In recent years, the Karlsøy Festival has developed as a co-creative and participatory festival. This means that everyone who comes to the festival participates and helps create the festival. In this way, we want to abolish the distinction between the public, volunteers, organisers, artists, musicians and others who contribute in various ways.
We will still book/invite someone in particular to deliver technique and some of the content for the programme. But it is also open for you to come on the program with something you want to contribute or show off.
Everyone who joins the program is a participant on an equal basis with everyone else. Most people who contribute content to the program will probably be part of the program group. Here they help with practical and technical arrangements so that the program can be carried out. You help each other with rigging, connecting and everything else that is needed for everyone to have good experiences. But there is nothing to prevent you from also joining one of the other groups if you wish.
PROGRAM FOR 2024
MUSIC
Marthe Valle / Baghånd (DK) / Doomed / MÍO / Nagirčalmmiid / Nonne / Alwanzatar / Peer Nic / RÅK / Hamida Kristoffersen / Karlsøy Prestegaard / Ben's Bluesband / One family / Atmosphere.
ART AND THEATER
“WAHA SOS – significance of spirit”: a collaboration between Palestinian The Freedom Theatre, Nordic Black Xpress and CrotonicX / Galleri Gàlsà: Gabriel Kvendseth.
Co-creative art: There are several co-creative art features YOU can take part in this year. We start with one permaculture garden with the help of Linn Kalseth and Candelaria Del Azar. IN the clothing workshop we fix, print, create and exchange clothes. IN Karlsøy Peace Choir you can join in singing and creating music with others. You can also play in the "Atmosphere" project and on an open stage. There will also be a fanzine workshop "Goat Hell" and the workshop "beyond the binary, a queer walk in our categories", both of which are facilitated by Eiv Rindal. Samha (Marryon) is also in this year with opening of Oli000!
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
T-shirt workshops with Linn Kalseth / Intergalactic Art School / Pønk for kidza / Karlsøy Fredskor / Gymnastics workshop with Erika and Mila / children's cinema at the weekend / Children's food every day
POLICY
Do It Together / Stop the genocide - solidarity with Palestine / Anarchism / Peace.
Karlsøyfestivalen reserves the right to make changes to the programme.
This year's festival exhibitor is Gabriel Johann Kvendseth. In his first solo exhibition at home on Karlsøy, he shows some new, some old works made from scrap, natural materials and everything that people have discarded. Some works are made on site. We don't quite know what we will see, but to quote Susanne Christensen in Kunstkritikk.no: "A pacifist future street gang has visited... Read more »Exhibition at Gallery GÁLSÁ
This year's main seminar has two main focuses. First and foremost, we look at Palestine and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But we also want to talk about peace in general. The genocide in Gaza is terrible and affects us all and shows live in social media the brutal consequences of militarism and military "solutions". At the same time, our neighbour, the… Read more »Main seminar Hope for peace in a time of war and genocide
Mohammed El-Susi is a Palestinian hip hop artist from Gaza. El-Susi and his family arrived in Stavanger at the beginning of May 2024, where he has been invited to live as a free city artist associated with the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN). El-Susi started his artistic career in 2009 when he and his brother founded the band 'Revolution Makers', which enjoyed great popularity… Read more »Mohammed El-Susi (PAL)
Who is developing our cities? And who are the cities being developed for? Urban development is a complex process and for many it is perceived as too big for one to really influence it to any particular extent. Urban development is something that happens, and not something you do.
The Karlsøy Festival had planned to continue its collaboration with The Freedom Theater this year. The plan was (and still is) for them to work together with Loan T. P Hoang from CrotonicX and carry out a working demonstration to inaugurate the new stage room KarlsøyYurta. KarlsøyYurta is a new stage building on Karlsøya for performing arts. The yurt can be used for development,… Read more »Opening of KarlsøyYurta with students from the Freedom Theatre
At this year's festival you are welcome to exciting talks, sessions and ceremonies for peace in the Karlsøy Festival's brand new building ~ Karlsøy Yurta!
