Media release 16.2.2017

Ernest Truely has been chosen to direct ANTI Festival’s community arts project for asylum seekers. The open call for artists closed on 15th January. Truely will work in Kuopio for the first time between
21st and 23rd February 2017.

Ernest Truely is an artist and educator from the United States, based in Helsinki. He is experienced in working with various communities in Finland, Estonia and the U.S. In Kuopio, Truely will direct workshops for a group of youngsters, both men who have recently been granted with asylum in Finland and Finnish men. The workshops will be arranged throughout the year 2017, and the artistic content will be presented in the programme of ANTI – Contemporary Festival in September 2017.

The participants of the project will gain awareness of strategies in using social media to develop characters, narratives, performance for the camera, digital imaging, video editing and production. They are invited to imagine new possibilities and be active creators.

The project is a part of the New Start Finland! research project at the University of Eastern Finland. New Start Finland! is researching ways to promote health, wellbeing and integration of adult asylum seekers. In February, Truely will meet with members of the project’s target group and work in collaboration with ANTI Festival and the research group of the University.

Further information: Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005

Newsletter 2.2.2017

Future DiverCities was celebrated in Marseille

The Launch of the Future DiverCities project took place in Marseille, France between 29th and 30th January. Kuopio and ANTI Festival was represented by the artistic director Johanna Tuukkanen and festival manager Elisa Itkonen and Kirsi Soininen, the marketing director of the City of Kuopio. In the year 2017, the Future DiverCities project in Kuopio is supported by the City of Kuopio.

The project partners from 8 different European countries continued
in a partners’ meeting in Marseille till 1st February.

Future DiverCities is an initiative of 10 cultural partners in Europe and Canada funded by Creative Europe (European Union programme for the cultural and creative sectors). From the summer 2016, this 4 years experimentation will aim at exploring new models of creation and dissemination that support, for the future, cultural diversity and alternative ecosystems.

www.futuredivercities.eu

New Start Finland! with Ernest Truely

Ernest Truely has been chosen to work with the New Start Finland! research project and ANTI Festival in a community arts project for asylum seekers.
The Open Call for Artists closed on 15th January 2017.

Ernest Truely is an artist, researcher and educator from the United States, based in Helsinki. He is experienced in working with various communities in Finland, Estonia and the U.S, among others. In the collaboration project of the artist and ANTI Festival, the participants will gain awareness of strategies in

using social media to develop characters, narratives, performance for the camera, digital imaging, video editing and production.

The project is a part of the New Start Finland! research project at the University of Eastern Finland. New Start Finland! is researching ways to promote health, wellbeing and integration of adult asylum seekers.

Water inspires – 350 proposals to ANTI Festival 2017

The 16th edition of ANTI Festival will take place between 18th and 24th September 2017. The festival will partner with a number of local partners to produce a programme of projects that respond to the theme of water. We invited proposals from artists working in any medium. We also invited proposals of talks, presentations or papers on preexisting projects that connect with the theme.
The Open Call for Projects, Papers and Presentations closed on 22nd January 2017.

In total, we received 350 proposals from 50 different countries.

Thank you to all the applicants! The festival programme will be released during the spring and summer 2017.

Join us in social media!

ANTI Festival has 4177 likes on Facebook and 1517 followers on Twitter and 861 on Instagram. Join in our virtual community by liking and following us!

Media release 26.1.2017

The 16th edition of ANTI Festival will take place between 18th and 24th September 2017. The festival will partner with a number of local partners to produce a programme of projects that respond to the theme of water. We invited proposals from artists working in any medium. We also invited proposals of talks, presentations or papers on preexisting projects that connect with the theme.
The Open Call for Projects, Papers and Presentations closed on 22nd January 2017.

In total, we received 350 proposals from 50 different countries.

Thank you to all the applicants!

The festival programme will be released during the spring and summer 2017.

Media release 19.1.2017

The visionary Creative Europe project Future DiverCities will be launched in Marseille, France during the Chroniques Festival in January 2017!

As a key partner of the initiative of 10 cultural partners in Europe and Canada, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival invites collaborators, supporters and audiences to join us in the Launch Event on Sunday 29th and Monday 30th January 2017
in Marseille, France.

The programme includes digital arts installations in the historical city as a result of the Future DiverCities Artist Lab, three participative workshops for the inhabitants of Marseille, the launch of our mobile app DiverCity which will offer a tour of the city and meetings for art and creative professionals.

The detailed programme of the Launch Event will be sent to the registered guests! For more information, please contact ANTI Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen – elisa@antifestival.com or Project Lead of Future DiverCities Laetitia Manach – laetitia@superact.org.uk!

www.futuredivercities.eu

The Future DiverCities project

From the summer 2016, this 4 years experimentation will aim at exploring new models of creation and dissemination that support, for the future, cultural diversity and alternative ecosystems. The project will centre around the artistic domains of music, digital art and street art, and it deeply believes in and aims to reinforce social bonds through the arts.

