2011 news about soita mummolle
Howdy everyone!
Even if I haven’t been writing much a lot has happened since the conclusion of the 2010 edition of the campaign, and this was all thanks to the interest and the positive reaction that you Helsinki citizens (and everyone else involved) have shown.
1) Soita Mummolle campaign was awarded from ET Lehti with its first edition “Ystävyyden Palkinto” (“Friendship Award”) because of its efforts in filling the generation gap and addressing a social issue too often ignored. You can read more about it -in Finnish- from the related ET article
2) Soita Mummolle participated to Masters of Arts 2011 exhibition, that showcased the final works of Aalto University students from the art and design school. Soita Mummolle was present there with an interactive installation where you could take a picture of yourself holding the campaign sign and donate it to our blog as a sign of endorsement. You can check all the pictures and download your own in case you partecipated from this photo-set on Flickr. More information about the work exhibited in MoA and about the festival here.



3) Soita Mummolle, as the practical part of Stefania Passera’s Master Thesis Work “The Little Book of the Cultural Hijacker – Towards Critical Action Graphic Design”, received an award from Sato (read the related press release) and a grant from Aalto University School of Art and Design, Department of Media (mentioned here).
This year I won’t organize any street action or guerrilla due to the fact that I cannot take the part time from work again in order to organize the campaign with the same level of detail as last year… but you are free to organize it by yourself at any moment and in any corner of Finland by downloading the campaign sign from here. Please, please, please do! Let’s make it something big and spontaneous! Remember to send me the photos you take or to post them directly on Soita Mummolle Facebook page.
Love,
Stefania
thank you everybody for today, really!
August 11, 2010, 7:47 pm
Filed under:
events,
supporters,
Thank you! | Tags:
Aalto Social Impact,
Agricolan kirkko,
campaign,
community,
flash mob,
guerrilla,
Helsinki,
Kamppi,
public intervention,
signs,
social,
soita mummolle,
Soita Mummolle Päivä,
Sonera,
support,
thank you
So today was Soita Mummolle Päivä and I must admit that the public reaction to it was mindblowing!
Many tv and radio stations, plus blogs, discussion forums, mags and papers covered the happening and so many wonderful people has shown up to the call-your-grandparents flashmob in Kamppi. I also received very supportive emails and had interesting, warm conversations with many supporters who came to the flashmob: I really felt that this time in my life I did something good and right not only for me and I had something to share with others. It was a great personal reward and I really want to thank you all for making this event possible! 🙂
I am really too tired to write anything more detailed and nicer than this tonight, but yes, the concept is: thank you! Especially thank you Teemu, Siru, Jaakko, my love Jussi, Marika, Reetta, Anssi, Dan, Anu, Minsu, Atefee, Ville, Anne, Duong, Yan, Annaleena, Päivi, Heikki, Krista, Karolina, Maija, Dhiraj, Yanhuan, Riitta, Arja, Tiina, the Agricola youth, Aalto Social Impact, plus the heart-knitters Tintti, Tea, Carol, Carola, Riitta, Lee and Akua, plus all those nice journalists that talked about the campaign and helped spreading the word! ❤
(I hope I haven’t forgotten anybody of you very helpful people; if I did it, it’s just because I need to sleep after this week!)
Stefania
only 2 days to soita mummolle päivä
August 9, 2010, 6:37 pm
Filed under:
events,
Plans,
Thank you!,
updates | Tags:
Agricolan kirkko,
campaign,
flash mob,
Helsinki,
Kamppi,
public intervention,
soita mummolle,
Soita Mummolle Päivä,
Sonera,
support,
updates
It seems weird that after all these months working so focusedly on the campaign, the grand final of Soita Mummolle Päivä is already here!
The preparations went well, media attention rose enough in the last days and hopefully this will motivate more people to participate to the initiative and call their grandparents at least on Wednesday 😉 Helsingin Sanomat, Iltasanomat, Nyt and Vartti – just to name a few – covered the story during the past week, many people should be aware of what is going on by now! And I wish they will join us to raise some noise in Kamppi about it!
