LIAF 2019 took its inspiration from the multitude of inhabitants, materials, struggles, and processes that reside and take place within the wide intertidal zone surrounding the Lofoten Islands. Like the tide, the festival ebbed and flowed through the year in four small communities across the entire archipelago.

In October 2018, the biennial initiated collaboration with four artists/artist groups – Signe Lidén, Trygve Luktvasslimo, Futurefarmers, and João Pedro Vale & Nuno Alexandre Ferreira – who had extended guest residencies in Ramberg, Valberg, Digermulen and Skrova.

The curators developed LIAF 2019 in dialogue with the four guest artists/artist groups. The biennial consisted of an exhibition and a programme for the public lasting from 30 August to 29 September 2019. The former Lofotposten building was the main exhibition venue. Each weekend had its own programme devoted to a curatorial direction, The Kelp Congress being the richest in content. Here, through performances, workshops, lectures and debates, participants looked more closely at less explored artistic and cultural dimensions related to kelp and other macro-algae.

Artworks and texts relating to The Kelp Congress were published in the book The Kelp Congress (2020).

The curatorial group consisted of Hilde Methi, Neal Cahoon, Karolin Tampere and Torill Østby Haaland.

LIAF 2019 won the Norwegian Critics’ Association Award.

Link to the website for LIAF 2019