Last month I’ve been working on ACTS OF CLOTHING, my upcoming show which is a concept by British live artist Marcia Farquhar. It has been a rather thought stimulating process to go through my past by looking at items of clothing and stories & incidents related to them. Marcia has been a great support and I’m so honoured to be working with her in this process. 



Last weeks have been an emotional roller cost as I run my first (and maybe last) half marathon and felt really flat after achieving the goal I had been training for about nine months. A few days later I learned some sad news about funding and felt totally devastated. All that has to be dealt with later on as now it’s the best time of the year in Kuopio because the ANTI Festival kicks off on Wednesday. For about a week, Kuopio turns into the hotpot of live art as international artists, programmers, and festival visitors gather to create amazing work – thanks to me. Not just me, of course, but I’ve started the festival and I guess one could say that I’m the ‘force’ behind it. So tomorrow I’m having dinner with Gregg Whelan, Guillermo Gomez Pena and Roberto Sifuentes among others and later during the week will be spending time with Jennie Klein, Dee Heddon, Gwendoline Robin, Cindy Baker, Alex Bradley, Antti Laitinen, Essi Kausalainen, Leena Kela, Pilvi Porkola, Pirjo Yli-Maunula, William Petit, Samo Gosaric to name a few. How exciting!

Hope to see you all at ANTI. It will be great. I promise.

Johanna