I still have few things to arrange, like fetching the phones from Sonera (thanks Siru!), print more Soita Mummolle A4 signs and brief the people from Agricola Church who will kindly help me in keeping the Soita Mummolle Päivä flashmob of Wednesday (thanks Teemu & everybody!).
I hope lots of people will decide to come to Kamppi and publicly call their grandparents, even if I am a bit anxious if everything will turn out well. Ten phones are not enough to have everybody calling for free, in case few hundreds people will come, so I hope this won’t piss off anybody. On the other hand, nobody – I hope – will be so stingy not to call the grandparents with their own phone. These free phones were more of a candy-treat and something symbolical, and not the goal of course. 🙂
So, as I have been repeating for all these months now, please feel welcome to join us on 11.8 and call your grandparents! These are the available options to particpiate to Soita Mummolle Päivä:
1) Join the Soita Mummolle flash-mob in Helsinki
Join Soita Mummolle flash-mob in Kamppi, on 11.8.2010, from 16:00 to 17:00! Come to call for free your elderly parents and grandparents to give a public sign of your love, care and committment. Grandparents are also very welcome to call their children and grandchildren: let’s reduce the genration gap! Free calls provided by Sonera.
Search the people with the Soita Mummolle signs and ask them to make you call!
2) Just call your grandparents and invite others to do the same!
Personal action is important! If you cannot join one the flash-mob or you are not in Helsinki, just call your grandparents wherever you are and then just post the message “olen soittanut!” on Soita Mummolle Facebook page. Before and during Soita Mummolle Päivä tell everybody you know to do the same!
3) Download the Soita Mummolle Sign, take a picture of you with it and post in on Facebook
You can download the Soita Mummolle Sign “Olen soittanut!” (and remember to call for real, of course!) from here.
Then print it, take a picture of you showing it and upload it on 11th August 2010 on Soita Mummolle Facebook page and use it also as your profile picture!
soita mummolle street action#5
July 21, 2010, 7:47 pm
Filed under:
events,
photos,
street actions,
supporters | Tags:
campaign,
Esplanadi,
fans,
guerrilla,
Helsinki,
Kaisaniemenpuisto,
Kaisaniemi,
photos,
public intervention,
signs,
social,
soita mummolle,
street actions,
support
Hei folks!
the second last Street Action of the campaign took place today and as usual we hunted many great support photos. We were quite much helped by Pink’s concert in Kaisaniemenpuisto, so that we found the park conveniently packed of people in good mood.
I want to thank everybody we met today, plus of course Krista and Karolina who were today’s volunteer photographers and kept me good company!



The most of the pictures from today’s Street Action are already published in the photogallery section. There are still few missing, from Krista’s camera, so if you don’t find yours yet please be patient and give us girl the time to exchange files. 🙂
Now looking forward to Friday! I am going to be interviewed about the campaign by both Vartti and Kirkko&Kaupunki, and I’ll reveal to the press some previously unreleased details about Soita Mummolle Päivä, which -I remind you! – it’s gonna take place on 11.8.2010.
Stefania
4th soita mummolle street action… and now some holidays
June 30, 2010, 7:24 pm
Filed under:
events,
photos,
street actions | Tags:
campaign,
Esplanadi,
guerrilla,
photos,
public intervention,
signs,
social,
soita mummolle,
street actions,
support
Today the 4th Soita Mummolle Street Action took place and it was a record of people donating their photo: 76 is the number-in-progress, and tomorrow I will receive more photos from the other participants… we are probably well over 100 in one day!
I want to thank all of today’s “models” and our action-photographers Duong, Päivi, Heikki and Annaleena, that joined me at the last moment and boosted up nicely the whole action!
