Curatorial statement 2021
There are photographs of early ANTI Festivals, taken in the first years of this century, showing children enjoying performance works that would (and did) confound any adult. Those children, of course, are adults themselves now, and are there in recent images of festivals, back in the crowd. Some have been with us most years, some come and go, but either way their presence is a brilliant reminder, if one were needed, that a considerable amount of time since has passed since we gathered our first crowd in 2002.
As ANTI reaches its twentieth year, and as we think back across two-decades of activity, many hundreds of events, and one or two very late, and rather merry, nights, the fact that the festival remains, that fact that it’s still here to visit, still creating a crowd to step into, is, perhaps, an achievement above all others. That’s certainly true when we reflect on the very recent past and indeed the very real present – twenty years and twenty festivals, including 2020, the year when the global pandemic took hold and now 2021 the year where some parts of the world, but not all by any means, have begun to move towards a new normal.
With thanks, as ever, to our festival team, our funders, our allies, our friends, our volunteers, our audiences, young and old, and the artists who bring their incredible work to Kuopio, we’re back again. In order for a festival to happen everyone in that list has to make some sort of investment – at the very least everyone in that list needs to think it’s a good idea; it takes agreement and collaboration, it takes a group, a community, however temporary, and it needs people – it needs you – to care. It sounds like an ANTI project, people coming together, from different parts of the city, of the world, of life, to make something happen. We’re not celebrating ourselves when we mark that achievement, when we wish the festival a very happy twentieth birthday, we’re celebrating everyone who came together, and everyone who continues to come together, to make a festival happen.
In photographs of that first festival back in 2002 it isn’t hard to identify younger versions of ANTI’s current curatorial team, one looks on as the other performs. Johanna, of course, has led the team across these years, with Gregg joining in 2007. The 20th edition of the festival marks a moment of change for the team, with Gregg stepping down from his role of co-artistic director and the curatorial model will move to a dialogic relationship with a diverse group of visiting and associate curators. Gregg will remain a close friend of the festival and is as excited as ever to watch its development across the next 20 years.
So, the kids have grown up, has ANTI Festival done the same? Well, some twenty-year olds are wise, and worldly and thoughtful and considerate, some are alarmingly intelligent, polite, well-groomed and well-educated. And some aren’t. Some are still – and will be forever – rebellious, some don’t fit in, some have never read a book in their life, some live by their wits, some are intuitive, impulsive, some are scruffy and some you wouldn’t want to take home. ANTI, of course, has a foot in both camps and for that week in September can be all of those things at once. It is our gift, our collective gift, to be who and what we want to be. It’s an idea that sits at the heart of ANTI Festival – free to attend for audiences, with free events across the city, the festival is framed from within; its name translates from the Finnish as ‘gift’.
So what better time, as we celebrate two decades of ANTI, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, and to be in the act of giving. Artists give us their work, we give our attention, although one isn’t necessarily an answer to the other; as we work on the festival often return to the idea of the pure gift – an act which is not elicited, not reciprocated and not anticipated perhaps; it doesn’t require anything in return, its value is not expressed by what might be offered back, instead it sets up a different kind of exchange, it disrupts the status quo and sets up new forms of encounter. That’s the promise of ANTI, as we approach another edition of the festival in these most unique circumstances, that something new might happen, between us all and because of us all. A gift we give to each other.
We’re very proud of the twentieth edition of the festival, not least because for a second year we’ve managed to build an event that isn’t diminished by the pandemic, that is safe to visit, safe to work at, safe to be around, with a programme of outstanding work by an international raft of amazing artists. We’ll present the third iteration of Shortlist LIVE! and audiences will watch work by the four shortlisted artists for the 2021 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, alongside the prize jury, who will kick off our festival party by announcing their winner. If you haven’t yet experienced the thrill of Shortlist LIVE! make this your year, you won’t be disappointed.
