ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is proud to present the four shortlisted artists for the 2022 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art and their performances in the Shortlist LIVE! Programme taking place in Kuopio between 13th and 18th September 2022.

The nominees for the 2022 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live are: Zinzi Minott (United Kingdom), Latai Taumoepeau (Tonga/Australia), Liz Rosenfeld (United States/Germany) and River Lin (Taiwan).

“All four bodies of work stand formidable in relation to the most urgent issues of the contemporary moment, offering audiences recalcitrant poetics in the service of deep healing and meaningful strategies for survival. Social, political and geographical ecologies serve as a focal point, and allow us to be present with the trouble and potential of the present, to be present with the lineages we sustain and present with each other as cohabitants of dangerous times”, the shortlisting committee, Season Butler, Madeleine Flynn and Gregg Whelan, writes about the shortlist.

We are excited to present the 4th edition of the Shortlist LIVE! Programme: the nominees’ performances will be experienced live during the ANTI Festival taking place in Kuopio, Finland.

The shortlisting committee of the 2022 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art is proud to announce this year’s shortlist.

After extensive and engrossing deliberation, we are pleased to honour the work of artists Zinzi Minott, Latai Taumoepeau, Liz Rosenfeld and River Lin. Hailing from, and working across, a splendid range of national, thematic, material and formal boundaries, these four artists are dynamic and distinguished contributors to the field of Live Art.

The shortlisted artists will come together in Kuopio for Shortlist LIVE!, a programme of work by each artist, which will be viewed by an independent jury who will select this year’s winner.

Through the selection process, it was exciting to discover common threads and areas of overlap among the four shortlisted nominees.

All four bodies of work stand formidable in relation to the most urgent issues of the contemporary moment, offering audiences recalcitrant poetics in the service of deep healing and meaningful strategies for survival.

Social, political and geographical ecologies serve as a focal point, and allow us to be present with the trouble and potential of the present, to be present with the lineages we sustain and present with each other as cohabitants of dangerous times.

Dance, movement and the body as a material encounter with the world reflect a wider choreographic turn in performance art, as all of the artists in their unique ways use movement to inaugurate personal materiality as sites of resistance. These are bodies at the sharp end of ongoing historical violences and radical innovations for human survival, engaged in deliberate and thoughtful encounters to challenge, integrate, enquire, deconstruct and repair.

These are practices which activate methodologies to which the institutions of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy are sceptical, hostile and/or unaware; practices which deploy the structures and technologies of the established order to expose and interrogate it; practices of shadow and light, chiaroscuro in four dimensions, using literal and metaphorical darkness and illumination to remake meaning and proffer new understanding.

To our shortlisted artists, congratulations and thank you for the excellence, beauty and rigour you’ve brought to bear in your practice. To our audience, we hope that you will be as moved and inspired by the work of these outstanding artists as we have been.

Season Butler

Madeleine Flynn

Gregg Whelan

The Prize is supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation, and the Shortlist LIVE! is supported by the Kone Foundation.

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is an international live art festival held annually in Kuopio, Finland. The festival’s focus is on projects by artists from around the world that explore and explode urban space. This year the festival will take place between 13th and 18th September.

– ANTI Festival is undergoing a year of transformation. Just like the festival looking for its own, new path – while always sprawling out of any pre-defined positions – through the works selected for this year’s festival we will get on a journey. Many of the artworks also examine connections between different periods of time and use collective rituals to look for things that we still can – or find it impossible to – believe in and commit to in a world overshadowed by crises, tells Elisa Itkonen, Lead Curator of the festival.

The festival programme presents live art works by international and Finland based artists in many different locations at the Kuopio City. All events are free of charge for the audience. Once again, the festival week will culminate with the announcement of the winner of the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art. The 2022 shortlist and the Shortlist LIVE! programme will be published later this spring. We will also get to experience the artworks of previous years’ winners at this year’s festival.

