Newsletter 12/2020: Happy Holidays and New Year 2021!

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!