Roskilde Festival

Roskilde Festival
Roskilde Festival is the biggest culture and music festival in North Europe and has since its start in 1971 been a non for profit organisation. The Roskilde Festival organisation is mainly run by volunteers and has only approx. 25 permanent staff members. The uncut profit from the festival is donated to humanitarian and cultural purposes.

Roskilde and the Gallery
The collaboration with Roskilde Festival challenges traditional art dissemination as we know it. At Roskilde a whole new interaction takes place. The interaction was and is an overall effort to strengthen the bridge between the Gallery and its audience – to meet them where they feel at home.

While the festival audience becomes more informed about the diversity in art, availability and resources – we become more informed as to how our physical position plays part in forming its identity.

Tankeværk and Liquid Lounge
In 2012 the Gallery’s young Art Pilots were behind the two projects at the festivals: Tankeværk (literally “Thinking Work”) and Liquid Lounge. Tankeværk consisted of a 104m long blackboard that allowed festivalgoers to express their opinions about art. Participants were asked to complete one of two sentences: “The art is to …” and “There is no art to …”. This prompted a range of deep and quirky thoughts – as well as fun, spontaneous responses.

Liquid Lounge was a chill-out area with furniture placed under a roof made out of transparent acrylic sheets. Psychedelic liquids were trapped between these sheets, creating a constantly changing display. As the weather changed, new patterns and connections were formed in the chemical ocean above the users’ heads. Liquid Lounge was a place where festivalgoers could put up their feet and take a break in a setting designed for contemplation and visual stimulation.

Museo aero solar and Wrap Lab
In 2010, we travelled to Roskilde Festival with the projects Museo aero solar and Wrap Lab. Museo aero solar is a flying museum in the shape of a gigantic solar heated balloon created exclusively from recycled plastic bags. In three simple manoeuvres, the collected plastic bags are cut and glued into a giant decorated balloon which hovers above ground with helped only from solar heating.

The project was created by an initiative by the Argentinean artist Tomas Saraceno who had previously exhibited in our Sculpture Street with the giant installation Biospheres (2009 - 2010). The intersection between arts, science and architecture presents Saraceno’s visions for a solution on the social and environmental issues faced by humanity by alternative sustainable living facilities in the airspace above us.

On more earthy grounds, our art pilots also worked with plastic. In the independent project Wrap Lab was the Art City camping area transformed into a city of transparent plastic wrap walls, canvasses and furniture with space for free expression for the festival guests and participating artists.

PingOut with the Gallery
In 2010, we realised various projects in relation with the audience under the headline PingOut with the Gallery. The artists Bank&Rau, J&K and Christina Hamre were hired by us to decorate heavy table tennis tables which were worked in a way which allowed a play between performance and sculpture.

The artist Nikolaj Recke created 1000 art works for the audience at Roskilde Festival. The sweatbands with the text ”I Miss Sol Lewitt” was worn by the festival visitors, who wiped sweat and tears in the cryptic text about the missed and now deceased American Sol Lewitt (1928-2007).