Newsletter 12/2021 – Happy Holidays and New Year 2022!

Newsletter 17.12.2021

In the year 2021, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival was organised for the 20th time in Kuopio, Finland, second time during the pandemic. A big warm thank you to all our artists, audiences, staff members, volunteers and partners. We wish you a relaxed holiday season and a Happy New Year 2022!

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

The year 2021 started with the HUUMA workshops for youth. We ran the workshops throughout the spring and autumn seasons. The HUUMA project’s (2019-2021) activity ended in Kuopio on 13th Dec. ANTI Festival wants to thank the project coordinator, The Children and Youth Foundation, as well as other project partners. A warm thank you to our artists and workshops leaders Anna-Maria Väisänen, Kaisa Ritola and Eevi Tolvanen. Special thanks to our participants!

28 Jan – 14 March 2021, the Creative Europe project, Face to Faith organised an international Open Call for Projects. ANTI worked in the Face to Faith project (2020-2023) throughout the year. Fixit by the Finnish artist Kaino Wennerstrand was selected as the Face to Faith production of ANTI Festival. The work will premiere at the festival 13-18 Sep 2022.

8 – 18 April 2021, the Global City Local City project organised a second lab partly in Reykjavík and partly remotely. The lab was produced and hosted by the Reykjavík Dance Festival. The Global City Local City is a Nordic collaboration project (2020-2021) lead by ANTI Festival. The project facilitated laboratories for artists and curators. Thank you to our partners, Reykjavík Dance Festival and The Map Consortium. Also, thank you to our lab participants!

14 – 19 September 2021, we organised the 20th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival in Kuopio, Finland. Live experiences attracted vastly after so many other events have been cancelled due to the pandemic. ANTI Festival reached one of the biggest audience records in its history; over 50 000 viewers in Kuopio when considering the programme in public spaces. At the venues, we counted 13 000 active participants of the performances, workshops, and exhibitions.

This year’s ANTI Festival marked the 3nd 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 Alex Baczynski-Jenkins.

We also celebrated our 20 year-long history through a photography exhibition and a documentary film presented at the festival and online. The online gallery is still open; photos by Pekka Mäkinen and a documentary film by Kim Saarinen are available at antiversary20.com. We’ve also added the Best of ANTI 2021 album!

Thank you, Johanna Tuukkanen & Gregg Whelan

ANTI Festival’s Artistic Director – Senior Manager Johanna Tuukkanen has moved on in November after 20 years at the helm. Johanna was appointed Head of Cultural Services in the city of Oulu, Finland, where she leads general cultural services and works as the Director of Cultural Centre Valve.

Artistic Director Gregg Whelan has stepped down from his position at the same time. Tuukkanen and Whelan worked together for 15 years. Whelan has been taken care of his tasks at ANTI beside another job for a long while. He is working full-time as the Director of Performance in The Trinity College London.

The ANTI association and the staff want to thank Johanna and Gregg deeply for the pioneering and visionary work as Artistic Directors of the festival!

Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen will be responsible of directing the festival until we will inform about the new staff arrangements.

2022 starts with Shared Futures workshops

Across the year 2022, we will organise workhops for people aged between 65 and 75 (all +60 year-olds are welcome).

The Shared Futures workshops are based on the artistic project by Kuopio based artists, Emma Fält ja Anna-Maria Väisänen who will also direct the workshops.

The language of the workshops is mainly Finnish. More information currently only in Finnish:
antifestival.com/hanketapahtuma/jaettu-tulevaisuus-tyopajat