Live commissions

In 2026, Bergen Kunsthall launches a three-year commissioning programme for live performance. Each year, one artist is invited to develop a new work over the course of a year.

During this time, the artist has access to the Live Studio for a period shaped by the project’s own needs: a space held open for the work to grow into, in contact with Bergen Kunsthall’s curatorial team, the activities of the house, and with the city itself: its social textures and geography, its political, natural, and cultural landscape. The resulting live works will be produced by Bergen Kunsthall and premiered each fall.

This commissioning programme is the latest expression of Bergen Kunsthall’s sustained commitment to live practices, a commitment that holds open the question of how live work within the visual arts might unsettle and transform curatorial forms and institutional frameworks.

This year, Bergen Kunsthall invites Nazanin Noori to develop a new spoken-word opera, A LETTER TO EUROPE, premiering on September 20, 2026.

The year after, Nolan Oswald Dennis will premiere their new commission, following a month-long residency in Bergen.

The third edition will be selected through an open call directed to the Nordic and Baltic region.

This programme is made possible by the generous support of Sparebanken Norge, Fritt Ord, Bergesen Stiftelsen and Nordic Culture Point.

The performance A LETTER TO EUROPE is a commissioned work by Bergen Kunsthall. Presented at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva; the Kyiv Biennial at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin; and Bergen Kunsthall.