentimental warmth of Finland. [Read: What you should be reading this summer] Sun City was inspired by a stay in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the couple had gone to see the ship used in the film Mutiny on the Bounty. Charmed by the town during what was supposed to be a short visit, the couple checked into a guesthouse called the Butler Arms. The perspective of distance, the novelty of the southern United States, and the break from routine presented unexpected creative gifts. What began as a short story evolved into a novel about loneliness and contrived community. Sun City renders St. Petersburg as a place where 'streets lie empty in their perpetual sunshine.' Setting the novel in the fictionalized Berkeley Arms, Jansson follows people on the margins who are reaching the end of their life without strong communal ties. Residents have drifted from all over the country into this boardinghouse arrangement. Among these loners, miscommunication abounds and short tempers flare. One guest tearfully reflects, 'Distrust was a poison that made a person shrink up and lose all contact with real life.' This false Eden, sunny but stark, feels like a photonegative of Jansson's cozy but rugged Klovharun (lovingly rendered in another recent reissue, the nonfictional Notes From an Island). Sun City operates as a series of vignettes without a strong unifying plot—appropriate for a work about idiosyncratic humans who may share a pretty veranda lined with rocking chairs but occupy hermetically sealed worlds of their own. A proud woman named Rebecca Rubinstein dines alone with a cab running its fare outside the restaurant. She muses about her fellow residents: 'We are also afraid, but we don't show it, and we don't open up to anyone. Our bodies no longer express anything. We have to get along entirely with words, nothing but words.' Americans are often said to prize their personal space, but from Jansson's perspective, the distance among these residents is a chasm, which prevents them from connecting with others. Their private histories remain fixed in amber rather than coalescing into a collective culture. After the sudden deaths of two sisters, one resident reflects, 'None of us liked them and none of us wanted to know about their lives. We are being admonished to be more careful with each other.' No heartwarming community rises from these ashes. There's too little time and not enough at stake. The Berkeley Arms is a stately hotel run by Miss Ruthermer-Berkeley and Miss Catherine Frey. Ruthermer-Berkeley is 93, reflecting back on her life. Frey is her harried employee, whose patience is wearing thin. Linda, a young immigrant from Mexico, maintains the guest home as best she can. Linda's distracted lover, Joe, works on the famous ship—the Bounty—and cruises around town on his motorcycle. She dreams of a passionate rendezvous in the marshes, while he anxiously awaits word from a group of Christians in Miami who promise him that Jesus is coming to whisk them away. The lovers talk past each other; neither shares the other's innermost desire. [Read: The antisocial century] If Sun City represents Jansson's thoughts on American society—particularly the way it treats its elders—it feels less like a quirky collection of tales, of the sort that made her famous, and more like a moral indictment. It may well be a product of extreme culture shock. Jansson was not oblivious to the dangers of displacement before she visited Florida. Her best friend moved away to the U.S. during World War II; her father's shocking sympathies with the Nazis could be traced to the trauma of the Finnish Civil War; her Swedish-born mother was homesick even after decades of building a home in Finland. Ham had supported the family with commercial work while her husband pursued his artistic ambition as a sculptor. Witnessing these marital compromises, Jansson was sure that she would never marry or have children. Yet she seems to have taken the stability and interconnectedness of family life as a given. Though she'd endowed her Moomins with freedom and rootlessness, the precarious independence she described in Sun City felt new in her mature, realist work. The months-long break that spawned the novel didn't represent a rupture from Jansson's earlier life—or not exactly. But after the experience, she became a different kind of writer, partner, and person. Sun City, her third novel for adults, proved that she was not merely a whimsical artist and storyteller, but also a keen cultural critic who could transpose her observations into powerful prose. It served as a response to skeptics who may have considered her literary work delightfully regional but not globally significant. Rethinking her many obligations after her trip, Jansson delegated some of the work that had been weighing her down (including the Moomins; she never wrote another Moomin-centered novel after her return). More broadly, she began to find a more harmonious balance between love and work, devotion and freedom. The best evidence for this evolution lies in a work published 15 years after Sun City, the quasi-autobiographical novel Fair Play. When, at the close of the book, the main character's partner—clearly based on Pietilä—leaves Helsinki for a year's work in Paris, the couple's resilience is tested. But this is not a road to alienation, American-style. It's only a temporary fissure, leading to a more profound connection for both partners. In Fair Play, Jansson allows herself to envision a far more satisfying kind of independence than what she'd wrought in Sun City. As her fictional stand-in reflects: 'She began to anticipate a solitude of her own, peaceful and full of possibility. She felt something close to exhilaration, of a kind that people can permit themselves when they are blessed with love.' Article originally published at The Atlantic
