Art For All Festival - Invitation

Art For All Festival 2023 took over the Kalasatama neighborhood in Helsinki, filling the everyday environments with art. The event presented emerging artists from different disciplines going from performances, to food art and textile works . The works were placed in the common spaces and yards of residential buildings.  The festival was organized in collaboration with Heka Oy, Setlementtiasunnot, NAL-asunnot and Artist House Ars Longa, and it was planned in collaboration with the local residents. The artists and residents interacted during the week-long "neighborhood residency" preceding the festival.

The 2023 edition of the festival revolved around the theme Invitation. The festival reflected on the meaning of home and the social interactions related to everyday environments. It explored the urban space of Kalasatama as a place of complex relationships to our surroundings, neighbors, plants, and others. The theme evolved in contact with the Kalasatama area, its inhabitants, and the artists during the Residency and workshops. The works invited the public to participate in various performances, to meet the artists over shared meals and teas, and to follow the stories of those encounters. The artists’ did research on and thought about the role and importance of home; a clean and intimate space, its colours and tastes. They took a closer look at the concept of ownership and human interactions within and outside that space. Sometimes it is absent and even considered a wasteland. The selected artists explore the theme through multidisciplinary installations, growing and living artworks, dance, music, sound, participatory and site specific performances and textile pieces.

I worked as the producer of the festival overseeing the practicalities, resources, funding, logistics, tech and leading the cross-disciplinary festival team. The role of the production is highlighted in the festival process as the event is transported every year to a new location that is not typical for exhibiting art. The festival production includes a great amount of negotiation, planning and building trust and good working relation ships with the partners providing the venue. This process makes the festival what it is and challenges the festival team to reinvent the event and find new ways of producing and exhibiting art.