CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO OUTSIDER ART FESTIVAL 2025!
Outsider Art Festival (OAF) invites all artists working in the field of outsider art to join us for the fifth edition of the festival! OAF will take place in August 2025 as part of the Helsinki Festival.
Open call for the 2025 festival will be open during 4.11.-30.11.2024. All application instructions can be found on this page.
OAF is a multidisciplinary art festival with a strong independent voice. OAF organises exhibitions, concerts, talks, workshops, residencies and other art events both live and online. OAF gives artists freedom to use their own voice and their own power to define for themselves what outsider art is – or to not define it at all. OAF reclaims space, employs people and enables new encounters between different people. OAF brings together marginalised artists and international art audiences, cultural actors and influencers. Equally, together.
OAF 2024 featured 33 live events and 5 online and radio events, reaching over 180,000 people. The festival has been described as wild, expanindg, brave, equal, inclusive and happy. Live events were held in Helsinki, Espoo. Event venues included the Cultural Center Caisa, the House of Text, Pertti’s Choice, Exhibition Centre WeeGee, Espoo Cultural Centre, Sello Hall, Kannusali, Children’s Cultural Centre Aurora, Western Subway stations, Radio Helsinki and OAF Online Stage.
OAF is developing an inclusive curatorial model that enables outsider artists to participate and influence the art field on equal terms. The festival is produced by Pertti’s Choice. The organisational partners are the Autism Foundation Finland and Kukunori. The selection of artists is made by OAF’s artistic team, which includes outsider artists and artist mentors from various fields.
Check out OAF festival activities from the years 2021-2024 on the festival website, Facebook and Instagram!
FESTIVAL OPEN CALL - INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLICANTS
Artists will be selected through an open application process. The call for artists is open for artists working the fields of visual arts, music, film, performing arts and literature. The call is open to all outsider artists living in Finland. You can apply for one or more art field categories. Decisions will be communicated to the applicants in March 2025 and the festival programme will be announced in April 2025.
If you have questions, OAF Open Call info meeting is held remotely via Zoom on Monday 11.11. and Monday 18.11. On both days there is Finnish info at 13.00-13.30 and English info at 13.30-14.00. If you wish to attend please send a message in advance to tuomas@pertinvalinta.fi. We’ll provide you with a link to the meeting beforehand.
Apply for the 2025 Outsider Art Festival by filling in the application form below. Please read the terms and the the privacy policy carefully before submitting your application. The selection criteria for each art genre are explained in detail in the application forms.
If you have questions about the open call please contact the festival’s production team by email info@outsiderartfestival.fi. The artistic team will not answer any questions related to the selection process.