Karlsøy Yurta is an arctic arena of 50m2 which is intended to be a space for the exploration of physical performing practices such as dance, performance art and other performing performing art forms. As a participant, you are invited to three unique, inspiring and genre-free workshops where we explore different practices that can challenge, expand and develop new perspectives on themes such as artivism through the body, art and collective resistance. The artistic exploration process will culminate in a joint festival screening on Saturday 4 August. Karlsøy Yurta's artistic team consists of: Ingvild Sivertsen, Batoul Nemr, Biniam Abbai Gezai, Noah M Roble, Marius Kolbenstvedt and Loan TP Hoang in collaboration with students from The Freedom Theater and Nordic Black Xpress.
Pønk for kidza is a children's pønk concept by Dømt. Here you get good reasons not to go to bed, you get to know what ketchup is good for and the children get to know both a cool camel called Kåre Jonny and the sailor Selma better. In addition, you will find out who is really the boss at home and a song about all sorts of weird and nothing called the Pling plong ding dong song!
Will create ESK, an After School CLUB for All Ages and all colors. For everyone who has more time than NOK.
Samha, Grevling, Tingeling or Britt Marryan Carlsson as her actual name is, is one of those who came to Karlsøya when there was a Rainbow gathering in 1989. She has been at the festival for many years, and has tried to make us Star-Aware. She wants to make a Courthouse. a Circus arena. For the playful person. The goal is Activity Houses and Landesteder for the entire C team, for everyone who has more time than NOK. Is her Desire' goal. Our Siida. This year she comes to Karlsøya, has an opening for OLi OOO and Etter Skoletid Klubben ESK with various activities.
This year, the plan is to continue with the community garden on the festival grounds, which is expanded each year.
Linn Kalseth will teach us how to make growing beds in true permaculture fashion. Together we will build various imaginative grow boxes from natural materials. Then we will go out on the island and collect ingredients, as well as put in food waste from the festival. For next year, this will be good food for herbs and salad for the festival kitchen.
Linn Kalseth will also have a photo lecture about their farm at Skifte in Gratangen, Skifteveien Permakultur. In the course of 3 years, on nature's terms and without owning a tractor, they have managed to become self-sufficient in organic vegetables, eggs, fish and firewood.
They want to inspire people to grow and harvest their own food, promote permaculture and regenerative agriculture!
Candelaria Del Azar comes from Morocco with her knowledge and drive for a green festival, to make a compost of our food waste. Join in, and you can both contribute to Karlsøya's own compost and permaculture garden and take many good tips home with you!
The Intergalactic school is coming to the Karlsøy Festival this year!
It offers the participants to participate and gain knowledge and co-create art creations!
There will be courses and workshops in different materials and techniques, local and natural as well as unusual, but also extraterrestrial and underground and artificial artistic arctic with e.g. acrylic colors & graff. In addition, Intergalactic Art School collaborates with the Karlsøyfestival's vintage hippie clothing workshop, the radical print workshop, the Karlsøyfestival community garden and everyone else who wants and can be with us. Join our active-reasearch research team where we all develop and learn together.
Facilitated by Sofia Waara
Do you want to make your own clothes with your own statement and motif?
Perhaps you have a boring piece of clothing that needs a new design, or you want to fix something you find with us?
In this workshop for both children and adults, we make the coolest festival t-shirts of the year and give old clothes new meaning!
We have a lot of equipment and clothes available, but please also bring used clothing items, ribbons, buttons, fabrics that you have no use for, so that someone else can give them new life.
Facilitated by Linn Kalseth, Sunniva Nyhamar, Ranja Haugen, Sofia Waara, Silja Haugen and more
"WAHA SOS - significance of spirit" is a collective tribute to universal rhythms and rituals through boundless time and space - to universes of metamorphosis, transformation and transformation. When many come together about what matters most - the universe will respond. The project opens up a spiritual journey where past, present and future merge into a timeless fabric between individual freedom, creative interaction and collective counterforce.