It was especially meaningful to gather in Kuopio for last year’s festival. The same we think will be true this year. The idea, the collective idea that it’s a good idea to be together, that we want a festival to happen and that we care about it and each other, is back between us. Here’s to those twenty years, and here’s to the next twenty years. Happy birthday everybody!
Johanna Tuukkanen & Gregg Whelan
Artistic Directors
The 2021 Live Art Prize shortlist & Shortlist LIVE! Programme
Media release 21.6.2021
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is proud to present the four shortlisted artists for the 2021 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art and their performances in the Shortlist LIVE! Programme.
The nominees for the 2021 ANTI Festival International Prize for Live are: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (Poland/UK), keyon gaskin (United States), Florentina Holzinger (Austria) and Narcissister (United States).
We are excited to present the 3rd edition of the Shortlist LIVE! Programme: the nominees’ performances will be experienced live during the ANTI Festival taking place in Kuopio, Finland between 14th and 19th September 2021.
World’s Only Prize for Live Art
ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art is an extraordinary award that marks, celebrates and supports extraordinary artists. On Saturday 18th September 2021 we will award the Prize for the 8th time in Kuopio.
An international jury considers the nominees’ work from the past few years and experiences their recent works in the Shortlist LIVE! Programme together with other audiences.
The world’s only International Prize for Live Art is 30,000 euros, making it one of the richest cultural prizes in the arts. The winning artist receives a cash prize of 15,000 euros and the same amount in the form of a production grant for presenting a commissioned new work at the following year’s ANTI Festival.
The Prize is supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation, and the Shortlist LIVE! is supported by the Kone Foundation.
Shortlist LIVE! Programme 2021:
Florentina Holzinger (AT): Apollon
FRI 17.9.2021 / 19.00
@ KULTTUURIAREENA 44
In Apollon six women tackle the neoliberalist cult of the body with all their performative brilliance and vicious physical virtuosity. The performance limbos between the aesthetics of an occult fitness-studio, a cyborg-bullfight and neoclassical ballet.
Florentina Holzinger’s dance pieces are driven by the notion of identity, sexual and physical transgression. Drawing inspiration as much from Viennese Actionism, body art and bodybuilding as from classical ballet, cabaret and circus; she deconstructs, performance after performance, the very definition of femininity.
Narcissister (US): Narcissister Live(s)
FRI 17.9.2021 / 21.30
@ VR KONEPAJA
Narcissister Live(s) is an evening-length set consisting of video and live performance works from her repertoire. Covered by mask and merkin, Narcissister plays with the limits of burlesque, masquerade, and performance art as she uncovers her body and its potential to animate objecthood.
Narcissister is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer working at the intersection of contemporary dance, visual art, and activism. Her art practice covers a range of media including live performance, collage, sculpture, video, film, and experimental music. She has presented work worldwide at festivals, nightclubs, museums, and galleries.
Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (PL/UK): The tremble
SAT 18.9.2021 / TCB
@ KUOPIO CITY HALL
The tremble is the first episode of the work The tremble, the symptom, the swell and the hole together which unfolds over four episodes. The work enacts a choreographic mediation on the relationships between touch, intimacy, loss and collectivity. Each episode has its specific embodied vocabulary through which the performers navigate intimate and fragmentary exchanges reflecting on the edges of subjectivity, corporeality and relationality.
Artist and choreographer Alex Baczynski-Jenkins engages with queer affect, embodiment and relationality. Through gesture, collectivity, touch and sensuality, his practice unfolds structures and politics of desire.
keyon gaskin (US): its not a thing
SAT 18.9.2021 / TBC
@ KULTTUURIAREENA 44
keyon gaskin prefers not to contextualize with their credentials.
