”It is important that a city does not wipe out its memory”, said Charles Landry, theorist on city culture and creative economics when he visited Kuopio in the spring of 2005.
ANTI -festival records pieces of Kuopio history, the present and its changes. We highlight, make visible and audible these moments and changes in different volumes, looking at situations both from a societal and a personal viewpoint. In August 2005 the plywood mill that is closed down in Itkonniemi will make a group of citizens redundant. ANTI will keep following their exploits in the future. In this year’s seminar we also focus on time.
In April 2005 began the TALKS and DEEDS series of discussion forums, the aim of which is to root the concept and field of live art in Finland. The purpose is also to introduce works and working methods of artists that straddle the boundaries and margins of various art forms, whilst engaging the public and strengthening a new culture of discussion through intimate and small-scale encounters. This new event was well received and there is clearly a demand for such interactive occasions.
In his work Rooms/Spaces the French author Georges Perec (1936-1982) deals with among other things the city: “One mustn’t be too hasty in reaching for a definition of a city, a city is too large and one has all the chances of going astray”. In 4 years ANTI -festival has activated 48 sites and situations. One of our aims is to work in the long term with Kuopio and its habitants. This is how we do an inventory of the city by means of art and we integrate ourselves with it.
”We can never explain or justify a city. A city is where it is. It is our space and we have no other. We have been born and raised in cities. We breathe in cities. When we board a train we do so to move from one city to another. There is nothing inhuman in cities – unless we take our own humaneness into account” (Perec 1974).

Once again ANTI offers an interesting programme that can surprise anywhere, any when…