Freedom Theatre's visit to Norway is part of an artistic collaboration that focuses on art and cultural expression as part of freedom of expression and a peaceful contribution to the Palestinian resistance.
THE FREEDOM THEATER is an internationally recognized theater located in the refugee camp in Jenin on the West Bank in Palestine.
NORDIC BLACK XPRESS is Nordic Black Theatre's own theater school and theater development project with a focus on diversity and transcultural exchange
CROTONICX is a project-based performance collective that works with dance, rhythms and rituals in collaboration with artists, actors and activists at the crossroads of artistic discipline, form and expression.
Do you want to help create the world's best summer activities together with children and young people?
This year too, children and young people create the program together with the adults who sign up for the children's and young people's group.
This is already on the children's program this year:
T-shirt workshop, redesign and wool workshop, Intergalactic Art School, gymnastics workshop, theater workshop, yoga and silence sessions for children and young people.
Concerts: Pønk for kidza and Karlsøy Fredskor + all the other concerts!
On Saturday evening there is a children's cinema inside the festival house and on Friday evening activities in the children's lavvo. From Tuesday to Saturday, there are three shared meals for those in the children's and youth group. Free for children and young people under the age of 18
Choir singing is the biggest cultural activity in Norway. Around 5% of us sing in a vocal group or choir. Feeling together and feeling a common rhythm with other people through song releases the feeling of happiness in the body. It brings great joy and helps you to have a greater quality of life. Everyone can sing! Join us and we'll make a choir! You don't need to know anything beforehand. Bring yourself and sing along with us. Maybe there will be Northern Norwegian shows, pop ballads and Bob Dyland? Maybe we can sing in two parts? Welcome to choir practice two days during the festival. We practice in Karlsøy church during the festival week. This is for both adults, young people and children, and is supported by Frifond. The children involved should be able to read
We set the agenda with a longitudinal free workshop in creating a festival zine. In line with the traditions from "Geitehälvete" and the unique media history on Karlsøya, everyone is invited to help create a free and rebellious press during the festival.
Facilitator: Eiv Rindal
People are welcome to prepare contributions in advance.
Peace – Freedom – Love
For this year's festival, the workshop is presented with the philosophical title "beyond the binary, a queer walk in our categories". The format is the free workshop where the participants, through discussion, dialogue, walking and interactions with nature, themselves and others, can question how we ourselves understand the world in binary systems and what limitations it leads to. Content and angle are created in meetings with the participants.
The workshop is facilitated by Eiv Rindal, who is an activist in Trondheim on a daily basis.
The first workshop of the year we are releasing is the project Atmosphere!
Atmosphere is Ole Johan Lillegård, who has been part of the Sprø Music community in Arendal since 1982 until today. He made the piece about 7 years ago, and performed it at the Sprø music festival in Arendal in 2016 and 2019 under different names with different fellow musicians. Each time it is performed, the piece of music takes on a new sound and a new dimension, due to its special concept. More concretely, the piece is based on improvisation together with fellow musicians, made with a drone/bass line with the use of delay that sets the frame/tempo. The music style is further inspired by space rock/psychedelia.
There will first be a 45-minute long workshop, which is open to everyone to take part in. Musicians who participate then have the opportunity to spice up the piece with improvisation and sound curtains.
The goal is a subsequent small live performance.
Much of the program at the Karlsøy Festival has a common thread in that they are co-creative and social art and cultural projects.
Gathering through co-creative and social art and culture is important because our planet is in crisis in several ways.
Scientists warn that if we continue on the way we are doing now, we are rapidly approaching the tipping point for major climate change of the catastrophic kind.
The far right is growing in Europe, the walls are being built higher and polarization between people is getting stronger around the world.
And as we all know, brutal genocide, colonialism and abuse of power happen.
