The 20th ANTI Festival enraptured in Kuopio – thank you to participants!
Media release 20.9.2021
The 20th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival ended yesterday in Kuopio, Finland. We celebrated the 20th ANTIversary between 14th and 19th September 2021, and audience members described the festival programme as one of the bests in live art internationally.
Live experiences attracted vastly after so many other events have been cancelled due to the pandemic. ANTI Festival’s performances were fully booked, and there were more booking requests than audience seats. We hosted exceptionally many visitor groups from different parts of Finland as well as international visitors.
Especially, the international Shortlist LIVE! programme and the site-specific A Great Mess inspired audiences. Also, Meet the Makers, a new series of discussion events aroused great interest. Nearly 400 people gathered to ANTI Prize Party to celebrate the 20-year-old ANTI Festival as well as the nominees and the winner of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art.
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; Spectacle Academy exhibition in a public library, The Collectors – series of video works opened on 6th September and presented on several advertising screens around the city, and the Festival Info’s photo exhibition at the main square of the city. At the venues, we counted 13 000 active participants of the performances, workshops, and exhibitions.
In addition around 100 000 people across the world followed the festival events, images and videos in social media.
Thank you!
A big warm thank you to all our artists, audiences, staff members, volunteers and partners!
The next ANTI Festival will be organised between 13th and 18th September 2022.
For more information
Contact Festival Manager Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005
