To celebrate its 20th anniversary, ANTI showcases the most memorable photos of the festival
Tiedote 28.4.2021
ANTIVERSARY 20 is a two-part exhibition by photographer Pekka Mäkinen and videographer Kim Saarinen that takes place in Kuopio’s new public cultural space Kantti and online.
The 20th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 14th and 19th September 2021 in Kuopio, Finland. The exhibition by Pekka Mäkinen and Kim Saarinen celebrates the 20-year success story of the festival and its role in developing live art as well as urban culture in Kuopio.
Photographs by Mäkinen and videos by Saarinen not only tell the story of the festival but also provide a view into live art and public art from North Savo, Finland and other countries and show how these have developed over the years. The exhibition presents a group of artists representing diverse backgrounds and various fields who have worked at the festival in the past 20 years. It also provides an interesting snapshot of Kuopio’s history; how the urban landscape has changed and the local people become more diverse.
The full festival programme will be released during the spring. We’ve already engaged a few amazing, impossible and spectaculous projects that we present below!
Veera Launonen & Ilkka Kivelä (FI): The Collectors
The Collectors is a series of video pieces scattered across Kuopio’s urban spaces dealing with memories, emotions and dreams for the future related to urban spaces and outdoor areas.
The Collectors reflects on how you can perceive your own living environment and home town with brand new eyes. The work process was based on local activities and an ecological ideology that involves consuming as little as possible. Ilkka Kivelä and Veera Launonen see local materials and soil as a gift for them as artists and local residents.
You can come across the piece on advertising screens around Kuopio’s public spaces; the market square, universities and shopping centres as well as the ANTI Festival Centre.
Reality Research Center, Emelie Zilliacus & Martin Paul (FI): Exhibit
Would you go to a performance you know nothing about?
This is an impossible performance, no-one knows the content of it, not even the festival arrangers. The artists Emelie Zilliacus and Martin Paul have been given a chance by the Reality Research Center and the ANTI festival to make a performance without sharing any details about the piece.
The artists have thought about how the bureaucracies governing the funding of the art field have a negative effect on creative work. Artists have to justify their art in funding applications, reports and marketing. They have experienced that this has the effect of draining the creative process. Artists have to present the answers before even having explored the questions.
Häiriköt-päämaja (FI): Spectacle Academy
Kantti, library’s exhibition space | Maaherrankatu 12
We are living in a society of spectacles where a glossy facade is often considered more important than its content. One of the ways this spectacle manifests itself in is through advertising. Adverts guide our behaviour and affect how we live our lives. Adverts create desires, which we aim to satisfy by buying products.
However, we are more than just the sum of our consumer habits and should take a critical look at our purchases and the communications that influence these.
