ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival

For our 2020 festival ANTI is thrilled to announce partnership with Kuopio Region of Gastronomy, coordinated by ProAgria Eastern Finland and Savonia University. The 19th edition of ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival will take place between 8th and 13th September 2020 in Kuopio, Finland. We now invite artists, working in any field, to propose projects that directly engage with the theme of food.

This year, in addition to the general call-out (see website for details) we have five specific call-outs for commissioned projects. In addition see below for a call, made by our partner Reality Research Center, for applications to the Residency for Impossible Performance initiative.

“Food sits at the heart of human civilization. It touches the intensely personal, the national, and the global with equal emphasis. Is there an industry, a field, an activity, a substance with more political, social and economic importance than food? Eating together civilizes us and yet the production of food and its impact on the world’s resources is rapidly endangering the continuation of human life. Every meal we eat is arguably a part of this discourse and yet without difficulty, and with genuine joy, we are able to attribute deep pleasure, sensorial delight and an abundance of feelings of wellbeing, happiness and belonging to the food we surround ourselves with. Food touches every part of our lives, it speaks to sensuality, sexuality, gender, race, class; it forms the background and the foreground to our days, it nourishes and sustains. Food is, as it always has been, a joyful and
complex reminder of our place in this world,”

Artistic Directors Gregg Whelan and Johanna Tuukkanen write.

Submitting a Proposal for ANTI Festival 2020

When proposing a project to ANTI Festival please make sure your work responds to the festival’s focus on public space (including interior and privately owned spaces). We do not show projects in traditional cultural spaces (galleries, theatres etc.) so your proposed project will need to have an integral relationship with the place in which it is presented and your proposal will need to outline where your work could be located.

The proposal form allows a link to be made to online documentation of previous work and for applicants to attach a CV and a maximum of three supporting images. Proposals that do not strictly conform to these guidelines will not be considered.

We strongly advise you spend some time getting to know ANTI Festival before making an application, our Vimeo page is a great place to get a sense of past editions of the festival.
Send your proposal by using this electric form. The proposal deadline for all proposals is 19.12.2019 (midnight Finnish time).

Areas that your project may respond to may include one or more of the following (this list is by no means exhaustive):

Food and identity; personal/regional/national
Food and social inequality
Food and environment/ecology
Food and geopolitics
Food and land use
Rural and urban farming
Food and community
Food and belief/spirituality
Cooking; dexterity and creativity
Food and the everyday; feeding the family
Food and celebration
Food and gender
Food and wellbeing
Food and the body; disease, eating disorders, body-shape discourse
Local food/Finnish food/seasonal food
Fast food and delivery services; new economies