ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival presents site-specific contemporary art covering all artistic forms from sculpture and environmental art to dance, live art and performance. The annual festival is held in Kuopio, Finland. The first ANTI Festival was organized in 2002 by The Arts Council of Northern Savonia. The ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival Association was established in 2005 to coordinate the festival.
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ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival -logo.
With an emphasis on performance, ANTI has become Finland's leading presenter of live art, showcasing innovative developments in sonic and visual arts. The festival features site-specific and time-based works that are presented in various public spaces such as streets, office buildings, parks, shopping centres, and privately owned sites. The choice of locations depends on the festival's theme and the nature of the artworks. The festival program includes artworks created by invited artists as well as artists selected through an open proposal process.
The name "ANTI" means "gift" in Finnish, reflecting the festival's mission to make art accessible to all. The artworks presented at ANTI Festival are free of charge, allowing people who may not typically engage with art to become accidental participants and viewers. The unsuspecting audiences, those who come across the art by chance, often experience the disruptive potential of the works most profoundly.[1]
In 2007, Artistic Director Erkki Soininen was replaced by Gregg Whelan, who was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of ANTI.[2] Whelan also works as a performance-maker, writer and co-artistic director of Lone Twin and Lone Twin Theatre.[citation needed]
In 2013, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival launched the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art, an international art award with a prize of 30,000 Euros. The Live Art Prize has been awarded since 2014, recognizing outstanding contributions to the field of live art.[3]
Live Art Prize recipients
In 2014, the ANTI festival established an International Live Art prize of 30,000 Euros.[4]
2018: Sonya Lindfors with shortlisted artists: All The Queens Men (Australia), Nic Green (United Kingdom), Jeanne van Heeswijk (Netherlands) by a jury chaired by Jacques Rancière
2020: Brian Fuata (Australia) with shortlisted artists: Geumhyung Jeong (South Korea), W A U H A U S (Finland), Ingri Fiksdal (Norway)
2021: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (Poland/UK) with shortlisted artists: keyon gaskin (US), Florentina Holzinger (Austria), Narcissister (US)
2022: Latai Taumoepeau (Australia/Tonga) with shortlisted artists: Liz Rosenfeld (US/ Germany), River Lin (Taiwan), Zinzi Minott (UK)
2023: Tiziano Cruz (Argentina) with shortlisted artists: Autumn Knight (United States), Jota Mombaça (Brazil) and Joshua Serafin (Philippines/Belgium)[5]
Themes
2003
Over the years, the festival has explored various themes. In 2002, works were presented in unconventional spaces such as a hair salon, a gas station, and a nursing home. Main artists of the festival were butch artist Saga Kobayashi from Japan and Live Art artists Eve Dent and Kira O'Reilly from England.
2004
International program included artists from many countries such as Great Britain, Canada, United States of America, Germany, Japan and Netherlands. Over four days there were 17 performances. One of them was Will Kwan's (CA) performative lecture in University of Kuopio which was mentioned in media as well as Jennifer Nelson's (US) and Glen Redpath's (CA) work Prisma Relay. Prisma Relay was held in local supermarket.
2005
Theme of the year was time. The theme was defined by Charles Landry who said: ”It is important that a city does not wipe out its memory”.
2006
There were 17 artists from all over the world giving their performances in Kuopio City Hall, Väinölänniemi Tennis Court, Youth Center 44, Hotel Puijonsarvi, Huuhanmäki Observatory, Cinema Maxim, an empty property on Tasavallankatu, balcony of the Carlson department store, Kuopio airport, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Health Professions Kuopio, an apartment mediated by the real estate agency Huoneistokeskus and the office of Reijo Kela.
2007
For the 2007 edition of the festival a community college, a skateboarding park, the pages of a city newspaper, a late-night grill, a children's playground and an entire island were negotiated by an international program of artists. One of the most attractive works of the year was the vacuum cleaner's One Hundred Thousand Pieces of Possibility where the artist gave away 1000 euros in 1 cent pieces. Claire Blundell Jones's work Introducing Tumbleweed to the Finnish Landscape was noticed by media press.
2008
For ANTI 2008 Kuopio's residents opened their homes to audiences and host works made for domestic space. Other projects took place in a sports stadium, on a public stage, across the network of city streets and on, and under, the Rönö bridge.
2009
In year 2009 the theme of ANTI was walking. Vincent Chevalier (CA) traveled from one place to another walking along a 2-metre length of red carpet. Tim Knowles (UK) in term set off walking and were guided solely by the wind. For this piece he created a wind vane mounted to a helmet.
2010
This edition of ANTI concentrated on how artists working with writing and language navigate, read and inhabit the city.[6]
2011
2011 was year of celebration since it was 10th ANTI Festival. There were pieces presented by artists from Great Britain, United States, Canada, Belgium and France. In the program there was for example Blast Theory's Rider Spoke which was a work for cyclists who explored the city by bike, looked for places to hide recorded messages and found digital treasures others have hidden, the choir conducted by Heidi Fast and a balloon piece by Gaëtan Rusquet. The festival culminated with Mammalian Diving Reflex's The Children's Choice Awards.
2012
This year the ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival program worked on the themes of man's relationship with nature and the connection between sexuality and the body as well as the natural state of the human body. The festival took over public spaces in Kuopio for the 11th time; the Luonnon ANTI program set up camp on the island of Karhunsaari. A weekend-long artwork and workshop program were planned especially with children in mind.
2013
The ANTI Festival offered encounters in Kuopio and Northern Savonia. In this, its twelfth year, the international festival of contemporary art spread to other locations too, such as Lapinlahti, Hietasalo island and the smoke sauna in Rauhalahti. In Cruising for Art about 20 Finnish and international artists made over 800 1-to-1 performances around Kuopio. Also the first PechaKucha night in Kuopio was organized during the festival.
2014
Children and teenagers were in the focus of this year's ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival. The international festival program consisted of work where the youngest family members or youngsters nearing adulthood were either the theme or an active part of the production. This year the first ever ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art was awarded. Winner of the first prize was Canadian artist Heather Cassils.
2015
ANTI was running in cooperation with the Kuopio Marathon. With this new artistic concept, the festival started to no longer be an event which takes place once a year and in the same format, but was organised with different partners to coincide with non-artistic events. The themes were much broader and were featuring endurance, fitness, sports and training.[7]
