24.05.2021
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival
ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival takes place in Kuopio between 14th and 19th September 2021. As we approach our 20th festival, amid these challenging times, we turn to an idea that sits at the heart of ANTI Festival’s mission – free to attend for audiences, the festival is framed from within an idea of a gift. We celebrate two decades of activity, to think through the founding principle of the festival – to give, to be in the act of giving. As usual, the festival participates in various topical discussions and shakes our notions on the human, the society and the arts.
The leading work of the 2021 ANTI Festival is A Great Mess by the Helsinki based art collective, WAUHAUS. The site-sensitive performance transports us to a waste disposal site – the largest landfill in the Eastern Finland. It offers a glimpse into a world where humans no longer see themselves as the centre of the universe.
A Great Mess looks at how the place came into being through the interaction of soil, waste, countless organisms, and human imagination. The performance visualises how the vast web of interdependencies, in which we exist with other species, has gradually evolved and continues to evolve each day. It is not a narrative lamenting the destruction wreaked by modernisation but a sincere effort to fathom how we can foster new life skills in the era of eco-crisis. Read more about the project here (link)!