Art For All Festival - Invisible Connection

Art Festival

Malmi airport, Helsinki

Art For All ry

I co-founded Art For All ry along with a group of art students and alumni from Uniarts Helsinki and Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in 2020. The association brings together artists in the beginning of their careers, encouraging cross-artistic collaboration and promoting accessibility of art. The association hosts an annual art festival, where I have worked as a producer since 2021.

The festival theme Invisible Connection studied the coming together after the pandemic. The pieces discussed connections between people, cultures, and non-human species. The theme of connection was present in the ways of working. There were multiple working groups participating in the festival with Maria Punkkinen and Liisa Karbin-Kosonen creating a five meter long collaborative drawing during the residency. On of the goals of the festival is to provide opportunities for young creators to showcase their work to encourage new ways of making and exhibiting art.

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.