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
