Insomnia Insights

Insomnia Festival has evolved to become more than a music festival. The festival week is full of interesting events for the music lover, the art enthusiast, and the socially engaged person.

Workshops
Insomnia has always sought to be a creative force of the vibrant music and art community in the north. One of our means to do this is to program a series of workshops each festival, hosted by some of the interesting artists visiting the festival.

OBS: All workshops are free, but registration is needed due to limited spaces.

Seminars
After previous years success Insomnia will continue to present an exciting and diverse discourse program during the festival week.

To facilitate an open and inclusive conversation where all voices are heard, we have been moving away from the hierarchical format of classic panel debate with the format – democratic talk-show Talkaoke.

Exhibitions
Insomnia is proud to present several exhibitions and art installations during the festival week, with new collaborations to be announced!

Insomnia Insights is free of charge and open for all audiences.

We want to make it very clear: we do not on any level condone the war on Ukraine, and we will not support any part of the current Russian regime. We want to support Ukraine in any way we can, and acknowledge that being in a country in the midst of a terrible war, their people are in crisis and in desperate need of aid.

Insomnia Festival strives to be a diverse, inclusive, accepting and welcoming space for everyone. Part of this work includes being an arena for art, performances, workshops and discussions, where the overall goal is to generate “insight” into different topics. These events are presented in our side program, Insomnia Insights. In our programming, we strive towards creating common ground between people, whether that is through sharing musical experiences, dancing or dialogue.

Historically, Insomnia Festival, and big parts of the northern regions of Norway, have had a close artistic and cultural collaboration with northern Russia. As a part of our 2022 Insights program, we presented the Talkaoke “ART AS RESILIENCE: Cultural collaboration in times of war and conflict”, where we had invited different independent artists and cultural workers from Russia, Norway and Ukraine to be a part of the conversation. We wanted to facilitate a respectful dialogue that explores art as a form of resilience, and open up the conversation about cultural collaboration in times of war and conflict. We believe that it is important to keep the lines of communication open between people who stand against the war and have been living on different sides of the national borders. We want to support independent artists and cultural workers to have the possibility of being a counter voice towards current repressive narratives.

In times of war and conflict we stand with and support the minorities, refugees and others that are facing the worst moments of their lives.