The Chroniques Festival

Chroniques Festival is organised by one of the project partners, Seconde Nature (Aix-en-Provence, France) in partnership with Zinc (Marseille, France).

Besides French artists, the festival programme will present well-known artists of digital arts from Europe, Canada and Japan.

www.chronique-s.org

Photo: Pekka Mäkinen – HC Gilje (NO) created a video artwork in collaboration with local artists during the Artist Lab in Kuopio 2016. The video was presented during the DJ performance by AGF (DE/FI). HC Gilje’s installation In Transit X will be presented at the Chroniques Festival!

Newsletter 20.12.2017

ANTI Festival is sending a big warm thank you for the year 2016 to our partners, artists, team members, voluntary assistants and performers, and audience!

The past year has been eventful in Kuopio. ANTI organised six events and action weeks, free to attend:

Winter ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival 22.-28.2.2016
ANTI’s livingroom (pop-up-space project) 22.2.-20.3.2016
16GB performance day 19.5.2016
PechaKucha Kuopio vol. 11 26.8.2016
ANTI Prize Weekend 27.-29.10.2016
PechaKucha Kuopio vol. 13 8.12.2016

In addition, we awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art and launched the international collaboration project Future DiverCities and organised an artist residence around the project between 23rd and 30th October 2016. We also invited local people to participate in audience workshops, to perform in the artworks, to create the pop-up space and organise the festival with us. ANTI is a result of cooperation! Go back to our shared moments, for example, via the photo albums on our Facebook page and the video recordings on our Vimeo page!

Open Calls 2017

The 16th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 18th and 24th September 2017! We have opened two call outs for artists and art professionals:

Call for Projects, Papers and Presentations

Media release 18.12.2016

The 16th edition of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 18th and 24th September 2017 in Kuopio, Finland. We are now looking for 1-2 artists, living and working in Finland, to lead a community arts project and create a site-specific artwork
to be presented at the festival.

Both existing working groups or individual artists may submit application. We are, particularly, interested in artists experienced working with multicultural communities.

The project is a part of the New Start Finland! research project at the University of Eastern Finland. New Start Finland! is researching ways to promote health, wellbeing and integration of adult asylum seekers. Both granted asylum seekers and Finnish in origin will be invited to participate in ANTI Festival’s project. The artists are expected to commit to the aims of the New Start Finland! research project and to:

lead up to 12 workshops for the target groups between April and October 2017
create, direct and present a community artwork at the ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival 2017
keep a work diary
assist the researchers in implementing surveys
take part in the project evaluation in collaboration with the researchers and ANTI Festival

This is a project work between 1st March and 31st November 2017, equivalent of around 2 months full-time job. The project fee is around 4 000 €/artist, and the working schedule will be negotiated individually. The working languages are English and Finnish.

All proposals must be sent using this electronic form
and written in English. The proposal deadline is 15.1.2017.

The form allows a link to be made to online documentation of previous work and for applicants to attach a CV and a supporting document or images. Proposals that do not strictly conform to these guidelines will not be considered.

We advice the applicants to get familiar with the artistic direction of ANTI Festival by reviewing our past projects on, for example, our Vimeo page! Further information: Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen: elisa@antifestival.com

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival

Participation, dialogue and exchange: ANTI works with innovative artists on projects that explore and explode urban space.

ANTI began life in 2002. Since then we’ve produced 15 editions of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival and have established a year-round programme of artist residencies and cultural projects and events.

Held annually in Kuopio, Finland, the city hosts the festival, projects by artists from around the world inhabit the spaces of public life – homes, shops, city squares, business, forests, lakes – and directly engage communities and audiences in the making and showing of their work. The festival is free to attend.

The 16th edition of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 18th and 24th September 2017. The festival will partner with a number of local partners to produce a programme of projects that respond to the theme of water. We invite proposals from artists working in any medium,

however please be aware that ANTI is a site-specific festival – we do not show projects in traditional cultural spaces and houses thus your proposed project will need to have an integral relationship with the place in which it is presented. When proposing a project please make it clear where your project would, ideally, be located, and why; only proposals that clearly articulate these factors will be considered for inclusion in the 2017 programme.

Kuopio, located in Northern Savonia, is surrounded by ‘lake country’ and stands on the shore of Lake Kallavesi. The region, and indeed Finland, with its abundance of lakes enjoys a much celebrated and much embodied relationship to natural sources of water. In response to this, and to other, perhaps more complicated contexts, we invite proposals that engage with one or more of the following areas:

Water and travel, exploration and leisure
Water and migration, immigration and displacement
Water and the non-human
Water and trade, industry and market forces
Irrigation and signs of life
Water and the human body
Everyday water; the city, the home; grey-water
Seas, lakes and rivers; water and landscape
Water and catastrophe

We also invite proposals of talks, presentations or papers on preexisting projects that connect with the above themes – these may be included in the festival’s seminar or other moments of sharing and discussion. Use the ‘Project description & artist statement’ section of the online form to enter details of your submission, clearly stating the mode of presentation: artist’s talk, academic paper, performance lecture etc.

