Performative belongings and dis/locations in between continents: The making of a children’s book

In this article I describe the ideas behind one of my Ph.D. texts, a children’s book entitled Mona’s and Sona’s Monday that I co-produced with the graphic designer Anu Merenlahti. The book was published in 2007 by All Our Children. The story begins in the morning when twin girls Sona and Mona wake up, and follows them through the course of their day: to the pre-school, to their friend’s kebab restaurant, to their mother’s shop and back home. On their daily journey the girls travel in time as well as space. They live in Finland, but their other ‘home’ country, Gambia, is present in their discussions with each other and with the rest of the characters in the book. Both in the written story and the illustrations, West African and Gambian elements are woven together through European and Finnish storylines. The ‘plot’ and layout of the book explore in-between experiences and hybrid realms as part of their aesthetic objective.