This two-day festival celebrates love, culture and togetherness. Saturday’s event is aimed at adults, while Sunday is celebrated on the children’s terms. The entire programme is free of charge.
Oodi Book Fest to challenge our notions of love
The theme of this year’s Oodi Book Fest is love. Throughout the day, the theme will be explored from a variety of angles: in addition to romantic love, the focus will be on motherhood and a love of language and literature.
Hillevi Kilpeläinen will perform a monologue about the writer Helvi Hämäläinen on the Kino Regina stage, while Tuomas Palonen and Silvia Hosseini will discuss words, culture and love.
At the Book Fest, we will also meet Ronja Salmi and Iisa Pajula, who have both published their debut novels, and hear poetry by Veera Milja and Rosanna Fellman. In the Margaret Atwood book club, we will delve into Atwood’s body of work together.
One of the highlights of the evening will be the announcement of the winners of Oodi’s love poetry competition. The competition will be judged by actor Alma Pöysti and poet Kasper Salonen, who will recite the winning poems. The evening will round off with a performance by retro soul star Bobby Oroza in Maijansali Hall.
Book Fest programme(Link leads to external service)
Dance and sparkle at Kid Fest
The second-ever Oodi Kid Fest will be held on Independence Day, 6 December. The first year showed that there is a demand for an event dedicated to children and families: over the course of six hours, around 7,500 people visited Oodi, and the building was filled with children and families celebrating. Oodi is now establishing the children’s celebration as a new Independence Day tradition in Helsinki.
At Kid Fest, it is not just about being a spectator; above all, visitors have the chance to get involved and do things themselves. On the different floors of Oodi, you can e.g. bounce around on the obstacle course, listen to fairy tales, make a shared music video and dance to the tunes of Onnin Orkesteri. You can put the finishing touches to your party look by taking part in the braiding and face-painting workshops, or by creating your own floral arrangement at the flower buffet.
Outside Oodi, visitors will have an opportunity to explore four mobile libraries, as the Helsinki mobile libraries Skidi and Stoori, the Espoo mobile library Välkky and the Vantaa mobile library Mysse will be parked at Kansalaistori Square.