You can see the first part of the pictures from Flickr already now, while the second part will be published probably tomorrow.

I leave you with more good news before the holidays: crochet hearts for the guerrilla campaign are coming from USA, Australia and Netherlands, and I already received at home around 70. By the way, if you would like to donate some crochet heart – especially if you live in Finland – contact me for more info via e-mail at soita.mummolle[at]gmail.com or check
this note on the Facebook Page.
Stefania
a great week just ended… let’s keep up this pace until 11th august!
May 24, 2010, 8:27 pm
Filed under:
Communications,
events,
photos,
Plans,
street actions | Tags:
Communications,
generation gap,
grannies,
guerrilla art,
Helsinki,
hugs,
knit,
Laajasalo,
Origami,
Sauna,
Sofia,
soita mummolle,
street actions
The intensive efforts of last week payed off, the campaign is going great!
The first two external articles appeared on peppar.fi, who took a chance to make very nice interviews with people about how often they call their gradparents, and on Aalto Design Factory’s website (I know, my office is located there, but I swear I didn’t bribe anyone to talk about this!). I should hit the local library and see if some of the press releases I sent to some magazine titllated press’ curiosity, but it might be too early, since I targeted monthly mags so far.
The next step would be getting some nice “lukijan kuva” of the Street Actions or of a Soita Mummolle billposted sign on Metro… I mean, the person who sends the photo might even win some money… but dear readers, I haven’t suggested you anything… 😛
We also got the first couple of positive tweets, let’s hope soon to have more! But the best satisfaction coming from the net was today’s 1000th fan on the Facebook page (and counting)!
Forgetting the press and social media side for a moment, I also wanted to update you about the “Laajasalo adventure”. Together with the super active girls of Sofia-We-Care and some volunteering friends, we spent Friday night in Laajasalo’s Sofia Palvelukoti, preparing the “grannies’free hugs” event. Duong Pham organized all of this: she managed to recruit 15 of us and taught us to fold beautiful origami lily (we folded a full shopping bag overnight!), that were offered as present to the passers-by in the Laajasalo Päivä local fair on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, very few grannies from Sofia house were bold enough to give the free hugs during the fair, so I picked up some of my Soita Mummolle signs and started an improvised Street Action to accompain the lilies’giveaway.



It was a lucky choice, since it allowed me to take more nice pictures and do very good networking: I exchanged my business card with a member of the Finnish parliament who was very interested in the campaign, Arja Karhuvaara (and she also donated a support picture during the Action), and I talked with the local Martat and another seniors’ house of the island. Now we are thinking to organize a “knitting&sauna night” in Sofia Palvelukoti, inviting the Martat and the grannies from both the seniors’homes, plus everybody who share this hobby and wants to join us: the idea is to knit as many hearts as possible, while filling the gap between grannies and younger people that enjoy knitting, steaming hot sauna and perhaps some slice of jolly good apple pie. Tiina Kuisma, the enthusiastic and energetic director of Sofia, suggested the idea and the collaboration, introducing me to her Laajasalo’s fellows.
These knitted hearts will have a very special “guerrilla” role before Soita Mummolle Päivä… but no more revelations, otherwise it won’t be a surprise!
Stefania
A week full of excitement for Soita Mummolle!
May 17, 2010, 8:56 pm
Filed under:
Communications,
events,
photos,
Plans,
street actions | Tags:
Aalto Social Impact,
Agricolan kirkko,
Communications,
Design Factory,
flash mob,
photos,
public event,
soita mummolle,
Sonera,
updates
This week will be – and has already been, even if it’s only Monday!- full of excitement and progresses for the Soita Mummolle campaign. Here are briefly some highlights of the good things going on:
- Today I presented the project to the audience of Aalto Social Impact lectures. Many support pictures were collected, among which one from rapper Signmark, the special guest of the lecture! The mood was great and inspiring, and the story of deaf rapper Signmark really gave food for thoughts to everybody. Check out all the photos from the photo gallery

- A batch of 2500 coloured paper sheets is ready to be soon printed and transformed in Soita Mummolle signs: be ready to see them around the city!
