Oodi to mark 8th founding anniversary on Dec 5-6

Central Library Oodi will celebrating its eighth founding anniversary on December 5 and 6, said the City of Helsinki in a press release on Friday.

On the eve of Independence Day, the Oodi Book Fest will bring literature lovers together marking the anniversey.

On Independence Day, the building will be taken over by children and families as Oodi Kid Fest, which was held for the first time last year.

This two-day festival celebrates love, culture and togetherness. On the first day of the celebration, the event is aimed at adults, while the concluding day will be celebrated on the children’s terms.

The entire programme will remain open for the people.

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, people can meet Ronja Salmi and Iisa Pajula, who have published their debut novels, and hear poetry by Veera Milja and Rosanna Fellman. In the Margaret Atwood book club, people 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.

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 and about 7,500 people visited Oodi,

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, people can bounce around on the obstacle course, listen to fairy tales, make a shared music video and dance to the tunes of Onnin Orkesteri.

People can take part in the braiding and face-painting workshops, or by creating their 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.