More information & Interview requests
Media photos: antifestival.com/en/news
Elisa Itkonen
elisa@antifestival.com
+358 50 305 2005
Experience A Thousand Ways by 600 HIGHWAYMEN at ANTI Festival
Media release 11.6.2021
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. We are thrilled to announce a new addition in the festival programme: A Thousand Ways by the world’s most acclaimed theatre companies, the New York based
600 HIGHWAYMEN.
A Thousand Ways is a performance about communion, distance, and reconnection. An enthralling, imaginative, and profound social experience that delivers us from isolation to congregation. It is a concept that has been touring in several live art events around the US and Europe during the past year, and ANTI is excited to bring the work
also to Finland!
ANTI presents two parts of the three-part performance, Part One: A Phone Call and Part Two: An Encounter. In both parts you are the actor and you are the audience. Your words, actions, gestures, silence, thoughts, and willingness are the tools. You need no training. You are the expert.
For the exact performance times, go to antifestival.com. Please hold the line,
we will open the booking system in August!
A THOUSAND WAYS (Part One): A Phone Call
8.-18.9.2021
@ YOUR LOCATION / REMOTE
100% COVID safe
Pick up the phone. Someone is on the line. You don’t know their name, and you still won’t when the hour is over, but through this exchange – as you follow a thread of automated prompts – a portrait of your partner will emerge through fleeting moments of exposure.
A THOUSAND WAYS (Part Two): An Encounter
14.-19.9.2021
@ KUOPIO ART MUSEUM, WORKSHOP SPACE
You and a stranger meet on opposite ends of a table, separated by a pane of glass. Using a script and a few simple objects, a simple exercise of working together becomes an experience of profound connection with another person.
Working group
Written & created by Abigail Browde & Michael Silverstone
Executive Producer: Thomas O. Kriegsmann / ArKtype
Line Producer: Cynthia J. Tong
Dramaturg & Project Design: Andrew Kircher
600highwaymen.org
Fixit by Kaino Wennerstrand selected as the Face to Faith production of ANTI Festival 2022
Media release 7.5.2021
Face to Faith is an international cooperation project aiming to understand the diverse meanings of faith in European societies. In early 2021, the project organised an international open call for artists on the topic of faith.
We received over 400 proposals from all around the world, and 130 of them were submitted to ANTI Festival. The curatorial process included several steps; pre-selection by the artistic directors, a local audience panel in each project city and a curatorial meeting between the project partners.
Fixit by the Finnish artist Kaino Wennerstrand was selected as the Face to Faith production of ANTI Festival, Kuopio, Finland. The work will premier at ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival in September 2022.
Fixit is a show about the European Union. Who wanted it and why? Where’s it going and who’s on board? Fixit is searching for answers to these questions through new pop songs, composed for the performance. The performance is directed and composed by Kaino Wennerstrand, a Finnish artist and writer.
All selected Face to Faith artists on the project website: face-to-faith.eu/news/results-open-call !
FACE TO FAITH 2020-2023
FACE TO FAITH is a larger scale cooperation project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The project runs from September 2020 till February 2023 and aims to understand the diverse meanings of faith in European societies through conferences and performance arts productions.
The project consortium includes seven international theatres and festivals:
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Finland)
Divadlo pod Palmovkou (Czech Republic)
Gesher Theatre (Israel)
Jam Factory Art Center (Ukraine)
Sommerblut Kulturfestival eV (coordinator, Germany)
Teatro dei Venti (Italy)
Teatr Powszechny (Poland)
Follow the project on Facebook and Instagram!
For further information, contact Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, ANTI showcases the most memorable photos of the festival
Tiedote 28.4.2021
ANTIVERSARY 20 is a two-part exhibition by photographer Pekka Mäkinen and videographer Kim Saarinen that takes place in Kuopio’s new public cultural space Kantti and online.
The 20th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. The exhibition by Pekka Mäkinen and Kim Saarinen celebrates the 20-year success story of the festival and its role in developing live art as well as urban culture in Kuopio.