The changes that must take place to reduce the great climate catastrophe are the same ones we need to create a world of peace, solidarity, inclusion and love. Read more here about how we can help create this with the help of art and culture
Ben's Bluesband is an explosive blues band that plays with great feeling. They have rhythmic riffs, deep melodies and a fierce blue and raw soundscape. Many people remember Ben Nordin, the main character in the band, from all those years when he used to play on the streets of Tromsø. There was always a good atmosphere around Ben, as he set the soundtrack to the city. Now he and the others in Ben's Bluesband are regular house bands at the Karlsøy Festival. The rest of the gang in the band consists of the wonderful musicians and the Karlsøyværings Nils, Nils Joakim and Kimba. All are experts in improvisation and have a sense of rhythm that is free. They are looking forward to making good noise between people and the heather mountain again. Welcome to improvisation!
DID YOU GET THROUGH TROMSØ'S COOLEST VISIT BAND?
RÅKnroll, a little fish ball, hole lid and a little rocking vise pop!
RÅK is Tromsø's most charming and informal dance/folk band, and again ready to entertain the public on Karlsøya! The RÅK family now consists of yet another exciting element; Mats Music-in-my-ears Andersson! In addition, you will meet the fairies Jenny Dalvik & Elin Bockelie, Åsgeir den fagre and last year's welcome addition Felix fantegut.
RÅK is known for their popular songs such as "Huldra" and "Heile lievt for dæ", and there is no doubt that their unique interpretation of "Råkevisa" will be a highlight this year as well.
We are very much looking forward to experiencing RÅK on stage again. Their music, performed with genuine passion and energy, is guaranteed to provide an unforgettable experience during the festival. Welcome and don't fall into the trap - here it's going to be ROOKED! 🎶
Karlsøy Prestegaard has played at the Karlsøy Festival for all 25 years, and will of course play at the anniversary this year. They are at the intersection of punk, new wave and ska, and have always had critical and anti-authoritarian Norwegian lyrics. The band was formed as early as 1979, and was then started by musicians/artists from Hammerfest and Havøysund. They released their first single in 1981 and the following year they recorded their debut album Dyret (666). They have had a number of different musicians with them over the years, but now consist of the core from the 80s: Stein, Gustav and Arne. In addition, they have clever Ariel, Stein's son, with them. Songs they are guaranteed to play are Lovmann, Barn av lyset and Dyret 666, all with lyrics as relevant as in the 80s. They have played at a number of venues and knew the festival, e.g. Molde International Jazz Festival, Quart and Bukta. When they played at the quartfestival, they were referred to as "right in the middle of nowhere, we're talking attitude and rock history so it fits"
Over the past 25 years, we have evolved into an adventurous gathering of positive forces, a celebration of alternative voices fighting for a better world characterized by solidarity, compassion and love. We have our own manifesto and a handbook that describes the festival, and which helps new participants get to know... Read more »This year the Karlsøy Festival has its 25th anniversary!
Marthe Valle is an artist we have followed and admired for many years. She has a wonderfully strong and hurtful voice with which she conveys beautiful and important texts in Northern Norwegian. But in addition to using her voice to convey strong messages in a solidarity text universe, Marthe Valle is also a solidarity worker and... Read more »Marthe Valle
ONE Family was officially founded in 2004 and they have traditionally opened the Karlsøy Festival since 2005. This year is no exception.
At the time, they were young people on Karlsøya who gathered to play and jam with guitars, drums, tuba, trumpets and mandolins. Tor-Gunnar "El-Torgo Trombonix" Samuelsen opened his home Villavillakulla for long jam sessions day and night and that's where the name ONE Family came into play. The name comes from the idea that everyone is related and linked together in a whimsical way since the dawn of time, where rhythm and tone bind us together. All people speak the same language through music. On a St. Hans evening, they held their first concert in Karlsøy Church for an audience on a church weekend. Since then they have opened every Karlsøy festival, they have played the drums for the travelers who came by ferry and brought the instruments to Sandvika and played alongside Dub and acoustic.
Today they are adults and the band has become what characterizes the Karlsøy Festival and makes it special: Completely in line with our participant philosophy. Much is done together there and then, by bringing together unknown and known resources and ideas in a community. It becomes magic. They usually get together a bunch of days before the festival and bring along festival musicians to make music that is brand new straight from the rehearsal room to the stage