Bar du Nord

23.02 - 27.02
Wed 18:00 - 20:00
Thu 15:00 - 20:00
Fri 15:00 - 20:00
Sat 10:00 - 20:00
Sun 11:00 - 15:00
Turisthotellet
Free (without pre-registration)
Local with Social Distance

Bar du Nord

A vision, a showroom, a social experiment, a time machine?

After the recession in the early 2000s, people started talking again about the fashionable hotel that had made Sør-Varanger familiar with the term “tourist” – a place that was a magnet for people to come, socialise, and revel, with the drink taps in full flow. The Old Tourist Hotel bar opens its doors again under the name Bar Du Nord! Distilled essences from the forest park at Elvenes will be available, and the visitors can observe how moss-grown tables, and the practice of sniffing northern lights powders are now in vogue. But where has the Spektakel gone? Is it here – now? Or is it even possible in these times?

What we know for sure is that everyone is waiting for art, culture, and imaginative questions to appear. Outside, and through the hotel’s dusty rooms, a search goes on for a legendary tapestry, some Russian espionage equipment, and the remains of a Stone Age settlement. And we must wonder why the public expects art to provide the answers?

In the newly opened establishment, an eclectic mix of past, future and scientific meditations will be served. Enter the festival bar to see, listen, touch, smell, and sniff through this unique experience.
Get yourself a drink, a shot, a sniff, or a touch! The bar will be a place for artists and performances in the evenings, and will become a chill-out place during the day, where visitors can relax and read the timeless magazine “Lys Du Nord”

Above all, expect the unexpected!

The project is supported by Fritt Ord as well as Kulturrådet and Nordisk Kulturfond as one of the Det gode liv // The Sweetness of Living productions.

The artist duo SOL&STEN, Marita Isobel Solberg and Trond Ansten, explore our close resources and stories in an alchemical remix of past, present and future. Their artistic work consists of relational installations, film and performance.

Trond Ansten works with sculpture, film and relational works in a symbiosis of biology, craft traditions, hybrid compositions and innovation. Collection of material through harvesting and trapping is central in his work, where Ansten explores aspects of our relationship with nature.

Marita Solberg er en musiker og visuell kunstner som arbeider med performancekunst, keramikk og installasjoner. Solberg utforsker kunstneriske uttrykk gjennom erfaring, intuisjon, lek, kunnskap og filosofi. Med intensjoner om å utfordre og transformere, prøver hun å nå inn til det innerste og skape vibrasjoner.