Reykjavik Arts Festival 2020
6 June 2020 - 30 June 2021
"Worlds" at Reykjavík Arts Festival 2020
The theme for Reykjavík Arts Festival in 2020, is “WORLDS“ (in Icelandic: HEIMAR), a sister theme to the 2018 edition‘s HOME (Icelandic: HEIMA). The theme is multi-layered in its simplicity and is open to interpretation.
The festival celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020. Therefore, it is only appropriate that worlds of different times will to some extent echo through its programming. The 2020 edition of the festival will thus be in a dynamic dialogue with its own history, at the same time as it takes a brave leap towards an unpredictable future.
From the beginning, Reykjavik Arts Festival has been a cultural gateway between Iceland and the rest of the world. In an era of growing nationalism it is now more important than ever to keep this gateway wide open while at the same time facing the demanding moral questions about the negative effects of travel and consumption on our environment.
We are surrounded by a myriad of worlds and endless possibilities. Arts, technology and science, in constant flux, open up a complex reality for us, so overwhelming that we are forced to reduce it to smaller worlds: My world. But no world is disconnected from others. They coexist in a constant responsive state to other worlds – to other perspectives and principles.
In light of Covid-19
Reykjavík Arts Festival was to take place from the June 6-21 2020 and agreements had been made with a large number of domestic and foreign artists on a glorious programme. The Covid-19 epidemic put an end to those plans - like most other things in society.
In these unprecedented times, the festival did not want to betray the artists with whom it had made agreements, nor Icelandic society of the magnificent festival that had been put so much effort into organizing.
An agreement was reached with the festival's artists, partner institutions and event venues to publish the programme in its entirety on the Festival's website on April 3, as originally planned. It stated all programmed events at the festival this year, the artists behind them and their location. However, it was decided to publish the programme without dates.
On the festival's website, it was possible to sign up for a mailing list for each event so nobody should have to miss announcements on new dates.
ArtGifts were created as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reykjavík Arts Festival 2020 Team
Artistic Director: Vigdís Jakobsdóttir
Executive Director: Fjóla Dögg Sverrisdóttir
PR: Berglind Pétursdóttir
Project Managers: Anna Rut Bjarnadóttir, Friðrik Agni Árnason, Ása Dýradóttir, Kara Hergils, Gunnar Karel Másson
Editor: Salka Guðmundsdóttir
Festival Design: Ulysses
Programme 2020
The 2020 Festival programme can be seen in the Festival Archive here.
18 events on the main programme were realised between 1 June 2020 and 30 June 2021.
12 events on the main programme were postponed until 2022.
3 events on the main programme were cancelled.
2 events on the main programme took on a different form.
About 34 thousand people attended the events. 5000 people attended events in the Festival Hub in Iðnó.
Festival Hub 2020
Originally, the Festival Hub was supposed to be in Iðnó for three weeks during the festival. At the request of the City of Reykjavík, the Festival took over Iðnó over the summer. In June and July, the house was bustling with life, or until the second wave of the epidemic hit in early August and we were forced to close the house.
We consider the Festival Hub to be an important forum where space is provided to deepen the conversation and lower the threshold into the festival. All events at the Hub are free. The Hub is relaxed and informal. It is a gateway for fringe groups, for the grassroots, and accommodates infinite diversity. In the Hub, we hand over programming power to groups who take over the space and do their thing without artistic intervention from above.
The result of this kind of work is that the Hub is filled with groups that would probably never have been seen at the Festival otherwise. For example, when the young art collective Post-dreifing took over Iðnó for a whole two weeks in July, most of the regulars there were in their twenties and thirties. The following week, the circus group Hringleikur came and then everything was filled with families. The weekend we dedicated to world music in the Club was well attended by middle-aged people and the South American community in Reykjavík.
Image gallery