Photographs by Mäkinen and videos by Saarinen not only tell the story of the festival but also provide a view into live art and public art from North Savo, Finland and other countries and show how these have developed over the years. The exhibition presents a group of artists representing diverse backgrounds and various fields who have worked at the festival in the past 20 years. It also provides an interesting snapshot of Kuopio’s history; how the urban landscape has changed and the local people become more diverse.
The full festival programme will be released during the spring. We’ve already engaged a few amazing, impossible and spectaculous projects that we present below!
Veera Launonen & Ilkka Kivelä (FI): The Collectors
The Collectors is a series of video pieces scattered across Kuopio’s urban spaces dealing with memories, emotions and dreams for the future related to urban spaces and outdoor areas.
The Collectors reflects on how you can perceive your own living environment and home town with brand new eyes. The work process was based on local activities and an ecological ideology that involves consuming as little as possible. Ilkka Kivelä and Veera Launonen see local materials and soil as a gift for them as artists and local residents.
You can come across the piece on advertising screens around Kuopio’s public spaces; the market square, universities and shopping centres as well as the ANTI Festival Centre.
Reality Research Center, Emelie Zilliacus & Martin Paul (FI): Exhibit
Would you go to a performance you know nothing about?
This is an impossible performance, no-one knows the content of it, not even the festival arrangers. The artists Emelie Zilliacus and Martin Paul have been given a chance by the Reality Research Center and the ANTI festival to make a performance without sharing any details about the piece.
The artists have thought about how the bureaucracies governing the funding of the art field have a negative effect on creative work. Artists have to justify their art in funding applications, reports and marketing. They have experienced that this has the effect of draining the creative process. Artists have to present the answers before even having explored the questions.
Häiriköt-päämaja (FI): Spectacle Academy
Kantti, library’s exhibition space | Maaherrankatu 12
We are living in a society of spectacles where a glossy facade is often considered more important than its content. One of the ways this spectacle manifests itself in is through advertising. Adverts guide our behaviour and affect how we live our lives. Adverts create desires, which we aim to satisfy by buying products.
However, we are more than just the sum of our consumer habits and should take a critical look at our purchases and the communications that influence these.
Newsletter 03-04/2021
The 20th ANTI Festival
Global City Local City Lab Reykjavík
ANTI Festival’s new board
The 20th ANTI Festival
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival takes place in Kuopio between 14th and 19th September 2021. As we approach our 20th festival, amid these challenging times, we turn to an idea that sits at the heart of ANTI Festival’s mission – free to attend for audiences, the festival is framed from within an idea of a gift. We celebrate two decades of activity, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, to be in the act of giving. As usual, the festival participates in various topical discussions and shakes our notions on the human, the society and the arts.
The leading work of the 2021 ANTI Festival is A Great Mess by the Helsinki based art collective, WAUHAUS. The site-sensitive performance transports us to a waste disposal site – the largest landfill in the Eastern Finland. It offers a glimpse into a world where humans no longer see themselves as the centre of the universe.
We’ve also released the new work by Dana Michel, the 2019 Winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art. VANESSA VECTOR WILLIAM DODGER is a live film project by the Canadian Dana Michel and Tracy Maurice.
The full festival programme will be released during the spring.
Global City Local City Lab Reykjavík
The second Global City Local City Lab is organised by the Reykjavík Dance Festival between 8th and 18th April 2021. The first GCLC Lab was organised in October 2020, in the context of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival.
Artists and curators in Reykjavík and around the world work together to explore hyper-localised or locally-responsive approaches to place, local histories, situations or conditions. They experiment, research and share knowledge and practices together.
Global City Local City (link) is a collaboration project between ANTI Festival (coordinator) in Kuopio, Finland, Reykjavík Dance Festival in Iceland and The Map Consortium in the United Kingdom.
