Media release 28.1.2021

“At the core of faith there is always a greater narrative that places us in the universe.”

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

The proposal deadline is: 7 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!

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)

www.face-to-faith.eu

Follow the project on Facebook and Instagram!

For further information, contact Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005

Media release 18.1.2021

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. 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; its name translates from the Finnish as ‘gift’.

We invited artists, working in any field, to propose projects that directly engage with the theme of gift and gift giving. The open call was organised between 15th December 2020 and 15th January 2021. We received exactly 199 proposals from 50 different countries.

The 20-year old ANTI Festival, Kuopio, live art and multidisciplinary contemporary art have audiences across the globe, in every continent. Proposals were submitted, besides from several European countries, from the United States, Brazil, Australia, Japan, Israel and Mozambic, among others.

200 times thank you to all the applicants! The festival programme will be released during the spring.

For more information contact Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005

#ANTIisagift

Media release 11.1.2021

The 20th edition of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. We now invite artists, working in any field, to propose projects that directly engage with the theme of gifts and giving.

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; its name translates from the Finnish as ‘gift’.

In addition see below for Reality Research Center’s call for applications to the Residency for Impossible Performance initiative.

“What better time, as we celebrate two decades of activity, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, to be in the act of giving. When working on ANTI we have often returned to the idea of the pure gift – an act which is not elicited, not bought, not reciprocated, not anticipated perhaps, but instead breaks our more usual models of exchange, it disrupts and often makes us uncomfortable. 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, a different kind of encounter. Ideas of giving evoke similarly challenging acts – to give care, to give attention, to give one’s self,”

Artistic Directors Gregg Whelan and Johanna Tuukkanen write.

We are seeking to identify between two and five small scale projects, through the open call. Supported projects will sit within a broader programme of invited works.

Successful projects will engender engagement with audiences and publics and will have a physical manifestation on the ground in Kuopio – remote and digital projects can be proposed however an element of the project must engage directly with the festival’s local audience and environment.

Submitting a Proposal for ANTI Festival 2021

Read the application guidelines carefully before submitting your proposal.

Send your proposal by using this electric form.

The proposal deadline for all proposals is 15.1.2021 at 16.00 (EET/Finnish time). PLEASE NOTE time differences!

Reality Research Center: Call for Applications

The Residency Program for Impossible Performance invites applications from artists at the beginning of their career or people with an otherwise utopian agenda who work in performing arts in Finland and who have dreams that haven’t come true yet.

The program is part of the main programme of Reality Research Center in 2019-2021.

Reality Research Center will select the artists for the residency through an open application process and each year the Artists in Residency will produce an “impossible”, unprecedented performance for the ANTI Festival in September.

The application period for the 2021 residency is 15 Dec 2020 – 17 Jan 2021. Read further instructions from Reality Research Center’s webpage!

We are very grateful and happy that, even in the exceptional year of 2020, we were able to organise the international ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival in Kuopio, Finland. A big warm thank you to all our artists, audiences, staff members, volunteers and partners! We wish you peaceful holidays and a Happy New Year 2021!

During the past year, ANTI Festival worked in several multidisciplinary projects, both local and international, and organised public events in Kuopio throughout the year:

The year 2020 started with the HUUMA workshops for youth. The workshops had to be cancelled from the spring, because of the pandemic, but they run successfully throughout the autumn. The artists Anna-Maria Väisänen and Kaisa Ritola worked to make the project sparkle, and we continue the workshops in January 2021.

In the early 2020, we also started the KELP! project in collaboration with the Helsinki-based Annantalo, art centre for children and youth. The participants in the project were the students of Class 8E from Hatsala Classical School in Kuopio, and the Class 8D students from Apollo School in Helsinki, who were directed by the artists Timo Kokko and Elina Rantasuo. The KELP! exhibition, created by the youth, was open in Kuopio during the ANTI Festival, and will open in Annantalo in January 2021.

In the spring, we were accustoming to that we can’t gather together on the ground and, there for, we invited our fascinating friends and colleagues to meet and talk with us online. After 8 with @antifestival was a series of discussion events on Instagram Live.

Between 20th and 31st October 2020, we organised the first Global City Local City Lab in Kuopio and remotely. Global City Local City is a project lead by ANTI Festival, and our partners are the Icelandic Reykjavík Dance Festival and the British Map Consortium. The project is facilitating laboratories for artists and curators. The second Global City Local City Lab will take place in April 2021 in Reykjavík.

The 19th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival took place between 27th October and 1st November 2020. The festival, with a theme of food, was a part of the European Region of Gastronomy Kuopio celebration. The COVID safety of our audiences, artists and staff members was at the centre of the festival production this year. The feedback was positive; our performances were fully booked, and guests from across Finland visited us. The event also attracted international guests to Kuopio, despite the traveling challenges.

This year’s ANTI Festival marked the 2nd edition of Shortlist LIVE! Programme; the nominees of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art presented their recent performances during the festival. This year, the world’s only prize for live art was awarded to the Australian Brian Fuata.

