Learn to tell stories with puppets from the hand of puppet theater expert Filiz Kurt Aksu. With over 25 years of experience, Filiz Kurt Aksu is skilled in dramaturgy, puppet theater, and children’s storytelling.

With Aksu’s guidance, the story of this collective workshop will come to life little by little, thanks to all the participants. Join in and learn to tell more entertaining stories that create unforgettable memories for your little ones.

Don’t miss the other shadow theater workshop that Filiz will lead at Kolibrí together with M. Mahir Aksu.

How many messages do you think you could convey with just your body? Claudia Herrera brings an exciting proposal to Kolibrí where children and their companions will learn to express all kinds of emotions through movement and physical expression. The language of snails refers to the importance of communication and empathy, and it helps both young and old express feelings without the need for words, using our own bodies as the main tool.

Herrera will conduct a workshop for children aged +4 in order to better adapt the complexity of movements and exercises to different age groups.

Theater, dance, and literature come together in this artistic proposal that helps us understand the power of body movement to convey emotions and understand the needs of others, without the need to know them or speak the same language.

This is Claudia Herrera’s second year participating in Kolibrí with her workshops on body expression.

Mutual aid and coexistence will be the main themes of this beautiful activity designed for the whole family, which will feature a storytelling space and an art workshop.

If you’ve never enjoyed a Kamishibai show, you can’t miss it! This ancient Japanese storytelling method is coming to Kolibrí Festivaali for the first time, presented by Julia Kartesalo.

Kartesalo brings us the play “In my street – shared joy is twice the joy” to explore multiculturalism through literature. She also proposes a workshop (DE + FI + EN + PT) where audience participation is guaranteed! Can you imagine creating a neighborhood full of hospitality and mutual aid on paper? What places would it have? What scenes could you depict with your little ones?

Theater, hospitality, and collective art come together in this storytelling and workshop, where fun and teamwork are guaranteed.

Satuhetki selkosuomeksi is a family storytelling event performed in Easy Finnish language, where different folktales meet different storytelling traditions and musical instruments.

Milla Helminen will tell a Finnish folktale about why bears have short tails and an Aboriginal dreamtime story about why koalas have short tails. Milla also plays kantele and will be joined by Jordan Jones playing didgeridoo.

Wende Luvinga and Menard Mponda will tell an African folktale using voice and drums about why giraffes have long necks. At the end of the performance Menard will lead a singing and movement workshop accompanied by drums that the whole family can get involved in!

After the performance, there will be an opportunity to stay and hear the story about why Giraffes have long necks in Swahili language with Wende and discover more about Easy Finnish language literature for the whole family.

“Satuhetki selkosuomeksi” comes to Kolibrí thanks to the association Selkokulttuuri ry, which has been promoting simplified Finnish, especially in the area of culture and art, since 2020.

This year, the Book Fair will focus on the work of Alfredo Soderguit, Guest of Honor of Kolibrí Festivaali 2023. The Uruguayan writer, illustrator, and filmmaker, author of “Los Carpinchos” (Ediciones Ekaré, 2020), will sign books at our fair, so don’t miss it!

Kolibrí 2023 will offer to all participants, from audience members to artists and volunteers, the “Serenity Corner”. This will be a safe and calm space for those needing a comfortable spot for a sensory break. Besides comfortable furniture and a sensory-neutral atmosphere, the space will contain toys and activities to help regulate those with overwhelmed sensory systems. The “Serenity Corner” may prove very valuable to autistic people or those with ADHD, but can also be used by anyone who needs a quiet space, like breastfeeding mothers for instance.

Come and make your own 2023 pin. Pin Kolibrí close to your heart!

Create your own Kolibrí T-shirt

Let’s put color and wings to the imagination! Bring your own cotton clothing piece and you’ll be able to stamp Kolibri’s 12th edition logo on it!

Pulsar is Spanish and it means touching, caressing and exploring. For the youngest of the family, this Mexican-Argentinian theatre will use wooden blocks to create a constantly changing landscape that moves, grows, rises and makes music. The audience will sit around this landscape, creating a safe community of their own.

The audience will sit around this landscape, creating a safe community of their own.

This show proposes a dramaturgy of actions and images where the performers, playing with simple elements, summon the spectators to a pleasant, subtle, soft, and friendly experience through touch.

Artist Olesia Rudenko encourages us to create our own Motanka doll, the Ukrainian national doll. Used as a toy and a talisman for people and homes, this beautiful doll is one of Ukraine’s oldest traditions.

