“Forming the future for all” seminar & livestream 12.9.2024

Photo: Akseli Muraja. 'Kaava 884' by Lopéz-Lehto, Utriainen, and Vuorenmaa, ANTI Festival 2023.  

How can we ensure that the built environment and public art are accessible to everyone now and in the future? “Forming the future for all" seminar will address diversity and power in relation to the accessibility of urban environments and art.

The seminar will explore who has access to built environments. How can public art, art events, and urban culture be made accessible, for example, to disabled participants or artists?

The seminar will focus particularly on temporary, ephemeral, and event-based public art.

The Arts Promotion Centre Finland’s Creative Net project and ANTI Festival are organizing the “Forming the future for all” seminar as part of the ANTI Festival in Kuopio, Finland. The speeches at the event will also be streamed online. The seminar will be conducted in English.

Welcome to follow the livestream on Tuesday, 12 September!

Programme
Tuesday, 12 September, 10 AM – 12:30 PM (UTC +3, EEST)

Opening the event   
Elisa Itkonen, director - lead curator, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival  
Pia Repo, advisor, Creative Net project, Arts Promotion Centre Finland

Keynote: The early years of architectural accessibility in Finland  
Marja Rautaharju, architect and PhD researcher, Tampere University

The first accessibility legislation came into force in Finland in 1973. How was architectural accessibility formulated and debated in the 1970s, half a century ago? The presentation navigates the early landscape of accessibility in Finland as an interplay of knowledge, policies, actors and discussions.

Commentary speech: To be confirmed  
Maija Karhunen, dancer

Break  

Artist's viewpoint: Tarik Elmoutawakil (UK)   
Tarik Elmoutawakil is a creative producer and independent artist, and co-founder and Artist Director at The Marlborough Theatre in Brighton. Tarik is plugged into a network of disabled QTIPOC artivists across the globe, contributing to an ongoing movement to reshape access and leadership. At ANTI Festival, Tarik and his working group will present Brownton Abbey, the Afrofuturistic, Space-Church themed performance party that centres, celebrates and elevates disabled queer people of colour.

Artist's viewpoint: Rhiannon Armstrong (UK/CA) 
Rhiannon Armstrong is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist making works with empathy, interaction, and dialogue at their core, often for unfiltered audiences. Conversation and collaboration are central to her practice: between makers of different disciplines, public contributors, and audiences. At ANTI Festival, Rhiannon will present Public Selfcare System, a performance that considers who is and is not allowed to rest and where, and what resting as an act of solidarity might mean.

Registration

Register for the livestream by September 10 at 4:00 PM  

Registered participants will receive a calendar entry and a streaming link via email. The link will also be published on the seminar's website on September 12, so the stream can be followed even if you haven't registered.

Read more about the event

Organizers

Arts Promotion Centre Finland: Creative Net project (ESF+) 
ANTI Festival: Nordic Street Network II and Future DiverCities 2 projects

Creative Net is the coordination project for the national Creative and Cultural Innovation Expertise ESF+ theme under the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike). The project assists and encourages professionals in the creative industries to apply for ESF+ funding and supports the practical work of funded projects.

The seminar is part of the Creative Net’s Future Trilogy in 2024. The Future Trilogy includes three seminars that explore the future, art, and culture from different perspectives. The seminars will be held in the fall in Hämeenlinna, Kuopio, and Helsinki. 

ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival is an international contemporary art festival held annually in September in Kuopio, Finland. The festival has been organised for over 20 years and is Finland’s leading live art event. Live art is an umbrella term for innovative performance art that includes artwork that is performative, participatory and embedded in the present moment. The ANTI Festival received the State Prize for Artistic Societal Impact in 2023.  The ANTI Festival will take place from September 10–15, 2024.

The artistic and cultural use of Kuopion kulttuurikonepaja is part of the Future DiverCities project, a Creative Europe project involving ANTI Festival and 13 other European partners.

Further information
Pia Repo, Advisor, Creative Net, Arts Promotion Centre Finland 
pia.repo@taike.fi