The summer was fruitful, and the Future DiverCities partners are back with exciting news and engaging activities. To celebrate our first year since the project’s launch, this September we invite you to a series of events, openings, and a festival.
“This year, I have thought of ANTI as a kind of urban activist, which through art also raises global issues and phenomena, as well as perspectives that are perhaps not yet sufficiently exposed in Kuopio. For example, we consider for whom and under whose conditions our cities are built and who decides on the development and future of our environment”, said Elisa Itkonen, the ANTI festival’s lead curator.
In Kuopio (Finland, 8–9/09), the 2023 edition of our partner ANTI-Contemporary Art Festival proposes a pre-event with a seminar, multidisciplinary projects, discussions, guided walks, and performances. This international annual event, presenting site-specific works, acts as a mirror of the changes taking place in its hometown, while the city itself acts as a stage for the festival’s works. The programme is formed around the Future DiverCities concept, which explores the possibilities of using empty spaces in cities and the potential of participatory art projects in creating an urban culture and communal urban environments.
Meanwhile, in the mountainous and green area of Londa (Florence, Italy, 8-9-10/09), our partner Lama presents the finissage of Future DiverCities artist residencies called “A dimora”*. From June until September 2023, the selected artists Luca Boffi (Alberonero), Agnese Banti, Simone Carraro, and Iacopo Seri lived in the Montagna Fiorentina with the aim of designing a work in dialogue with the village and the surrounding nature within a path conceived to emphasise the relationship and the practice of making. The project aims to unveil, design, and lay the foundations for the concretisation of a local regeneration strategy on a cultural basis so that a generative relationship between environments (urban and natural) and between people (visitors and residents) can be realised.
Finally, in Zagreb (Croatia, 15/09), our partner Kontejner is opening its new venue after more than 20 years of work in the field of contemporary art and culture. The audience is invited to discover this new space for cultural programmes and to join the biochemical and bio-poetic installation by the artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis. The exhibition is the result of long-term research into possible nonverbal communication between humans and trees through scent. The following day, the audience can learn about the scientific method for measuring odours during the joint workshop proposed by the artist and molecular biologist Manuel Selg.
Find more info about the events organised by Lama, ANTI Festival and Kontejner.
*“Mettere a dimora” means placing a plant in the ground permanently