The programme looks past our anthropocentric worldview, the history & potential futures

In their performance Fixit, Kaino Wennerstrand (FI) intends to sing, play dead and answer the questions of the audience about the European Union. The Church of 4 FLOOR OF WHORES (FI/DE) is a cavalcade performance that allows us to escape the toxicity of our hyper-capitalist world in the spirit of Bacchanalia. Herbarium by Aleksandra Jakubczak (PL) and her team is a multisensory performance that teaches us to see past our anthropocentric worldview and engage in a spiritual connection with plants. Plant Based Stories by Pia Sirén, Mirella Pendolin and Ilona Valkonen (FI) is a project spanning several years that also involves discovering our relationship with nature. In the first phase of the project, an oasis open to everyone appears in Kuopio city centre. Anyone can go to the oasis to create and dress up plant sculptures and share stories inspired by the plant kingdom during the activity.

Janis Balodis (LV) and Nahuel Cano’s (AR/NL) Last Night of the Deer performance is also based on frustration with our anthropocentric worldview. The performance takes us on a road trip in the intermediary space somewhere between the human and non-human. Action Hero (UK) are travelling to Kuopio with their Oh Europa camper van already for the second time. This time, the artists will compile a sound journal on their journey between the Homo Novus Festival in Riga and ANTI Festival in Kuopio. In addition to festivalgoers in Riga and Kuopio, people in cities such as Tallinn and Helsinki can lend their voices to the Oh Europa sound art piece, which can be experienced in 2023.

Emma Fält (FI) and Anna-Maria Väisänen (FI) have been working with local Kuopio residents aged over 60 in weekly workshops starting in early 2022. In collaboration with the workshop participants and artist Roberto Fusco (IT/FI), Fält and Väisänen are bringing the two-part Shared Futures project to the festival. The piece invites audiences to get involved in exploring the significant places in the festival city and collectively imagining the future of Kuopio 100 years from now.

We will collaborate with the deufert&plischke (DE) collective to set up A Worn World space in Kuopio city centre that invites visitors to spend their time, examine the social and bodily meanings related to clothing, and sew, knit, and have discussions.

Once again, the festival also fosters artistic research and residency work. We have continued the Residency Program for Impossible Performance with the Reality Research Center (FI), and Anna Cadia (FI) is starting a two-year residency at the festival, during which they will search for, examine and probe non-binary realities and stages. This work will already be shared this year, and Binary The Trilogy will be premiered at the 2023 ANTI Festival. Students from Aalto University (FI) will carry out diverse projects, interventions, performances and exhibitions in public spaces. This project is part of a long-term collaboration between ANTI Festival and Aalto University, in which the festival serves as a platform for a course in artistic research.

The artistic programme is complemented by the Meet the Makers series of discussions that enables the festival artists, makers and partners to share their thoughts about the festival themes.

We will also get to experience the artworks of the previous years’ ANTI Festival International Live Art Prize winners. Brian Fuata (AU), who won the prize in 2020, has finally been able to work in Kuopio, and based on his residency work, he will present us with his new solo work, Intermission, which has been integrated into the Kuopio City Theatre’s facilities. Alex Baczinsky-Jenkins (PL/UK), the recipient of the prize in 2021, will present his new feature choreography Unending love, or love dies, on repeat like it’s endless, which unfolds politics of desire and traces queer histories.

The festival schedule will be published during the summer and the bookings to the performances starts in August.

Artists have been selected for the Kulkue project, which develops touring activities between festivals. The themes covered by the artwork of the selected seven working groups range from the creation of queer spaces to urban planning. The artwork will be presented at the ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff between 2022 and 2024.

The open call of the joint Kulkue project of the three art festivals attracted 138 high-quality submissions, of which seven were selected for implementation. The curators for the selection process were the project’s artistic directors, Elisa Itkonen (ANTI), Hanna Parry (Baltic Circle) and Tom Rejström and Jonas Welander (Hangö Teaterträff).

The selection process emphasized finding artwork that would be novel and exceptional for both the artists themselves as well as audiences. The selected projects approach the performance environments in an unexpected and fresh way and take the residents of the festival cities and other spectators into consideration through means such as supporting the needs of local communities and creating new ways to participate in art. The works are site-specific, which means that their implementation and overall look may vary depending on the festival and location where they are presented.

