Faravids Land opens its doors in an old superstore building in Raksila soon to face demolition. The major European Capital of Culture production invites audiences to get lost in search of happiness.
Immersive major production Faravid’s Land takes over in August a condemned Raksila store, when Oulu Theatre’s and Flow Productions’ co-production gets its premiere on Thursday 27 August 2026. The work is one of Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture year’s most significant productions, and it combines theatre, contemporary dance, contemporary circus and site-specific art into a unique experience.
Faravid’s Land takes viewers on a journey through everyday life, time, memory and myths. The performance’s event venue is Raksila’s legendary store area, which revolutionized in its time North-Finnish trade and grew into one of Oulu’s most known meeting places. Before the area’s future change Faravid’s Land opens the building’s doors once more to the public.
At the center of the work is the search for happiness. In the store’s aisles, warehouses and emptied commercial spaces the present moment meets the mythical past. Kullervo, Akka-Queen, Kärppä, Jotuni, Näkki and many other characters lead viewers into a world, where spirit of place, folk belief and Oulu-related memories intertw as part of the store’s history.
Every viewer sees a different story
Faravid’s Land is an immersive performance, in which every viewer builds their own experience by walking freely from space to another. The performance spreads to the store’s two floors, 2,900 square area, into numerous rooms at the same time, and every 14 performer has in the world their own route.
Everything can by no means, nor needs to be seen and experienced, but for everyone forms a story of its own according to made route choices. The starting point of the performance is surrendering to a multi-sensory experience, gentle interactivity and throwing oneself into the unknown.
– Many a viewer has described our immersive works like stepping inside a film. The work operates by dream logic. Its world and characters are strong, but a linear story from it one does not need to search for. The experience arises from the overall nature of the performance experience, tells the work’s second director Pirjo Yli-Maunula.
The work’s playwright Eira Virekoski has written the work’s unique world by combining Northern mythology, folklore and Raksila’s local history. In her script, from the store’s cold rooms can be found the home of the gods, an escalator might lead to unknown depths and a spirit of place lurk right in the corner of an ordinary commercial space. At the same time the work ponders timeless questions about happiness: what it is, from where it is searched for and why it sometimes must be protected and hidden.
Lehmuskallio’s farewell direction
Faravid’s Land’s directors are Oulu Theatre’s artistic director Alma Lehmuskallio and Flow Productions’ artistic director Pirjo Yli-Maunula. The work is also Lehmuskallio’s farewell work at Oulu Theatre at the end of her seven-year artistic directorship period.
The production is a co-production of Oulu Theatre and Flow Productions in cooperation with Oulu2026 and Dutch group still still. Oulu-based Flow Productions is known for its large-scale multi-artistic site-specific, immersive works, which it has made since 2014.
– It has been insane to get to be part of Flow Productions’ long chain of immersive, site-specific works. In Faravid’s Land meet all those things that in stage art I love: the combination of everydayness and fantasy, familiar and strange, different performers’ mind-blowing skills and presence, miracles and surprisingness, small and large. I certainly never another time get to make anything similar, which makes on the threshold of the premiere the feeling also extremely wistful, tells the work’s second director Alma Lehmuskallio.
Oulu is European Capital of Culture in year 2026. Faravid’s Land is part of Oulu2026 culture program and cultural climate change as well as Oulu August Festivals. The work has received Finnish Cultural Foundation’s support and New Classics grant.
Faravid’s Land
Premiere: Thu 27.8.2026 at 19:00
Performances: Sat 12.12.2026 until
Location: Raksila store, Oulu
Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes (includes intermission)
Genre: immersive performance (which combines contemporary dance and circus, theatre, music and visual arts)
Performance language: Finnish (participation does not require understanding of Finnish language)
Age recommendation: 14+
Working group
Pirjo Yli-Maunula, Eira Virekoski and Alma Lehmuskallio – Performance concept
Eira Virekoski – Script
Alma Lehmuskallio and Pirjo Yli-Maunula – Direction
Kalle Nurminen – Scenography design
Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila – Costume design
Jukka Huitila – Light design
Anssi Laiho – Sound design
Melina Matinlompolo – Makeup and hair design
Oulu Theatre, Flow Productions – Producers
Oulu2026 – Oulu Culture Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation, New Classics Fund – Financial supporters
Oulu August Festivals, Oulu2026 – Cooperation partners
still still (NED) – Foreign cooperation partner
Performers and co-designers
Valtteri Tähkänen, actor
Merja Pietilä, actor
Annina Rokka, actor
Anne Syysmaa, actor
Henri Tuominen, actor
Elina Ylisuvanto, actor
Kasperi Kola, actor, circus artist
Marta Alstadsæter, circus artist
Kim-Jomi Fischer, dance artist
Elisabeth Künkele, circus artist
Katariina van Earle, circus artist
Nikke Launonen, performer
Jared van Earle, circus artist
Viivi Forsman, dance artist