All proposals must be sent using this electronic form
and written in English. The proposal deadline is 22.1.2017 (see current local time in Finland).

The form allows a link to be made to online documentation of previous work and for applicants to attach a CV and a maximum of three supporting images. Proposals that do not strictly conform to these guidelines will not be considered.

We advice the applicants to get familiar with the artistic direction of ANTI Festival by reviewing our past projects on, for example, our Vimeo page!

Further information: elisa@antifestival.com / Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival

Participation, dialogue and exchange:
ANTI works with innovative artists on projects that explore and explode urban space.

ANTI began life in 2002. Since then we’ve produced 15 editions of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival and have established a year-round programme of artist residencies and cultural projects and events. Held annually in Kuopio, Finland, the city hosts the festival, projects by artists from around the world inhabit the spaces of public life – homes, shops, city squares, business, forests, lakes – and directly engage communities and audiences in the making and showing of their work. The festival is free to attend.

We’ve presented and commissioned some of the world’s most exciting artists from USA, Australia, Mexico, Japan and Europe along with leading artists from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. We’re proud to support an ever-growing generation of emerging artists, often presenting artists internationally for the first time.

Media release 10.11.2016

The Weekend of October

ANTI Prize Weekend took place between 27th and 29th October 2016 in Kuopio, Finland. The programme of the event was presented mostly in public spaces such as in a shopping centre and a park – as well as in a church. Almost 2 000 people took part in the event during the few days.

The highlight of Friday 28th was Artefact, a new commissioned work by the Australian Willoh S. Weiland, the last years’ winner of our live art prize. The performance started in the Puijo Church, and from the church, we moved to a mysterious no-one’s land to witness the burial of our own Artefact, a huge stone.

ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art was awarded for the third time on Saturday 29th and for the first time it went to a Finnish artist, Terike Haapoja. The prize ceremony was followed by an artistic club programme, the Finnish electronic music group K-X-P being the leading star.

During the Weekend, ANTI also hosted several international meetings with art professionals and its local partners; almost 40 artists and art professionals from 12 different countries visited Kuopio.

The Weekend in Images

The best clips by videographer Kim Saarinen can be found on our Vimeo page.

Also, take a look at the fantastic photography galleries by Pekka Mäkinen on our Facebook page!

Future DiverCities Artist Lab

ANTI Festival hosted an experimental artist residence, Lab between 23rd and 30th October 2016 as a part of the international collaboration project Future DiverCities. Artists Anniina Aunola (FI), Antye Greie-Ripatti (DE/FI), HC Gilje (NO) and Jens Beyer (DE) worked in Kuopio in collaboration with each other and local communities. During the Lab, they created a continuing project, Overmapping. You may follow the project on www.overmapping.tumblr.com!

Check out the video compilation of the Lab week!

Media release 29.10.2016

The winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art 2016 was announced on Saturday 29th October 2016 at ANTI Prize Weekend. For the first time, the Prize was awarded to a Finnish artist,
Terike Haapoja!

The artist was presented with 30,000 euros, making the prize one of Finland’s greatest cultural awards. The Prize is one of its kind in the world and underlines the importance of the form of live art. The winner of the Prize was chosen by a three member jury chaired by Eva Neklyaeva (FI/BY), the Artistic Director of the Italian Santarcangelo festival, who was accompanied by Theatre Director, Artist Professor Mikko Roiha (FI) and Heike Roms (UK/DE), the Professor of Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University.

When announcing the winning artist at the evening ceremony the chair of jury, Eva Neklyaeva said:

“At its heart her work is fascinated with how we perceive and apprehend and  – perhaps more importantly – how we are perceived; how does the non-human feel our human presence – the animal, the mineral, the light and the life of the world, what is the real nature and impact of our footprint, our mark, our own signs of life. We know this one of the fundamental questions, one of the fundamental problems, of our age.”

Terike Haapoja receives a cash prize of 15,000 euros and the same amount in the form of a production grant for bringing a new work to the ANTI Festival in 2017. The prize is funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation.

Terike Haapoja (FI)

Terike Haapoja is a Finnish visual artist based New York. Haapoja’s political interventions, large scale installation work and writing investigate the mechanics of othering with a specific focus on issues arising from the anthropocentric world view of western modernism.

Haapoja’s utopian societal institutions, such as Party of Others (2011–) or the collaboration with writer Laura Gustafsson, History of Others (2012 – ongoing), activate the world around them, bringing structures of exclusion and inclusion into light. In recent projects Haapoja has approached law as a performative space where reality is constructed.

www.terikehaapoja.net

The Prize nominees and more information about the Prize:

www.antifestival.com

ANTI Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005