Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
On 15th December 2017, two NCRCL PhD candidates — Sinéad Moriarty and Anne Malewski — were invited speakers at the Dulwich Picture Gallery‘s sold-out A Moomin Winter’s Eve event in connection with their Tove Jansson exhibition.
Feeling at Home: Home Spaces in Tove Jansson’s Moomin Novels
In The Poetics of Space (1964), Gaston Bachelard talks about the home as “the human being’s first world” and argues that “always, in our daydreams, the house is a large cradle”. The concept of home is also fundamental within our first literary world: children’s literature. In our talk, we explored ideas of home and home spaces in Tove Jansson’s Moomin novels.
Anne on the left, Sinéad on the right
We discussed the importance of the idea of home in human culture generally and in children’s literature in particular, examined spaces Tove Jansson made a home for herself in ‘real’ life and through her art, and then analysed representations of home in four of her Moomin novels: Finn Family Moomintroll, Moominland Midwinter, Moominpappa at Sea, and Moominvalley in November.
Sinéad discussing Perry Nodelman’s idea of the “home-away-home pattern”
Drawing on Yi-Fu Tuan’s concepts of homeplace, home space, and alien space (from “Desert and Ice: Ambivalent Aesthetics”, 1993), we argued that these Moomin novels portray a fluid idea of home: as a place that can expand, contract, and change; include a wider community than the nuclear family (even in the family’s absence); become alien and be reclaimed. Ownership can be asserted, challenged, seasonal, and voluntarily given away to someone else. Child and adult characters can make homeplaces for themselves and each other, and seek adventures leading to new home spaces. Signifying aspects of Jansson’s ‘real-life’ home-making skills, art can create an emotional and physical home for Moominmamma when she draws her garden on the walls of a far-away lighthouse in Moominpappa at Sea, and Moominvalley is a space people feel so strongly about and at home in that they idealise it, as characters do even within her novel Moominvally in November.
At the end of our talk, we asked the audience to draw their own ideas of home. We saw many intriguing homes in their drawings – for example, a bed in the woods, and this:
Drawing by @heathrown
Apart from our talk, the evening’s programme also included a talk on how to become certain Moomin characters by Sirke Happonen, a music performance, Moomin character drawing, and a Moominland photobooth. As well as:
. . . a pom pom blossom workshop inspired by Snorkmaiden . . .
. . . a mark-making mindful monoprint workshop on the theme of living in harmony with nature in the Moomin stories, led by Nikki Gardham . . .
. . . and, of course, the wonderful Tove Jansson exhibition, including a range of her paintings, caricatures, and Moomin illustrations.
You can visit the Tove Jansson exhibition until 28th January.
Anne Malewski‘s doctoral research investigates shifting boundaries between childhood and adulthood in twenty-first century Britain through the concept of growth. Anne was awarded the Jacqueline Wilson Scholarship 2014.
Sinéad Moriarty‘s doctoral research focuses on representations of wilderness in British children’s literature, specifically examining the representation of Antarctica for child readers in literature from 1895 to the present. She was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Studentship in 2013 and is currently awaiting her viva.
Photographs by Stuart Leech for Dulwich Picture Gallery. Except the drawing tweeted by @heathrown, and the final photograph, with Snufkin, taken by Conor Brennan.