Come to Kolibrí with your little ones and don’t miss the opportunity to build your own Motanka doll as a family, using a variety of colorful fabrics. And don’t worry if you’re not skilled with a needle and thread, because according to Ukrainian tradition, the Motanka doll is not sewn, but instead, we’ll use hot glue.

Banafsheh Eshraghi presents this beautiful musical storytelling workshop, aiming to help children understand the diversity of the world. The story of a family’s journey to Finland will be the guiding thread of this compassionate activity, where literature, music, songs, and toys will help us explore feelings like empathy and solidarity.

As Banafsheh shares, with “My home is the world,” they aim to assist the youth in appreciating the idea of a global community. They believe that by encouraging children to embrace their place in the world, they can help build a more harmonious and sustainable future.

Banafsheh Eshraghi is an experienced early childhood educator, holding a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Helsinki.

This is an exciting and educational family show that nurtures imagination while fostering emotional and social skills. You won’t want to miss it!

The Spanish educational center “Pequeño Mundo” returns to Kolibrí with a fun circuit of exploration activities, designed to be enjoyed by both adults and little ones!

It’s a safe space for all ages, including babies. The teachers from Pequeño Mundo will make your little ones feel at home and assist in the play.

Furthermore, you can ask any questions you have about early childhood development and learning, and the team of professionals from Pequeño Mundo will help you solve them.

In her third year participating in Kolibrí, artist Vivita Kaupere is joined by her colleague Zane Uitto, who will provide the music for this interactive show that invites reflection on migration, inclusion, and how every person brings their light and colors wherever they go.

Through global children’s music and more traditional sounds, artists and participants will engage in a dynamic experience where body expression arises from the experience of living in familiar settings but with sounds that may be less familiar to the ear. This workshop represents the experience of arriving in new places and offers the opportunity to learn new music and discover the emotions that can arise while walking through unfamiliar territories.

With each step taken in the workshop, to the rhythm of the music, all participants will leave behind the artistic representation of their own footprints, filled with colors, symbolizing the traces of every person in this world.

How many messages do you think you could convey with just your body? Claudia Herrera brings an exciting proposal to Kolibrí where children and their companions will learn to express all kinds of emotions through movement and physical expression. The language of snails refers to the importance of communication and empathy, and it helps both young and old express feelings without the need for words, using our own bodies as the main tool.

Herrera will conduct a workshop for children aged +7, in order to better adapt the complexity of movements and exercises to different age groups.

Theater, dance, and literature come together in this artistic proposal that helps us understand the power of body movement to convey emotions and understand the needs of others, without the need to know them or speak the same language.

This is Claudia Herrera’s second year participating in Kolibrí with her workshops on body expression.

Join us in this exciting workshop, where the alphabet comes to life in a magical way! Children in pre-literacy and literacy stages will explore the Latin alphabet and Braille, creating art and learning simultaneously. They will craft letters with fun animal faces and decorate them with colored materials, unleashing their imagination.

With their personalized letters, they can play and write words on a panel. Additionally, participants will discover Braille, writing their names and chosen words. This workshop promotes literacy in heritage languages and fosters awareness of diverse communication forms and the experiences of blind individuals. Conducted in Portuguese and Spanish, with English available if needed.

“Two complete strangers coincide in the same place at the same time. The two are very different from each other, but with things in common. One and other. The OTHER is always a possibility, it can be someone to share. A friend. An exciting experience, like every day.”

Released in 2016, it’s a show that, through a dramaturgy of actions and images, reflects on space as a means of rehearsing how to establish complex socio-affective relationships.

A show created in the artist’s residence at the Teatro Testoni Ragazzi La Baracca, Bologna, Italy, with the support of the Iberescena Program.

Under the title ‘I don’t sing just to sing… (Víctor Jara)’ Kolibrí offers a creative and unique day for the whole family that celebrates global peace and hospitality. It will focus on the presentation of the book “Kerro minulle Antonio”, by Sanna Pelliccioni (S&S, 2023), the first book in Finnish children’s literature that addresses the topic of Chilean refugees who arrived in Finland in the 70s.

– 4-6 p.m. “Children for Global Peace and Hospitality”:
Art workshop for all ages, facilitated by the multidisciplinary children’s literature author, Sanna Pelliccioni, and Mexican artist Mariana Núñez Sánchez.

