| GREETINGS FROM CARTOONIA Stripburger group The Finnish Comics Society Comic strips 25.8. – 12.9.2010 The exhibition represents material from the series album “Greetings from Cartoonia”, composed by the Stripburger –collective. It is part of Helsinki 25th comics festival (10-12.9.10). The Slovenian Stripburger group was founded in1992 in order to publish the new magazine. Before long the publication expanded and became more international and the activities grew fast. All this escalated to series of exhibitions. The group has had a great impact on the comics strips. Stripburger has introduced something new and activated and encouraged the artists to exhibit comics according to their own style. Even today Stripburger is the only publication in Slovenia that publishes contemporary comics, news from the genre and theory of comics. The publications of albums have shown high standard as well and international orientation. The artists for the comics festival are as follows: Kaja Avbersek from Slovenia, Bendik Kaltenborn from Norway and Jyrki Heikkinen from Finland. The artists participating at the exhibition:
Andrea Bruno (1972,Italy)
In the project “Greetings from Cartoonia” – 12 artists, half of them Slovenian, the other half from different European countries, have started a colourful dialogue of comics. The result of this revelling can be seen as fantastic landscapes, that don´t bow in front of the illustrations. The artists from Slovenia used their colleagues´ native country as the source of inspiration: Italy, Finland, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Rumania. The other artists however were inspired by Slovenia. The artists used other countries´ cultural riches as their source such as architecture, fauna, car models, traditional handicraft, mythical figures etc. About Cartoonia “From the present comic project by Stripburger magazine, the virtual map of artistic countries (or DIY countries) just acquired a new acceding member state - Cartoonia.” “Thus far, Cartoonia consists of seven charming lands with names that coincidentally sound similar to some of the mature and solemn states of the European continent. But the similarities to real political formations don't end here: Cartoonia is, among other things, populated by objects, animals and mythological creatures that are labeled as special and unique in the aforementioned great European states. I'm talking about special entities - the scruffy stereotypes and widely identifiable symbols - around which a web of true national identities is being spun. Everyday life in Cartoonia is all about diverse European junk that symbolizes folk traditions and local patriotic pride that occasionally touch the less shiny side of national essence. We are dealing here with a kaleidoscope of objects that are bizarrely hard to comprehend, such as the chestnut roaster and the Neanderthal's flute, white socks and the Fiat 500, Polish vodka and Norwegian hills, a chapel and the Ljubljana city bus. Among them lie equally bizarre animals like the Proteus and the stork, as well as not-so-obscure and somewhat terrifying folkloric beings like the Harlequin, Kurent and Pesta. It seems that the innocent, well-meaning Cartoonia is pestered by chaos and confusion - but then again, the same (if not worse) can be said for real countries.” “May her doings be blessed with statesmanlike fortune and may her borders remain as porous as possible!”
Matjaz Brulc |