ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival celebrates the journey of its first decade as a forerunner of the site-specific contemporary art
ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival (on 27th September – 2nd October 2011) will celebrate the journey of a decade with a versatile, always challenging and a surprising programme. Kuopio and its surroundings, known around the world as the homebase of the ANTI Festival, will again be sizzling with fresh, forerunning contemporary art spreading around the various sites in the city. The tenth anniversary edition will proudly present, for example, the rewarded Blast Theory (UK) and Mammalian Diving Reflex (CA). Heidi Fast (FI) will be the residence artist of this year. In addition, the festival will publish a book to celebrate this tenth anniversary of the festival.
ANTIVERSARY – Performance, live art and site-specificity: a decade of ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival will be published during the festival on 27th September. The book is written in two languages (Finnish/English) and presents the unique character and the versatility of the artistically ambitious programme of the festival. The authors include, for example, art critic Juha-Heikki Tihinen (FI), Regional Manager of the Arts Council of Finland, Arja Laitinen (FI), art historians Deirde Heddon (UK) and Jennie Klein (US) as well as various artists from the past years. The presale of the book will start in June.
Theme
The theme of the Festival in 2011, REMAKE, REBUILD, RENEW, is very much present in the programme. This theme finds its source in the large on-going change process and the major changes in the organization of the city of Kuopio. ”This is our most exciting year, it’s amazing to think that it’s ten years since the festival began. With this year’s programme we underline everything we’re committed to – presenting innovative contemporary art in public space. We are particularly proud of our way to produce works of art among the everyday life of people; – it’s free, it’s accessible and it’s world class in terms of the artists we present. Make sure you join us for this anniversary year!” - states one of the Artistic Directors, Gregg Whelan.
The absolute highlights of the festival include Rider Spoke by Blast Theory, an urban game, which will be kicked off on Wednesday evening on 28th September. Blast Theory is internationally known as a brilliant artist group that uses interactive media to produce innovative performance art providing a meeting platform for the Internet audience, live performance and the digital presentation. To honor the tenth anniversary edition, the festival will present the world premiere of THE 100 YEAR OLD ROCK AND ROLL BAND. The ten members of the band will cover ten decades. The youngest member will be under 10 and the oldest over 90 years old. They will perform their only song, A Song For The Decade, on Saturday 1st October as a part of the birthday programme. Other definitely interesting works will be Brian Lobel’s (UK) Purge, in which the Facebook friendships will be heavily challenged and the city installation Viewpoints of the Norwegian collective group, Svop/t. The versatile programme is supported by the images of Pekka Mäkinen that are spread around the city. Mäkinen has been documenting the festival for the past 10 years. The festival will come to a glorious end on Sunday with the Children’s Choice Awards, in which the Canadian performance art group, Mammalian Diving Reflex, will work together with a school class from Kuopio to evaluate every single work of the programme with their own criteria.
Besides with the Children’s Choice Awards, special attention to children has been added into the programme by Beastie who has been charming people internationally. This magical adventure is aimed at children who are 6-10 years old and it is strictly forbidden for adults. Beastie has been produced by the Lone Twin company (UK).
ANTI RETURNS
Following our theme, we have invited a number of artists from the previous festivals to work on their initial site and to reapproach their works. The programme includes from 2002 Christopher Hewitt (UK), from 2003 Elaine Kordys (UK) and Juha Valkeapää (FI), from 2006 Kirsi Pitkänen (FI) and Aaron Williamson (UK) from 2007.
ANTI Residency 2011
The artist in residency 2011 will be Heidi Fast, who has started on her project (Re)attuning choir already in April. The first part of the work will be performed on 10th of September on the suicide prevention day in collaboration with the local bus company Kuopion liikenne. Fast will continue with her work with vocal installations and community art.
The programme gets some extra flavor from the artist collective TRYST (US) with their work Assisted street crossing Kuopio basically carrying pedestrians over the crossroads and the balloon work by Gaëtan Rusquet (FR/BE) BACK AND FORTH. The Festival Saturday will be full of pure celebration. The party guests will include Bryony Kimmings (UK) and her work 7 DAY DRUNK will invite the audience to an intimate moment at the Restaurant Kummisetä.
ANTI Seminar
As usual, the festival will begin by the ANTI seminar 2011: Remake, Rebuild, Renew, which will host, for example, Helena Sederholm from the Aalto University and Tapio Räsänen the Manager of Technical Services of the City of Kuopio. A workshop given by Blast Theory will be a unique opportunity for those interested in the media art, technology and digital presentation methods.
Read the descriptions of the programme. Let's celebrate in September!