The Reykjavík lab participants are:
Wiola Ujazdowska – Reykjavík, Iceland
Gígja Jónsdóttir – Reykjavík, Iceland
Nína Hjálmarsdóttir – Reykjavík, Iceland
Erik DeLuca – Reykjavík, Iceland
Andrea Vilhjálmsdóttir – Reykjavík, Iceland
Rima Najdi – Berlin, Germany
Chiara Organtini – Terni, Italy
Taija Jyrkäs – Oulu, Finland
Tiina Pehkonen – Kainuu, Finland
Anna-Maria Väisänen – Kuopio, Finland
Erin Boberg Doughton – Portland, US
Subashini Ganesan – Portland, US
Hosted by the Reykjavík Dance Festival, and facilitated by Chris Higgins, Martin Gent and Karen Da Silva
from The Map Consortium.
ANTI Festival’s new board
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival Association organised an annual meeting on 30th March 2021. The members of the association selected new board members who represent various fields of the the society.
CEO Jenni Rissanen (in the photo) continues as the Chair of Board,
and the other members of the board (2021-2022) are:
Director Johanna Haapakorva
Activist Savu Kimalle (new)
Advocate Karoliina Partanen
Youth Counselor Janna Savallampi
Project Manager Sanna Sutinen
R&D Specialist Jyri Wuorisalo
You as well may join our association, read here (link) how to apply for the membership!
Dana Michel, the 2019 Winner of the Live Art Prize presents a new work at the 2021 ANTI Festival
Media release 8.4.2021
Dana Michel, the 2019 Winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, is currently creating a new work to be premiered at ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival taking place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland.
VANESSA VECTOR WILLIAM DODGER is a live film project by the Canadian Michel and Tracy Maurice. Due to the pandemic situation, the film will be shot and created entirely in Canada. ANTI Festival will host the premiere of the film and an Artist Talk with Dana Michel in Kuopio during the festival in September. Read Michel’s reflections on the project here (link)!
Dana Michel is an internationally renowned, award-winning live artist whose works interact with the expanded fields of improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, cinematography, techno, poetry, psychology, dub and social commentary to create a centrifuge of experience. In 2019, she was awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art; the prize jury states on her work:
”Dana Michel makes work in order to see better and know better. —
Everything matters, everything sounds, everything vibrates into our shared experience.”
Working group & Production
Created by Dana Michel & Tracy Maurice. Dana Michel is an associated artist of Par B.L.eux.
Produced by the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, organised by ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, in collaboration with Par B.L.eux.
Funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation.
Dana Michel is the 2019 Winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art.
For more information, contact Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005.
WAUHAUS (FI): A Great Mess
Media release 31.3.2021
The leading work of the 2021 ANTI Festival investigates the interdependencies of humans, nature and material.
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival takes place in Kuopio between 14th and 19th September 2021. As we approach our 20th festival, amid these challenging times, we turn to an idea that sits at the heart of ANTI Festival’s mission – free to attend for audiences, the festival is framed from within an idea of a gift. We celebrate two decades of activity, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, to be in the act of giving. As usual, the festival participates in various topical discussions and shakes our notions on the human, the society and the arts.
The leading work of the 2021 festival is A Great Mess by the Helsinki based art collective WAUHAUS. The site-sensitive performance transports us to a waste disposal site – the largest landfill in the Eastern Finland. It offers a glimpse into a world where humans no longer see themselves as the centre of the universe.
A Great Mess looks at how the place came into being through the interaction of soil, waste, countless organisms, and human imagination. The performance visualises how the vast web of interdependencies, in which we exist with other species, has gradually evolved and continues to evolve each day. It is not a narrative lamenting the destruction wreaked by modernisation but a sincere effort to fathom how we can foster new life skills in the era of eco-crisis.
The full ANTI Festival programme will be released during the spring.
Working group & Production
Creation: (the members of WAUHAUS): Laura Haapakangas, Anni Klein, Samuli Laine, Jussi Matikainen & Jarkko Partanen
Performers: Per Ehrström & Sara Grotenfelt
Additional contributions by: evolutionary biologist Aura Raulo, light designer Sofia Palillo & producer Mira Eskelinen
Production: HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki Biennial, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival & WAUHAUS
More information
Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005
In cooperation with Jätekukko Oy, Kuopio, Finland.
