INVITATION Oulu Comics Center hopes you or your organization to join the Arctic Comics Seminar, held in 5-6 November 2015, in city of Oulu, Finland. City of Oulu is filled with comics also in this year, when people all around northern Europe gather together in Arctic Comics Seminar and Oulu fourth Comics Festival. We hope artists, representatives of northern comics associations, culture centers and institutions providing art education in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, or Finland to participate in the seminar. The event brings together people and organizations who are eager to spread the joy of comics in their own communities or at least they want to know, how it could be done by teaching comics or using it as a tool. Oulu Comics Center organizes the second Arctic Comics Seminar in November 2015, in Oulu (Uleåborg in Swedish), Finland. The Arctic Comics Network was launched in the year 2014 by the first Arctic Comics Seminar. Now the cooperation and networking continues.
THEME The Arctic Comics Seminar 2015 focuses on teaching of comics and using comics as an education method, and how to apply comics in practice in different cultural institutions. Purpose of the seminar and the network is to promote comics activities especially outside of the Nordic capital city areas, where this kind of activity might not have been possible or established before. The seminar is organized to strenghten the Arctic comics cooperation: Network members can, for example, begin a fruitful exchange of exhibitions, lecturers, and teachers, or organize a Pop Up Comics Center in cooperation with each other, as Oulu Comics did last fall in Tromsø, Norway. The seminar programme consists of speeches on comics teaching and using comics as a tool in every day life in culture institutions and schools, for example. During the event, variety of program is guaranteed, since the seminar is held together with the Oulu Comics Festival that takes place in November 5-8. All quests are welcome to join also the Oulu Comics Festival. The Arctic Comics Seminar and the Oulu Comics Festival programmes are updated in the website www.oulucomics.com.
REGISTERATION More information and registration by e-mail: seminar@oulucomics.com - Name, Organization, Contact information, and Special diets / allergies etc information Festival pass fee is 10 euros, including most of the event fees and lot of discounts during the Arctic Comics Seminar and Oulu Comics Festival Nov. 5-8. The pass fee will be paid at the venue. Please note that the number of seminar participants is limited. Please enroll in advance. ACCOMMODATION IN OULU Seminar delegates must book and pay their own accommodation. We strongly encourage all delegates to book their accommodation in Oulu well in advance. List of hotels in Oulu is found here: http://www.ouluon.fi/en/accommodation/hotels/. Hotels nearby the seminar venue are: - Original Sokos Hotel Arina - Radisson Blu Hotel - Scandic Oulu - Omenahotelli GENERAL INFORMATION Seminar delegates are expected to organize their own travel and stay in Oulu. The Arctic Airlink Tromsø-Luleå-Oulu (Uleåborg) flight route Oulu Airport http://www.finavia.fi/en/oulu/ Helsinki-Vantaa Airport http://www.helsinki-vantaa.fi/home Traveling by train in Finland http://www.vr.fi/en/index.html Traveling by bus in Finland http://www.matkahuolto.fi/en/ Bus connection to Oulu city center / to Airport: http://www.oulunjoukkoliikenne.fi/ NB! Check out your organization s opportunities to get funding to join the Arctic Comics seminar and the Arctic Comics Network. F. ex.: www.kulturkontaktnord.org, www.nordiskkulturfond.org, www.hanaholmen.fi. STAYING IN OULU http://www.ouluon.fi/en/oulu/ FUNDERS Arctic Comics Seminar is funded by Nordic Culture Point, Icelandic-Finnish Cultural Foundation, Finnish- Norwegian Cultural Foundation, and Finnish-Danish Cultural Foundation. IN COOPERATION WITH
OULU COMICS CENTER Oulu Comics Center was opened in January 2014 at Oulu Culture Centre Valve. It is the multipurpose comics center of northern Finland. The Comics Center was founded to increase awareness of comics and related art, as well as to promote comics and people who make them. Oulu Comics Center organizes comics courses in cooperation with the national comics network. The Center has a good network of Finnish comics teachers, and it organizes courses and Pop Up events elsewhere in northern Finland and abroad. The center operates events as the Oulu Comics Festival, Arctic Comics Seminar, and many more. Oulu Comics Centers gallery is located at the Cultural Centre Valve, where about 25 000 people are visited each year. There is also a book store and an expanding comic archive and a library at the Oulu Comics Center. Oulu Comics Center currently employs three staff members, comic course teachers, and trainees. The organization s activity is funded by City of Oulu (25 % of our funding), Finnish government (25 %), international financing (25 %), and by self finance (25 %). Oulu Comics Center helps and guides in all issues concerning comics, whether they are about making, reading, or teaching comics. Oulu Comics Center is managed by Oulu Comics Association, founded in the year 1980.