Artist selections for the Kulkue project announced

Artists have been selected for the Kulkue project, which develops touring activities between festivals. The themes covered by the artwork of the selected seven working groups range from the creation of queer spaces to urban planning. The artwork will be presented at the ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff between 2022 and 2024.

The open call of the joint Kulkue project of the three art festivals attracted 138 high-quality submissions, of which seven were selected for implementation. The curators for the selection process were the project’s artistic directors, Elisa Itkonen (ANTI), Hanna Parry (Baltic Circle) and Tom Rejström and Jonas Welander (Hangö Teaterträff).

The selection process emphasized finding artwork that would be novel and exceptional for both the artists themselves as well as audiences. The selected projects approach the performance environments in an unexpected and fresh way and take the residents of the festival cities and other spectators into consideration through means such as supporting the needs of local communities and creating new ways to participate in art. The works are site-specific, which means that their implementation and overall look may vary depending on the festival and location where they are presented.

 “In making the selections, we also aimed to pay attention to the artists’ different backgrounds and to choose representatives of the Finnish art sphere from the north to the south. One of our main selection criteria was our assessment of the capacity of the proposed works to reach wide audiences that may not have prior experience of contemporary performing arts”, explain the festivals’ artistic directors.

 The themes of the selected submissions range from the creation of queer spaces to the questions of urban planning, from local politics to people’s relationships with nature and personal experiences of home all the way to bacchanals.

Tea Andreoletti’s submission will bring experts, such as associations, politicians and activists to each of the festival cities to share their experiences and stories of uranium mining occurring in Finland with the locals.

4 FLOORS OF WHORES (Emilia Jansson, Riku-Pekka Kellokoski, Herman Nyby & Astrid Stenberg) collaborates with the director Lara Magdalena Tacke to invite spectators to participate in an immersive performance inspired by ancient bacchanals that enable the audiences to participate in various rituals and experience ecstatic revelry.

The interdisciplinary and communal performances and installations by the Cross-art Collective Piste’s Työmaa working group (Riikka Vuorenmaa, Maarit Utriainen, Sebastian López-Lehto & Laura Rekilä) take place in the terrain and examine the relationship between humans and the environment in areas that are undergoing changes due to new construction.

Sonja Jokiniemi & Emma Fält will create a work of art comprising three parts: a performance, an installation and an archive-like exhibition that invites different people to participate and explore their special relationships with the home and spaces related to the home as well as their worries and fears.

Mira Eskelinen, Frank Stankiewicz & Miranda Kastemaa will create a space particularly aimed at quiet and shy queer folks by building a performance and an installation that allow audiences to celebrate diversity by resting, observing or just spending time.

Henriikka Himma & a working group including Sofia Palillo, Leissi Rehn, Julia Lappalainen and Kaisa Karvinen use their performance to examine Western architecture, its history and norms. Their artwork is based on a collection of prose essays by the architect–author Helmi Kajaste, Rakenna, kärsi ja unhoita (‘Build, suffer and forget’).

Pia Sirén, Ilona Valkonen (Vieno Motors) & Mirella Pendolin collect stories of people’s relationship with nature while creating plant sculptures to be dressed by the festival audience. The artists’ use the stories as the basis for a performance and a garden installation.

The artwork will be presented as part of the festival programmes. More information about the works will be provided in the annual programme publications on the festival websites and their social media channels. Spectators get to experience the selected artwork at the ANTI Festival, Baltic Circle Festival and Hangö Teaterträff between 2022 and 2024.

Kulkue is a joint project of three major art festivals. ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), Hangö Teaterträff (Hanko) and Baltic Circle festival (Helsinki) are carrying out an exceptionally broad series of joint productions from Finland and a tour built around the works. The key goal of the project is to promote the accessibility of festivals and extend the artwork lifecycle. The project is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.