 “In making the selections, we also aimed to pay attention to the artists’ different backgrounds and to choose representatives of the Finnish art sphere from the north to the south. One of our main selection criteria was our assessment of the capacity of the proposed works to reach wide audiences that may not have prior experience of contemporary performing arts”, explain the festivals’ artistic directors.

 The themes of the selected submissions range from the creation of queer spaces to the questions of urban planning, from local politics to people’s relationships with nature and personal experiences of home all the way to bacchanals.

Tea Andreoletti’s submission will bring experts, such as associations, politicians and activists to each of the festival cities to share their experiences and stories of uranium mining occurring in Finland with the locals.

4 FLOORS OF WHORES (Emilia Jansson, Riku-Pekka Kellokoski, Herman Nyby & Astrid Stenberg) collaborates with the director Lara Magdalena Tacke to invite spectators to participate in an immersive performance inspired by ancient bacchanals that enable the audiences to participate in various rituals and experience ecstatic revelry.

The interdisciplinary and communal performances and installations by the Cross-art Collective Piste’s Työmaa working group (Riikka Vuorenmaa, Maarit Utriainen, Sebastian López-Lehto & Laura Rekilä) take place in the terrain and examine the relationship between humans and the environment in areas that are undergoing changes due to new construction.

Sonja Jokiniemi & Emma Fält will create a work of art comprising three parts: a performance, an installation and an archive-like exhibition that invites different people to participate and explore their special relationships with the home and spaces related to the home as well as their worries and fears.

Mira Eskelinen, Frank Stankiewicz & Miranda Kastemaa will create a space particularly aimed at quiet and shy queer folks by building a performance and an installation that allow audiences to celebrate diversity by resting, observing or just spending time.

Henriikka Himma & a working group including Sofia Palillo, Leissi Rehn, Julia Lappalainen and Kaisa Karvinen use their performance to examine Western architecture, its history and norms. Their artwork is based on a collection of prose essays by the architect–author Helmi Kajaste, Rakenna, kärsi ja unhoita (‘Build, suffer and forget’).

Pia Sirén, Ilona Valkonen (Vieno Motors) & Mirella Pendolin collect stories of people’s relationship with nature while creating plant sculptures to be dressed by the festival audience. The artists’ use the stories as the basis for a performance and a garden installation.

The artwork will be presented as part of the festival programmes. More information about the works will be provided in the annual programme publications on the festival websites and their social media channels. Spectators get to experience the selected artwork at the ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff between 2022 and 2024.

Kulkue is a joint project of three major art festivals. ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), Hangö Teaterträff (Hanko) and Baltic Circle festival (Helsinki) are carrying out an exceptionally broad series of joint productions from Finland and a tour built around the works. The key goal of the project is to promote the accessibility of festivals and extend the artwork lifecycle. The project is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

The ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival association has appointed Elisa Itkonen as the new Managing Director and Lead Curator of ANTI Festival.  Itkonen is a Master of Arts, producer and curator, and has served as the Festival Manager for several years. Suvi Koivisto, Bachelor of Culture and Arts (Cultural Manager), starts as the festival’s permanent Production Manager. Koivisto has been working as Producer for the festival since 2019 under a fixed-term contract.

– ANTI Festival is an international event, but at the same time, it is strongly attached to the city of Kuopio. The appointment of Itkonen, from Kuopio, as the festival’s Managing Director supports the association’s commitment to the city and its local communities. The association’s board has strong trust in the abilities of both Itkonen and Koivisto, who has been appointed as the Production Manager, to continue and further develop the activities, says Jenni Rissanen, the chair of the association, on the appointments.

Itkonen and Koivisto started in their new roles on 25 April. The association that manages ANTI Festival has been undergoing a period of transition, as the association’s founder and long-term Artistic Director and Senior Manager, Johanna Tuukkanen, moved onto a new role as the City of Oulu’s Head of Cultural Services in October last year (link to press release). Gregg Whelan also stepped down from his role as the Co-Artistic Director of ANTI Festival in October as planned.

