Co-creative, involving and participatory art

    Open call for the facilitation of co-creative, involving and participatory art

    The Karlsøy Festival 2023 will focus on co-creative, involving and participatory art. What is often referred to in English as community art. This means an artistic process that contributes to creating community and is open to the participants of the festival, regardless of previous artistic experience.  

    We invite you to a challenge to help design the festival site, originally an old schoolyard, which over the years has taken on a life of its own with the Karlsøy Festival.

    This is part of slow place development, which is about developing a physical and social infrastructure that facilitates connections between people - a place where we can enjoy being creative together, even if we don't yet know each other.

    We also want the process to be able to lead to results that contribute to making the festival's buildings, surroundings and infrastructure more practical, environmentally friendly and beautiful. Of things that happen on the festival site, the following works and opportunities may be relevant, for example: KarlsøyYurta is a circular stage space, made of local natural materials, which will be completed for the festival. A permanent cloth is planned on a large lavvo in the children's area. There is talk of creating permanent structures for beer sales and sound tents to avoid the use of plastic tarpaulins. In addition, the festival has an existing infrastructure in the form of a stage, festival house with outdoor kitchen and more. 

    It is not necessary for the artistic process to deal with all these possibilities. They are only included as examples of other physical installations that the work can relate to. Participating artists will have a high degree of artistic freedom in terms of what results the artistic process will lead to.

    We are looking for a group that can facilitate this process. This can be a group who know each other, independent artists who do not know each other before or a combination of these. It is an advantage, but not a prerequisite, if you know Karlsøya and the festival from before.

    In order to be able to prepare and facilitate the work in a good way, we want you to visit Karlsøya at least once and no later than 15 June to look at the festival grounds and talk to the festival organizers about the festival, plans, needs and opportunities. Based on this, the group must jointly create a plan for the process and an overview of material requirements.

    Participation with the public will take place from Tuesday 1 August until Saturday 5 August. Facilitating artists should arrive in Karlsøya no later than Saturday 29 July.

    Facilitating artists will receive basic indoor accommodation. This could be in a guest room in someone's home or in a caravan, barracks or bus. Facilitating artists will receive a contribution of NOK 15. This is intended to cover travel, participation fees and food beyond communal meals. If there are any funds left after expenses have been covered, the artist will keep this as a symbolic fee. Invited artists are encouraged to apply for their own fee and cover other costs from other schemes. Karlsøyfestivalen will, if necessary, provide an invitation/letter of intent that can be used for this purpose.

    The festival's theme is "Peace & Utopia"
    Peace because the war has come closer to us in Europe. It also reminds us of the many armed conflicts in many other places in the world. We also experience that it is difficult to talk about peace and there seems to be a prevailing understanding that peace can only be created through war. The Karlsøy Festival believes that there is a need for peaceful strategies and a public conversation about these.

    Utopia because the festival itself can be an attempt to create a utopian society limited in time and space as a temporary physical experience. In this way, the theme wishes to remind that utopia is not only a theoretical impossibility, but that together we can create common experiences of utopia. 

    Utopia is also linked to Karlsøya's recent history, where a mythological hippie paradise in the north is woven together with a physical reality in an alternative society based on art, culture and self-rescue. And in recent decades a festival.

    In time and space, we therefore want to focus on thoughts about utopia. The reasonable and unreasonable that make the impossible possible.

    If you/you wish to participate and facilitate such an artistic process, we ask that you send us a simple application in which you describe your own understanding of community-creating art, a proposal for an approach at the Karlsøy Festival and a CV with relevant experience.

    Send an application to booking@karlsoyfestivalen.no no later than March 20.