Art of Event - Event of Art

Event creation is a latest buzzword in the arts word. Europe is a continent of festivals, and Finland, we might say, is the promised land of events. Every village hosts the minimum of five festivals per year, not to mention towns and cities. Doing things together, voluntary work and dedication to joint annual efforts have long traditions in our country, and they have laid the foundations for the blooming festival scene.

Due to the strong history of village fêtes, festivals are often associated with the carnival tradition. A festival is an extended Day of the False King, where you can feast and frolic. The locals are usually fond of “our own festival”, and a little proud, too. Also the cities and regions that are working on their survival strategies in the post-industrial world have a soft spot for festivals. An abundant, joyous and colourful selection of events shows the world an image of a dynamic city or region, which will hopefully attract the right kind of residents and investments to the area.

On the other hand, art festivals around the world are significant venues for education, because they give local people - whether they be in London or Rovaniemi - an affordable opportunity to learn about other countries and their culture, ideas, and trends. Also, arts professionals who have been drawn to the international scene for one reason or another are usually big fans of festivals, thanks to their atmosphere and rich cultural supply.

So we’re in a situation where the growing number of festivals is heating up competition. Event management is becoming more and more professional, drifting further away from cheerful voluntary work. In fact, I wonder if arts festivals have much do with carnivals any more. Partying is of course still in the picture, but is the crux of an arts festival someplace totally different?

Of course there are people, for whom a festival is just a burden that messes up their everyday life. For them, the whole phenomenon is a swear word. Art festivals are often accused of making safe content choices: choosing global niceties that will surely sell well – acts that have no local = real relevance in any place. However, I have been going to theatre festivals for ten years now, and I still have not seen that notorious commercial festival show with trivial content. Instead, I have often witnessed a festival serving as a kind of experimental laboratory for productions that would not come into being or find the right audience, if done locally. In my experience, art festivals are the place where experimental productions and works in progress can be shown to an audience well-versed in theatre, without any box office pressures. In our consumer society, if this is not a value appreciated by the arts field, I wonder what is?

For me personally, the most meaningful factor in organizing a festival is the form of the event as an entity. Over the past years, art philosophy and art discussion have pointed out how the role of a subject has been transferred to the recipient, who has traditionally been seen as the object of artistic activity. In the theatre, this shows in a wide variety of means with which the division between the stage and the auditorium has been transgressed in order to activate the spectator. Theatre makers have given up traditional performance spaces, they’ve run down from the stage to be in the middle of the audience, they’ve done performances for one spectator at a time, and so on.

But because the theatre conventions – entailing the dark, passively receptive auditorium and the precisely lit, active stage – are so solidly programmed into the heads of most theatre goers, this gap is very difficult to bridge.

Instead, in our mental pictures, a festival is a carnival, a fête that activates people. Even when the festival shows the most traditional stuff that the audience will follow quietly in their seats, between the shows, there is usually a variety of opportunities to be part of the festival events, to be an active participant within the festival framework. For example, our festival includes artist discussions, clubs, workshops, a seminar, a festival blog for public commentary... And what we haven’t planned in advance, we may improvise in the spur of the moment or include in the programme next time.

I think an active spectator is the salt of the festival. Having said that, we should not forget how important it is to choose the programme meticulously, because the core duty of festivals is to showcase art that local audience would otherwise miss out on. These are the reasons why I want to organize festivals over and over again.

So it’s no wonder people love festivals. Everyone gets their share – a community tied by mental, geographical or other connection gets its village fête, the spectators get their festival experience and carefully selected programme, the city gets its share of creative stir, artists get a place for developing their artistic work and an attentive audience, the arts field gets an opportunity for networking, festival organizers get inspiring jobs… and it doesn’t hurt anyone to do something that surpasses the day-to-day routines, every once in a while.

And last but not least: let’s not forget joy. A festival is an event with the inherent quality of joy. Can you imagine a festival dedicated to stress? Or, if someone actually organized a stress festival, I’m sure it would be a blast!

Johanna Hammarberg
Baltic Circle festival director