This allowed Tietäväinen – from 2006 onwards – to carry out extensive research on the subject and, among other things, to travel with anthropologist Marko Juntunen to Morocco and Spain to research on location. Work on the graphic novel took five years and was made possible by a grant from the Finnish Cultural Council.
Among others, Tietäväinen received the 2011 Finnish Cultural Foundation Award, Finland’s most important cultural award. The book received great critical acclaim in Finland and was awarded many prizes.
Instead of landing in the hoped-for paradise, the main figure, who was unemployed in Morocco, like many refugees ends up leading a new life marked by violence against and exploitation of such refugees, who have no financial means and hardly any rights. The powerful imagery of the panels as well as the realistic dialogues shows the horrors of the barely survived flight and above all the suffering they are subjected to afterwards in southern Spain. The book begins with the sensitive depiction of the social and economic hardships facing North Africans who live in poverty like the main character and which drive such people to leave their home country to seek a better life for their families. While the story is fictional, it is based on the real life of a Moroccan father Rashid and is marked by its strongly expressive, mostly realistically drawn strips and its dramatic plot, which explores extensively the dark side of being a refugee. In it, he tells the story of the odyssey of a North-African refugee in the European Union. His most important work to date has been the 216-page graphic novel »Näkymättömät kädet« (tr. The book, published also in French with the title ✽es Oiseaux, des Mers«, deals with human freedom, forbidden love, rigid social structures and similar themes. 2003 saw the release of his second comic set in Hong Kong, »Linnut ja meret« (tr. He set up his own design agency Studio Tietäväinen in the same year. Smiling Moon), in 1995 together with Harri Hannula. Tietäväinen released his first comic, which plays in Thailand, »Hymyilevä kuu« (tr. He is a qualified architect, graphic designer, illustrator and caricaturist, but has mainly made a name for himself in the past years as an author and illustrator of longer comic stories. Tietäväinen’s previous graphic novel, Birds and Seas (2003), was also published in France by Delcourt.Ville Tietäväinen was born in 1970 in Helsinki. He won the 2011 Graphic Novel Finlandia Prize for his graphic novel Invisible Hands, which has also been published in Arabic (Sefsafa), German (Avant), French (Casterman) and Swedish (Epix).
In 2011 he was selected to receive the most distinguished cultural prize in Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation Award. He has been awarded several times for his artwork. 1970) is an exceptionally talented cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer.
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