ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival

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 yearly festival is held in Kuopio, Finland. The first ANTI Festival was organised in 2002 by The Arts Council of Northern Savonia. The ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival Association was established in 2005 to coordinate the festival.

With an emphasis on performance, ANTI has established itself as Finland’s foremost presenter of live art while also showcasing new developments in sonic and visual arts. Site-specific and time based works take place in public spaces, on streets, in office buildings, parks, shopping-centres and other privately owned sites, depending on the festival’s theme and the nature of the works. The festival programme consists of artworks created by invited artists and artists selected by an open proposal process.

ANTI means ”gift” in Finnish. Therefore, it is very appropriate that the artworks which are presented are free of charge. There is a small fee only for the seminars, artists’ talks and workshops. The ANTI Festival wants to make art more accessible for everybody. People who usually don’t gravitate towards art may become participant viewers of artworks by chance.

24.9.2013 ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival launched a new international art award ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art which was awarded for the first time in 2014.

2003

In year 2002 works were presented for example in a hair salon, a gas station and in 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 programme included artists from many countries such as Great Britain, Canada, United States of America, Germany, Japan and Netherlands. During 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 The Race. The Race was held in local super market where it brought running competition and consuming hysteria of Friday afternoon together.

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