In 2020, the ANTI Festival in Kuopio and the Helsinki-based Annantalo art centre for children and youth will be co-operating to carry out a media art project to connect the young people of the two cities.

The project is called KELP! and it allows young people to try digital art methods and craft skills at workshops led by professional artists. In Kuopio, the artistic planning and direction are lead by artist Timo Kokko, and in Helsinki by artist and Annantalo art educator Elina Rantasuo.

Inspired by the 2020 ANTI Festival, the theme to be explored by KELP! is food. Together with the young participants, we discuss what kind of food we might be eating in the future. Climate change forces us to research new plant species to be used for food production. For example, the namesake of the project – kelp – has been listed as one of the super foods of the future.

The participants in the KELP! project are the students of ANTI Festival’s partner Class 8E from Hatsala Classical School in Kuopio, and the Class 8D students from Apollo School in Helsinki.

The workshops will be held in March, August, September and October. The outcomes of the project will be presented as part of the ANTI Festival programme between 20th and 31st October, and at Annantalo from 2nd December 2020 till 20th January 2021.

More information

ANTI-Festival/Kuopio: Elisa Itkonen, elisa@antifestival.com, +358 50 305 2005
Annantalo/Helsinki: Katri Aikio, katri.aikio@hel.fi, +358 40 486 6968

Timo Kokko (FI)

Timo Kokko studies materiality, immateriality, space, light and observation through installations and sculptures. His works are a multi-sensorial experiences. He produces art through the observation and research of the environment, approaching the arts from scientific perspectives, often relying on experimentation, psychology, biology, chemistry and visual anthropology. Kokko’s work deals with ecological values and questions about humanity. Human, nature, time, moment and ephemerality are reoccurring themes in his work.

Timo Kokko is a visual artist based in Kuopio. He has graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts at University of the Arts in Helsinki.

www.timokokko.com

Elina Rantasuo (FI)

Artist and art educator Elina Rantasuo is working in multidisciplinary ways using association and daily observations as the starting points of her works. Lately her interest has been in live-animation and socially engaged and participatory arts.

During last years she has been working with the artist group Bread Omens. Bread Omens group is working around bread, fantasies of kinship and playing with the idea of nearly vanishing culture of communal bread ovens.

At the moment she is working in Annantalo Arts centre as a developer of media and contemporary arts. Rantasuo has graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2013.