Face to Faith Open Call deadline extended!
Media release 5.3.2021
Face to Faith Open Call for Proposals – deadline extended till 14th March 2021. Submit your application now!
Face to Faith is an international cooperation project aiming to understand the diverse meanings of faith in European societies. 7 project partners – international theatres and festivals from the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Poland and Ukraine – will investigate “faith” through conferences and performance arts productions.
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is a proud partner of this 2-year-long project, co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme. Read more about the project below.
We now invite all interested artists from all backgrounds to propose new project ideas related to the topic of faith.
The Face to Faith project involves producing 7 new performance productions, with each of the 7 project partners managing one of the productions. After the premiere held by the producing partner organisation, the project will tour each production in at least one other Face to Faith partner city. The productions will premier between October 2021 and September 2022.
Submitting a proposal
In response to numerous questions and requests, we have extended the deadline.
The new deadline is: 14 March 2021 (midnight CET time)
Read the full application guidelines (link) on the Face to Faith project page and make sure that your proposal fits the idea and conditions of the project.
Submit an application to one of the 7 Face to Faith partners using an electronic form. Links to the electronic application forms can be found in each organisation’s announcement (on the project page).
See here how to submit application for ANTI Festival! Also notice the Q&A (link), commonly asked questions and answers.
The questions of equality, diversity and anti-racism are a fixed part of our curatorial process. We particularly encourage artists with diverse and marginalised backgrounds to submit their proposals to us!
FACE TO FAITH 2020-2023
FACE TO FAITH is a larger scale cooperation project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The project runs from September 2020 till February 2023 and aims to understand the diverse meanings of faith in European societies through conferences and performance arts productions.
The project consortium includes seven international theatres and festivals:
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Finland)
Divadlo pod Palmovkou (Czech Republic)
Gesher Theatre (Israel)
Jam Factory Art Center (Ukraine)
Sommerblut Kulturfestival eV (coordinator, Germany)
Teatro dei Venti (Italy)
Teatr Powszechny (Poland)
Follow the project on Facebook and Instagram!
For further information, contact Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005
Newsletter 01-02/2021
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is a proud partner of the 2-year-long Face to Faith project, co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme. We’ve been starting the year with the Face to Faith activities!
Face to Faith is an international cooperation project aiming to understand the diverse meanings of faith in European societies. 7 project partners – international theatres and festivals from the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Poland and Ukraine – will investigate “faith” through conferences and performance arts productions.
See below:
Face to Faith: Open Call for Proposals / Deadline 7th March
Face to Faith Conference: What do we believe in? / 2nd March
Face to Faith: Open Call for Proposals
We invite all interested artists from all backgrounds to propose new project ideas related to the topic of faith.
The Face to Faith project involves producing 7 new performance productions, with each of the 7 project partners managing one of the productions. After the premiere held by the producing partner organisation, the project will tour each production in at least one other Face to Faith partner city. The productions will premier between October 2021 and September 2022.
Submitting a proposal
The proposal deadline is: 7 March 2021 (midnight CET time)
Read the full application guidelines on the Face to Faith project page and make sure that your proposal fits the idea and conditions of the project.
Submit an application to one of the 7 Face to Faith partners using an electronic form. Links to the electronic application forms can be found in each organisation’s announcement (on the project page).
See here how to submit application for ANTI Festival!
Face to Faith Conference: What do we believe in?
Tuesday 2nd March 9.30 am. – 4.30 pm. (CET) with lunch break
The first conference of the Face to Faith project is an introduction to the themes of the project. We have already engaged members of our communities, from all over the Europe, to the discussion, and will share their perspectives in the conference.
We now invite our audiences and partners as well as artists to participate in the web conference and to interact with the project team!
For more information and conference programme, please visit the Face to Faith website and join our Facebook event!