We also celebrated the end of the Future DiverCities project. The four year collaboration, supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, will end in December 2020. We send warm thank you to our project partners: Savonia University of Applied Sciences (coordinator, Finland), Seconde Nature (France), Public Art Lab (Germany), BEK (Norway), Kontejner (Croatia), Liepaja City Council (Latvia), 1D Lab (France) and La Chambre Blanche (Canada) – and to the Project Manager Laëtitia Manach. We will continue working together – one way or another!

ANTI Festival will keep on working in the framework of the Creative Europe as we are a partner in a new EU project, FACE to FAITH (2020-2023). The international performance project discusses the importance of faith for our societies.

See more images and videos on our events on Facebook, Instagram and Vimeo!

Media release 15.12.2020

#ANTIisagift

The 20th edition of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. We now invite artists, working in any field, to propose projects that directly engage with the theme of gifts and giving.

In addition see here for the Reality Research Center’s call for applications to the Residency for Impossible Performance initiative.

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; its name translates from the Finnish as ‘gift’.

“What better time, as we celebrate two decades of activity, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, to be in the act of giving. When working on ANTI we have often returned to the idea of the pure gift – an act which is not elicited, not bought, not reciprocated, not anticipated perhaps, but instead breaks our more usual models of exchange, it disrupts and often makes us uncomfortable. 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, a different kind of encounter. Ideas of giving evoke similarly challenging acts – to give care, to give attention, to give one’s self,”

Artistic Directors Gregg Whelan and Johanna Tuukkanen write.

We are seeking to identify between two and five small scale projects, through the open call. Supported projects will sit within a broader programme of invited works.

Successful projects will engender engagement with audiences and publics and will have a physical manifestation on the ground in Kuopio – remote and digital projects can be proposed however an element of the project must engage directly with the festival’s local audience and environment. Possible areas projects may focus on include:

Public acts of giving
Performance as gift
The object as gift
Discreet giving
Intangible gifts
The gift to mark time
Social care practices
Art as gift

Submitting a Proposal for ANTI Festival 2021

When proposing a project to ANTI Festival please make sure your work responds to the festival’s focus on public space (including interior and privately owned spaces). We do not show projects in traditional cultural spaces (galleries, theatres etc.) so your proposed project will need to have an integral relationship with the place in which it is presented and your proposal will need to outline where your work could be located.

The proposal 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 strongly advise you spend some time getting to know ANTI Festival before making an application, our Vimeo page is a great place to get a sense of past editions of the festival.

Equality & Diversity

ANTI Festival is a discrimination-free event. We do not tolerate racism, ageism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, ableism, class discrimination or comments on people’s bodies. We want to work for equality, diversity and anti-racism. Read what this means to us in practice here!

Please read our principles of a safer space here and submit application only if you can commit to these principles!

The questions of equality, diversity and anti-racism are a fixed part of the ANTI Festival curating process. We encourage especially artists with diverse and marginalised backgrounds to send their proposals to us!

Electric Form & Deadline

Send your proposal by using this electric form (link). The proposal deadline for all proposals is 15.1.2021 at 16.00 (EET/Finnish time).

We will not process applications sent after the deadline.

More information

We will be on holidays between 18th Dec 2020 and 11th Jan 2021. We will reply to questions on
Tue 15th Dec between 9 am. and 11 am.
Wed 16th Dec between 10 am. and 4 pm.
Mon 4th Jan 2021 between 2 pm. and 4 pm. and
from Mon 11th to Fri 15th Jan 2021, throughout the week.

We apologise for not being able to react to all of the many questions you are sending us close to the deadline.

See our Q&A : Open Call 2021 to find answers to commonly asked questions!

Please read the application guidelines and Q&A (link) carefully and submit your application. If you still have questions, please contact Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com / +358 50 305 2005!

30.11.2020

ANTI festival is a discrimination-free event. We do not tolerate racism, ageism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, ableism, class discrimination or comments on people’s bodies. We want to work for equality, diversity and anti-racism.

What does this mean in practice?

We have published principles for a safer space on our website and in the ANTIZINE 2020 publication.
These are the principles guiding all our activities and all our staff must be committed to them. We encourage our audiences to follow these guidelines in our electronic communications, public speeches and other encounters.

In the future, we will also include these principles for non-discrimination in our collaboration agreements whenever ANTI Festival is the party proposing the partnership.

ANTI Festival takes diversity in its community and audiences as well as different minorities actively into account. The ANTI Festival events are free of charge to the audience, which in itself makes the activities easy to access and promotes equality.

We aim to organise our events in accessible spaces, but the artistic content of some work presented at the festival requires facilities whose accessibility cannot be ensured. Thank you for your understanding.

ANTI Festival presents artworks in public spaces, which means that anyone of us can experience art as part of their daily lives and living environments.

Participating in the festival does not require any specific language skills as the events are often multisensory and experiential. A lot of visual materials are also used in our communications, ensuring that we also get our message across to groups such as different language minorities and newly arrived immigrants.