- Wednesday 19.5 the 1st Soita Mummolle Street Action will take place! Already 6 people signed up for this flash-mob and I am really satisfied about this result, even though it might seem small. Our network is keeping on growing and I am sure that along these summer months more interested people will be willing to join the action with a big smile! 🙂 I am very looking forward to Wednesday, even though I am a bit nervous for the debut and I hope everything will roll out nice and smooth. By the way, you are still in time to join! For more information and the link to the subscription spreadsheet visit the Facebook event page (but PLEASE, just not mark “attending”… use the Google spreadsheet given!)
- New partners onboard! Negotiations for cooperation with Agricola Church and Sonera are proceeding: both (hopefully) future partners have shown a lot of enthusiasm and positive energy about the Soita Mummolle campaign… I got also in contact with artist Helena Björk, whose master thesis was focused on urban knitting, so we will soon meet and see how is possible to collaborate… but more news will come later, let’s not reveal all the juicy things at once!
- The Facebook group has been moved to a Facebook page, due to the high number of fans, and in the migration it collected already 156 “likes” in only one day 🙂 So keep on following the campaign on the new page! http://www.facebook.com/SoitaMummolle
- Tomorrow, Tuesday 18.5, some billposting in TKK and TaiK, before the schools get completely empty for the summer
All for now, and remember to call your grandparents!
Stefania
JOIN IN SOITA MUMMOLLE STREET ACTIONS
May 9, 2010, 12:04 pm
Filed under:
Communications,
events,
projects,
street actions | Tags:
community,
flash mob,
guerrilla art,
Helsinki,
photos,
signs,
social,
soita mummolle,
street actions
Do you want to give a hand to the Soita Mummolle campaign in a fun and personal way?
No money needed, just a little bit of your time and your personality…
Hitting the streets of Helsinki this summer, Soita Mummolle Street Action is a collective, fun, interactive event outdoors with a good message to spread.
Dates
May: 19th
June: 2nd, 16th, 30th
July: 21st, 28th
August: 4th
Time
17.30 – 19.00 (Including intro, the action itself and the conclusion)
Meeting point
Helsinki Railway Station
A Soita Mummolle Street Action is somethin simple, in only 11 steps:
– Leave from home and remember to bring your digital camera!
– We are meeting in front of Helsinki Railway Station at 17.30
– We are given Soita Mummolle signs
– Either alone or in couples we are reaching a busy spot in the city center
– We show the Soita Mummolle sign to the passer-bys, just standing, smiling, searching for eye contact with the people
– If a passer-by reacts in some way (smiling back, laughing, commenting, asking, keeping the eye contact…) then you are going to ask “Do you think this is a good message?”.
From then you have to try to engage in a short conversation, leading to the point of: “This is a campaign to sensitize against seniors’ loneliness. We don’t want your money, but can we take a picture of you, showing this sign? Then we are going to publish it on our blog as a sign of your personal support to this cause: we are trying to collect as many pictures as possible!”
– Take the photo!
– Leave the sign to the person, telling that s/he can see the picture taken at the blog or Facebook address written on the sign
– Try to collect as many pictures as possible
– All the participants are meeting back at the train station at 19.00 and tell each other how did it go
– The participants have to upload the pictures taken on Soita Mummolle Facebook page as soon as possible, giving as title place and date (e.g. Kamppi, 2.6.2010). Join the group and you will be enabled to upload your pics!
The address of the Facebook page is facebook.com/SoitaMummolle
To sign up for a suitable date, please use this form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEN3enpRSWQ1QWR1anpmbi03TklBX2c6MQ
If you want to take part in one of these actions, but none of these time suits you, write to soita.mummolle@gmail.com and we can arrange something together! 🙂