– 5:00-6:30 p.m. Immersive talk about the book “Kerro minulle, Antonio”:
Panelist:
Sanna Pelliccioni, author.
Professor Alfonso Padilla, who inspired the work.
Anna Sidorova, translator and IBBY Finland member.
Mia Österlund, expert in children’s literature.
This conversation will be moderated by the artist Javiera Marchant Aedo.

– 6:30-7:00 p.m. Singing together:
Musicians Rodrigo Rodríguez, Tito Chauca and Mikko Nousiainen will close the event with a concert for the whole family.

Welcome to the Touch Wood Workshop! Experience a unique journey and explore the benefits of playing with beautiful wooden toys with your little ones. In a world where plastic toys and electronic devices dominate children’s playtime, the Touch Wood team has created this wonderful experience with handmade toys from around the world, allowing children to discover and enjoy the wonders of playing with unique wooden toys in Finland.

This event is designed for children of all ages, providing them access to these extraordinary wooden toys that not only entertain but also enrich their play, stimulate their creativity, ignite their imagination, and promote communication through sensory exploration. Through touch, sight, hearing, smell, and even taste (for babies), they will embark on a multisensory journey that engages their whole being.

Have an incredible time with your family! And don’t forget to turn off your mobile phones!

The invited artist of Kolibrí 2023, Alfredo Soderguit, will lead this workshop, combining literature, animation, and, of course, lots of creativity. “Mi casa, es tu casa” is a typical phrase in the Spanish language, used in many Ibero-American countries to invite friends and family to feel like a part of the household.

We will have the opportunity to enjoy the reading of Soy un animal and Los Carpinchos, in the voice of the author himself. Additionally, we will have a great time watching the episode Aves Migratorias from the animated series Dos Pajaritos, also created by Soderguit.

We will also have the assistance of Mexican designer and illustrator Mariana Núñez, who has extensive experience in creating and facilitating workshops for children.

Kolibrí Festivaali 2023 will host its traditional Children’s Book Fair, and it’s going to be full of surprises!

Our Children’s Book Fair is one of our most traditional events and it offers a unique opportunity to take home second-hand children’s books in Spanish and Portuguese. And as every year, we embrace children’s literature with a wide selection of titles from publishers throughout Ibero-America.

This year, the Book Fair will focus on the work of Alfredo Soderguit, Guest of Honor of Kolibrí Festivaali 2023. The Uruguayan writer, illustrator, and filmmaker, author of Los Carpinchos (Ediciones Ekaré, 2020), will sign books at our fair, so don’t miss it!

You’ll also find beautiful illustrations of artists who participated in other editions of the Festival: Isidro Ferrer, Yara Kono, Paloma Valdivia and Juan Palomino.

Come to Kolibrí and create your own puppet and play with it on a real shadow stage! Filiz Kurt Aksu and M.Mahir Aksu bring the opportunity to experience the magic of shadow theater with the whole family.

All materials will be provided in the workshop, where you only need to bring your imagination and creativity because you will receive assistance from expert puppeteers throughout the process. And don’t worry, at the end of the workshop, you can take your puppet home to continue the fun with your family.

A unique workshop to introduce children to the world of theater through play.

What would hospitality be without gastronomy and art? Which dishes and ingredients from your culture would you share? Answering these questions through art is the proposal of the collaborative drawing workshop Potluck Together! Inspired by those gatherings you’ve surely had more than once with friends and family, where everyone shares homemade food. Sound familiar?

Potluck invites us to “prepare” a delicious dish, drawn on a tablecloth, which gradually, thanks to all the participants, becomes a collective work of art to experiment with and learn about new ingredients, recipes, and gastronomic cultures that are important to many other people who will pass through Kolibrí.

Experience the sense of community through art and food, one of the most common ways to create bonds in multicultural environments and express love and mutual care.

Grab a handful of colors and enjoy your meal!

Join us alongside Alfredo Soderguit, Jaana Pesonen, Katri Tapola, Maria Pikkarainen, and Olga Filippova, as they debate about children’s books and animation movies and how those “artefacts” could open discussions and learning processes to children about refugees, immigrants, war and hospitality on these days. Moderated by Anna Sidorova.

How do children’s books and animation movies help us talk about identity (us/others) or concepts of ‘our own’ and ‘others’, home, war and security? How do illustrators, film directors and writers approach these topics and voices in the producing process?

Nowadays: How are those stories present and how are they raised in children’s literature? How is presence vs representation vs the absence of voices told in stories? Is polyphony in children’s books possible?

