“We Started Expanding the ‘Us,’ Rather Than Including Someone Else”—Peter Meanwell and Tine Rude Interviewed by Brandon Farnsworth

The festival Borealis—a festival for experimental music in Bergen, Norway, whose artistic director Peter Meanwell and former managing director Tine Rude are being interviewed by Brandon Farnsworth, works with an expanded definition of experimentation in both programming and how it is organised. It focusses on including artists pushing boundaries in a variety of contexts, trying to move beyond being a festival for any one genre. The festival also extends its concept of experimentation to include how it is organised, linking the act of hearing other’s perspectives that experimental music demands of its listeners with fostering a sense of community among marginalised people and groups. This approach has led the festival to implement a number of accessibility and inclusion measures, creating a unique mix of forms of musical experimentation and community-building that materialise many other contributors’ calls for modelling change in both form and content.