Editorial: The ten-year-old who changed the live art world

The ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art will be awarded for the 10th time this year. It’s a great achievement for a prize that celebrates the form of art that is unruly, experimental, leathery, difficult to verbalise and provocative with its hardness and softness, one that is presented by a small contemporary art festival – the ANTI Festival – from a small town in North-Finland. What makes it particularly special is that it is one of the biggest prizes in the performing arts’ world in terms of money: a total of €30 000, made possible by the Saastamoinen Foundation, which funds it.

To mark the anniversary, we put together a small online publication from around and inside the award. I have personally edited the 2019–2022 editions of the Shortlist LIVE! publication, which was produced concurrently with the award programme. In Shortlist LIVE!, we had the opportunity to open up the artistic thinking and practice of the four artists or art collectives nominated for each year’s award in the form of essays. We also opened up the world of live art and performance art from different angles to the festival’s visitors and other expected readers. The publications have stood the test of time, I recommend reading them further. It is rare to read such insightful and warmly written essays on live art artists as in those texts.

One of the magical things about the Shortlist LIVE! essays was that the artists themselves got to choose who would write the essays about them. Some wanted a close colleague or a familiar curator, others wanted the eye and pen of a researcher or critic. The same method of inviting authors works for this online publication, only now the focus is on the prize itself!

Since 2007, professor Jennie Klein has been attending ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival steadily, from as far away as Ohio. Jennie was on the jury for the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art in 2021. At our request, Jennie wrote a brief history of the prize, its origins, its stages and its impact for our anniversary publication. In addition, we compiled a pictorial history of the prize, which helps to remind us of the impressive art that it has enabled to be created.

Another person familiar from the prize jury is the German contemporary performance curator Anna Teuwen. Anna was on the jury in 2022, and this year we asked her to introduce us to the current nominated artists. The result is a text that beautifully opens up questions about recent trends in live art: softness and political correctness instead of polemics, provocation and scandal. At the same time, we get a better picture of the practices of Jota Mombaça, Joshua Serafin, Autumn Knight and Tiziano Cruz before their performances at the festival – and the awarding of the 10th prize.

Awards in the arts are not a simple matter. The ANTI Festival team wants to remain sensitive to its complexity. You can't measure art like a long jump, but there is power in awards: they bring visibility and visibility brings fresh pairs of eyes. We asked Kaino Wennerstrand, an artist who has also performed at the festival, to write a critical essay on rewarding within the arts – and we got one. Kaino's writing opens up different angles associated with awards not only on a surface level, but also on a cellular level. 

Another perspective on the prize, this very prize, is provided by Cassils, the first ever winner of the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art. We republish Cassils' text, first published in 2021 in the festival’s annual publication ANTIZINE. It is a reminder that even art prizes can be sensitive and reflective of their recipients.

Thank you authors, you exude a genuine interest in live art and its contexts. 

Congratulations on your 10th anniversary, ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art! Stay as sensitive, vulnerable, brave and random as you have always been!

Heidi Backström, editor-in-chief

Translations Essi Brunberg.

Live Art Prize 10 Years Publication – Index:

Jennie Klien: The ANTI Festival International Live Art Prize: A Brief History in 3 Parts

The first 9 years of Live Art Prize in pictures

Anna Teuwen: The radicality of opening up – introducing Jota Mombaça, Joshua Serafin, Autumn Knight and Tiziano Cruz 
Kaino Wennerstrand: We have not earned a thing

Cassils: Big Statement from a Small Town