Excerpts from the collection: Travelling with Tove, Haru, Island of the Solitary and Tove and Tooti in Europe

In early 1970s, the graphic designer Tuulikki Pietilä had seen enough of stative visual art and purchased a film camera from Japan. Her film immortalized her trips with Tove Jansson: they travelled around the world and later took shorter trips to Europe. Pietilä also filmed the games and chores of the artist couple in their beloved hideout, the island of Klovharun.

This film material, continuing into the 1990s, took new forms in the hands of Kanerva Cederström, who made them into films. Travelling with Tove, Haru, Island of the Solitary and Tove and Tooti in Europe, the two latter ones made in collaboration with Riikka Tanner. The first film is accompanied with the sparkly banter of the travellers and the latter ones with diary and literature quotations. The images convey the open love and curiosity towards the world, and also Tove’s habit of letting herself go in jubilation, whether the stage was Honolulu or the cliffs of their dear Haru. The wind and the ripples on the water tune in to their own universal dance.