The new urban festival brings together international and Finnish artists working across sound art, experimental music, performance and contemporary art.
TAR (Time – Ahnung – Rajaton), a new subarctic sound festival taking place in Oulu for the first time on 11–15 November, has announced its full lineup.
In November, TAR will spread across Oulu, with venues including Oulu City Library Saari, Oulu Cathedral, Intiö Water Tower, Aalto Siilo, Oulu Market Hall and Tarkastamo, a cultural venue located by the Market Square.
The newly announced artists joining the programme are Junko, Muqata’a, Toshiji Mikawa, Khabat Abas, Carmen Villain, beatnyk & nanditi, Alejandro Olarte, sofi, Satatuhatta Noise Soup, ohmudog, Vilho Mällinen, ATI, Moo Kim and Eliška Brtnická. The previously announced programme features Stefanie Egedy, Mark Fell & Rian Treanor, Cerdik Fermont, Sofia Jernberg, Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, Nerve, Michaela Turcerová, Lucio Capece, Perera Elsewhere, Mary C, María Gabriela Rubio Hernández and Transistori.
The festival opens with a commissioned work by Stefanie Egedy, created using subwoofers. The piece fills Tarkastamo’s large hall with extremely low bass and infrasound frequencies, turning sound into a physical as well as an auditory experience. The new additions to the programme also bring pioneers of Japanese noise, microtonality, and experimental electronic music explored through live coding and electroacoustic approaches.
Tarkastamo will also become the festival’s main site for an exceptionally high-quality sound experience. The sound system will be designed and operated by internationally acclaimed grammy winning sound engineer Serge Gräfe, known for Kraftwerk’s sound engineer as well as other high profile artists. He has worked at some of the world’s most renowned concert venues, including the Sydney Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall. For TAR, Gräfe will design and build a state-of-the-art d&b sound system specifically for the festival’s experimental programme. The aim is to create a space where the details and spatial qualities of sound can truly come to life. The result will be an exceptional listening environment for experimental music and sound art.
The programme features both international and Finnish artists, with several of the participating artists performing in Finland or the Nordic countries for the first time. TAR brings to Oulu artists and artistic practices that rarely have the opportunity to be experienced together, at the same time and in the same place.
The event is curated by the artistic director duo AGF and Vladislav Delay, aka Antye Greie-Ripatti and Sasu Ripatti.
TAR is part of the Lumo Art & Tech Festival and the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture programme.