Each year, we organise a new open call for artists, which ensures that anyone can propose their work to be included in the festival programme. For instance, the open calls are directly disseminated to organisations that represent a number of marginalised groups.

The questions of equality, diversity and anti-racism are a fixed part of the ANTI Festival curating process. In fact, we have been able to provide a platform to artists with diverse and marginalised backgrounds through our artistic activities.

We plan and seek funding for projects that put artists of diverse origins at their core and that are targeted at representatives of different minority groups. In recent years, we have carried out several local projects that have involved providing groups such as immigrant youths with opportunities for involvement.

We acknowledge that everyone in the festival staff (2 permanent employees) and board (3-7 elected representatives) is white and also privileged in many other ways. This means that we have failed to increase diversity within our organisation.

We discuss our whiteness and privileges within our organisation and in public. We actively follow the discussion on anti-racism in the art sphere and wider society and reflect on ourselves in relation to the presented issues.

Our aim is that, in the future, the ANTI Festival staff and board would include people as diverse as possible in terms of their ethnical backgrounds, age, gender and functional capacity.

Our future job applications and calls for artwork will mention our aim of becoming more diverse.

We acknowledge that our work is not done. We are constantly assessing the activities of our organisation, wish to learn more and will gladly welcome your concrete suggestions at info@antifestival.com.

We have been working on the questions of equality, diversity and anti-racism based on the Call for Action for Finnish Art Institutions list of questions, encouraged by the Art for Equ(al)ity network. We would like to thank the BIPOC and their white allies who have drawn up the list. Let’s continue this work together!

27.11.2020

The starting signal for FACE TO FAITH has been given. The project started in September and the first partners’ meeting took place between 23rd and 25th November 2020, remotely. Now begins an intensive collaboration for the duration of two years (1.9.2020-28.2.2023) between seven international theaters and festivals:

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Finland), Divadlo pod Palmovkou (Czech Republic), Gesher Theater (Israel), Jam Factory Art Center (Ukraine), Sommerblut Kulturfestival eV ( Germany) – project coordination, Teatro dei Venti (Italy) and Teatr Powszechny (Poland).

FACE TO FAITH is a larger scale co-operation project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

The international performance project FACE TO FAITH discusses the importance of faith for our societies. In theater projects and conferences, the seven cultural institutions from the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Israel, Poland and the Ukraine want to question the identity-creating and political backgrounds, as well as the connecting or separating aspects of this human expression. For this purpose, artists, experts and people of all kinds are invited to create new perspectives, tell unknown stories and uncover unsolvable conflicts. 

As part of a cross-border open call, directors, artist collectives and performing artists are sought who will realize their outstanding and original concepts within the framework of FACE TO FAITH. All participating cultural institutions produce one of the seven performances that arise in dialogue with the local people and the cultural background of the country. After the premieres in Cologne, Kuopio, Lviv, Modena, Prague, Tel Aviv, and Warsaw, the performances go on tour to the other cities. The performances are framed by three conferences and other public events to achieve a high public awareness to the subject of faith in our modern societies. 

We are looking forward to the start of this special project. We hope that you will be part of FACE TO FAITH. We believe that you will be thrilled.

Follow the FACE TO FAITH project on Facebook and Instagram!

Image not related to the project; from Gwendoline Robin’s Walk #6899 – Photo: Pekka Mäkinen 2009.

Media release 3.11.2020

The 19th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival ended on Sunday in Kuopio, Finland. The festival, with a theme of food, took place between 27th October and 1st November 2020 as a part of the European Region of
Gastronomy Kuopio celebration.

The COVID safety of our audiences, artists and staff members was at the centre of the festival production this year. We received a lot of positive feedback on how the festival was considered safe to attend. Our performances were fully booked, and guests from across Finland visited us. The event attracted also international guests to Kuopio, despite the traveling challenges.

We are enormously grateful to our artists who, this year, made special arrangements to perform in the festival programme.

The safety was considered starting from the curation of the festival: we programmed several artworks designed to be experienced alone or in small groups. The audience capacity of the festival was very limited compared to the past recent years. However, through some festival projects, such as Stan’s Cafe’s Of All The People In All The World, KELP! exhibition by local youth and ANTI Prize Party, we were able to engage a great number of audiences.

Despite the exceptional global situation, ANTI Festival gathered an audience of over 5000 people in Kuopio. In addition around 90 000 people across the world followed the festival events, images and videos online.

A big warm thank you to all our artists, audiences,
staff members, volunteers and partners!

In September 2021, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of ANTI Festival.

ANTI 2020 in images

Our photographer Pekka Mäkinen and videographer Kim Saarinen documented the festival events throughout the festival week.

Photos by Pekka Mäkinen are uploaded to the Best of ANTI 2020 folder on Facebook. Some of the best video clips by Kim Saarinen are already on our Facebook, Instagram and Vimeo pages.

For more information, contact Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005.