Panelists:

· Alfredo Soderguit, Uruguayan children books illustrator, writer, and filmmaker. Honored guest of Kolibrí Festivaali 2023.
· Jaana Pesonen, Lecturer in Educational Sciences at Helsinki University.
· Katri Tapola, writer focused on the theme of refuge in many of her works.
· Maria Pikkarainen, manager of language and culture groups’ education of Joensuu City.
· Olga Filippova, Ukrainian refugee scholar at the Eastern University of Finland and cherries orchard lover.

Moderator: Anna Sidorova, TAIKE art advisor, children literature translator and lead IBBY-Finland publication about “Other languages in the Finnish children’s literature”.

This celebration-tribute is an artistic creation of the musical group “Machu Picchu” and the dance company “Raíces”, directed by Marcela Fernández-Bassi.

We pay tribute to the Chilean refugee community in Finland, their intangible heritage, to future generations and to the Finnish solidarity movement: their gestures, hospitality, and friendship. Thanks to life for the infinite learnings and memories.

Under the titles Miten voin kyllin kiittää (translated by Pentti Saaritsa) and Elämälle kiitos (translated by Jaana Lappo) and in Swedish Jag vill tackar livet, Violeta Parra’s (Chile, 1917-1967) composition ‘Gracias a la vida’ was performed and recorded by local musicians and taught in schools. It became one of the anthems of the peace and solidarity movement of the 1970s and 1980s, not only in the Nordic countries.

: 5€ – 10€

Rodolfo Cueto (CL), Tito Chauca (PE), Roberto Cueto (CL), Rodrigo Rodríguez (CL), Pedro Castellón (BO), Mikko Nousiainnen (FI), Marcelo Morales (CL).

Have you ever considered what turns a space into a home? This question is at the heart of Kolibrí Homeward – Arts of Home. Embark on a creative journey with your family to explore the concept of home through the artistic form that appeals to you the most. As its creators indicate, all human beings are migrants, constantly moving and experiencing different distances in life.

Express your thoughts without any artistic limits through painting, creative writing, clay modeling, and more, while collectively delving into the various aspects and emotions associated with home, migration, hospitality, and inclusion. And remember, at the end of the workshop, all the artworks will be exhibited!

What can be offered to demonstrate hospitality? Following the main theme of Kolibrí Festivaali 2023, Flowers, cakes, reaching out brings us the opportunity to unleash our imagination and artistic expression to bring gifts to life that show anyone that we care.

Visual artist Anne Savitie and photographer and video educator Maikki Kantola return to Kolibrí to help us explore empathy and the desire to bring a smile to others. As they remind us, “when we give someone a flower or extend a hand, we kindly show them that we care. And as hosts, we welcome them warmly. Baking is also a way to show love and appreciation. We see the effort and we want to offer the best.”

An animation workshop where you can mold dough with your little ones to create all kinds of creations that explore gestures of hospitality. They will have a blast!

Learn to tell stories with puppets from the hand of puppet theater expert Filiz Kurt Aksu. With over 25 years of experience, Filiz Kurt Aksu is skilled in dramaturgy, puppet theater, and children’s storytelling.

With Aksu’s guidance, the story of this collective workshop will come to life little by little, thanks to all the participants. Join in and learn to tell more entertaining stories that create unforgettable memories for your little ones.

Don’t miss the other shadow theater workshop that Filiz will lead at Kolibrí together with M. Mahir Aksu.

Experience Generations, a captivating dance performance that explores the universal connections between human beings across ages and time.

Generations has already been enjoyed by audiences of different ages, from preschool children to adults. Dancers from the Vocational College Live Dance Department, under the guidance of distinguished artists like Oona Leinonen and Oona Jama, have brought this fascinating performance to life.

An inclusive event welcomes everyone to explore movement, convey sounds, visualize, and create together. Don’t miss this celebration of shared humanity through dance!

A body movement workshop and games designed for children aged 6 and above (although younger children can also participate without any problem) and their accompanying adults.

An inclusive event welcomes everyone to explore movement, convey sounds, visualize, and create together. Don’t miss this celebration of shared humanity through dance!

Come with your sweetest smile, fun carnival mask, costume or party dress and dancing shoes (costumes are optional, but recommended!). Let’s celebrate the coolest party of the year: Kolibrí Carnival! Don’t forget to bring your family dressed up in their carnival costumes or masks!

Remember, the carnival staple is the smile, and anyone can bring that!