– The two long-term directors of ANTI Festival leave us with a platform built on a financially sustainable basis and a clear artistic concept that nevertheless enables us to keep creating new things, Itkonen comments.

A dialogue between local and international experts as well as within the ANTI team will guide the content and development of ANTI Festival in the future.

– We are currently in the process of assembling an international group of advisers and will later form a curators’ working group. ANTI Festival has always used a dialogical approach when it comes to its production team, and the other members of the renewed ANTI team, Suvi Koivisto, Alli Mattila and Sanna Ritvanen, are important discussion partners in my efforts to develop ANTI, Itkonen explains.

Communications Coordinator Mattila and Project Coordinator Ritvanen were recruited into the ANTI team earlier this year.

– Last year, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of ANTI Festival. The festival’s 21st year will bring on many changes. The outstanding competence of the ANTI team is one of the pillars for continuing the festival’s operations. Indeed, I am thrilled that Elisa Itkonen is willing to take the lead and steer ANTI towards the future, Rissanen rejoices.

Inquiries
Jenni Rissanen
jenni.rissanen@pajuconsulting.fi
+358 (0)40 091 0300

Elisa Itkonen
elisa@antifestival.com
+358 (0)50 305 2005

22.2.2022

Kulkue is a joint project of three festivals that will produce new works of performing arts and propose a new touring model during 2022–2024. As part of the project, the works will tour different festival cities; Kuopio, Hanko and Helsinki, always creating a relationship with the local environment. Now the festivals call for performance proposals inspired by space, environment or community.

The open call ends in a week on 1.3.2022 (23.59 EET).

The artists selected for the project will be invited to a dialogue with three festivals and three different cities. ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff offer artists the opportunity to work long-term in the festival context and to experiment with different forms, practices and production methods.

During the period 2022–2024, 4–5 new works of performing arts will be produced within the project. They will premiere at one of the three festivals and may then tour the other two. The works can evolve during the tour and take on different scales and forms in different cities. For example, during a tour, the work can be transformed from a workshop through a performance into an interactive installation, or it can keep it’s form and create a dialogue with the changing environment.

How to apply

Please apply in Finnish, Swedish or English via the online form. More information and application guidelines: https://forms.gle/HYZ6phKKY72BBCiK8

17.2.2022

In October 2021, Gregg Whelan stepped down from the position of Co-Artistic Director of ANTI Festival. Gregg joined Trinity College London as Director of Performance in 2020.

We are sad to see Gregg go but incredibly happy to work with him in the process of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art once more; Gregg is the Chair of Shortlisting Committee 2022. We will announce the other members of the Committee later this week.

Gregg and Johanna Tuukkanen’s 15 year collaboration as co-Artistic Directors saw ANTI Festival develop into an internationally acknowledged, award-winning arts organisation; we established the Live Art Prize – followed by the Shortlist LIVE! Programme and began year-round programmes of projects and artist residencies.

Thank you and congratulations for the pioneering work for live art, for ANTI, for Kuopio, Gregg!

Gregg Whelan is best known as co-founder, with Gary Winters, of the performance company Lone Twin. Since 1997 the company’s work has been shown across the world to critical and popular acclaim. From 2007 to 2021 Gregg was Co-Artistic Director of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, Finland. In 2010 Gregg began a Research Fellowship at King’s College London and held the position of Professor of Performance at Falmouth University from 2013 to 2020.

Photo: Kate Mount

10.2.2022

Sanna Ritvanen

has started working as the part-time Project Coordinator for ‘Kulkue’, a joint project between ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff on 7th Feb 2022.

Photo: Shubhangi Singh

Alli Mattila

Alli Mattila will start working as the part-time Project and Communications Coordinator for Festivals’ Path project and generally for ANTI Festival, starting from 1st March 2022.

Welcome to our team Sanna and Alli!