Anja Puntari is a Finnish artist working in Milan and Helsinki. She studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee in Germany on an Erasmus Exchange Program, and she obtained an MA from NABA-Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, where she graduated in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies with a thesis entitled: “FEAR COMMUNITY – The relationship between collective fear, political self-expression and censorship of images in the twenty-first century network”. She continued her studies by participating in various workshops in several countries including the Making of 06 ‘, Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’Art Contemporain; Real Presence floating sites 7th International Workshop of Art students at the Istanbul Biennial; and Art for social transformation at the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella (TO).
Recently, she has been concerned with how to take the “artistic way of thinking and doing” from the artistic field to the work practices of organisations and to teaching activities, and to society at large. As Puntari states: ‘Art is a way of thinking, of existing, of understanding, of reacting and of taking action. Art is an activity that can take place in a classroom, in a gallery space, in a conference, at a dinner table, in a park, on the pages of a book magazine, on an online platform. Art happens wherever creative people go beyond their own limits, surprise themselves and discover something new. Art connects us to ourselves and to the world that surrounds us’.
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