Open Call! Open Out: Chosen Families
What?
Open Out Festival Sept. 13th-20th 2025 - queer art festival in Tromsø, Norway
Submissions to: openoutfestival@gmail.com
𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡
// 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋 //
Open Out Festival is a queer art festival taking place in Tromsø, Norway since 2017. We are dedicated to hosting and showing queer artists for a week-long festival, aiming to create a sense of community: Coming together with a shared responsibility of taking care of the queer, the alive, each other and the works and inputs we bring. The festival program consists of a main exhibition, performances, workshops, social activities, parties and more. We like to think of Open Out Festival as a temporary collective and a shared experience created by everyone who participates.
We put forward queer artists and aim to create a space for the queer, the unlimited, the funny, the sad, the birds and the eggs, the brave, the shy, the safer.
We invite you to come and bring your work - we accept both already existing works and new ideas! Whether that fits into a gallery exhibition, is a talk, a performance, a workshop, a funeral for heteronormativity, a dance or something we can’t even think of.
𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗘𝗡 𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗦
The concept of family has been defined by heteronormativity so much so that it appears more than ever necessary to re-appropriate it, to allow ourselves to make families beyond (but not excluding) blood ties, encompassing all the forms of love that tie us together to other beings, that make us feel safer, better, more at home in this world.
Some family ties are tied with the time spent together. Others instinctively feel like familiars. For the Sámi and other minorities, family can be the people who understand what that means. They can, at the same time, be the people who experienced traumas, inherited them, and passed it on. It can be the one safe space where difficult things can be talked about, in a society where shame continuously is being used as a way to silence our voices and stories.
We all deserve a village. We all need one.
How do we choose family, and get chosen back? How do people find the villages we need, if the village we are born into can’t make enough room, or if we need multiple villages to have enough space for all of us? What have we been taught to expect from family, and what do we actually need?
To choose to stay, or to choose to walk away. To choose to believe that others will be there. Growing up surrounded by people who didn't know how to find the words to describe, to explain or understand. Meeting and hearing about the people who tried, who found words, changed words, made new ones, in an attempt to speak the unspeakable. We talk, and keep trying to find words that describe, and we need someone who listens. Who hears us and responds to what we are saying. So we gather around the table, the bonfire, the places created for us to get together. We gather together in bed at night, or on a cold bench somewhere no one can see us. We call and we miss and we reach for each other. We need and we need to be needed.
Where and how do you make your home with those you choose to stay in relation with? Lovers, friends, animals, allies, plants, activists, children, elders, art creations, acquaintances, artists, neighbors, many more? Who are the beings that populate your life, and in which living situations are you with them?
Where?
Send your submission to: openoutfestival@gmail.com
𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡
Tickets?
// 𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎 //
𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏?
Application deadline: March 1st, 2025
Festival dates: September 13 - 20, 2025
𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆?
Tromsø, Norway. This year we will be hosted again by the wonderful crew of Tromsø Kunstforening (Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art). This is a space where we feel welcome and at home.
𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒐 𝒘𝒆 𝒐𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓?
To show/host you and your work. Together with you we will find out the best way of doing this.
Artist fee (around 6000 NOK depending on the funding we receive), travel and accommodation covered by the festival (within a certain budget limit). We also offer you a full week of events and happenings and we encourage all our artists to see, partake and experience each other's works. An artist from Open Out 2024 described their experience as “being at a residency where artists can meet each other, present their art and enjoy other people’s art.”
𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓?
Queer artists’ material/immaterial artworks for an exhibition, performances, workshops, talks/readings, DJing, to host independent events, workshops or/and parties… And more! We welcome both already completed works and new works created for Open Out (but we can’t offer production budget).
𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒚?
The festival is for, with and by multidisciplinary queer artists and practitioners.
You can apply as a single person or as a collective. In previous years we have invited a mix of experienced artists and emerging creators; we encourage everyone that feels a connection to the subject to apply regardless of background.
We do not select the same artists two years in a row, so if you have been at Open Out 2024, you have to wait until 2026 to apply again. If you have been at Open Out prior to 2024, you’re welcome to send your application!
𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒆?
The festival is artist-run by us: Marion, Amalie, Tuva and Elisabeth. We are an international, Tromsø-based, queer little group that makes Open Out for art, for fun, for queers, and to meet you, talk about art, start conversations that we cannot yet imagine but that we believe are important to have. We also have a group of wonderful volunteers, festival staff, collaborators and friends who help make the Open Out dreams come true!
𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒚?
Write to us following these guidelines:
For an existing work: write a short motivation (max 1 page) for why you want your work to be at Open Out, and how it fits in this year’s theme. Send documentation of the work, including measurements, materials and description of the technical aspects of the work (ex. Installation, equipment needed). Add sound/video documentation if relevant (performance, videoworks, soundworks) and attach your CV/portfolio and link to your website/instagram if relevant.
For a new work: write a short description (max 1 page) of your idea/project and motivation to join the festival, and how you and/or your project relate to the festival and the title Chosen Families. Attach your CV/portfolio and link to your website/instagram. But please don’t feel limited to these formats.
Connect all of your application-documents into one PDF, and write the links for webpage/vimeo etc. in the body of the email.
Send your application by e-mail to: openoutfestival@gmail.com
𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵
𝙎𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣
A selection committee including the team and an external committee member will be responsible for the selection of projects for the festival. We select between 10-20 artists/artist groups depending on the nature of the projects and the funding we get.
𝘿𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙪𝙨 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨!
We are looking very much forward to hearing from you,
Lots of love from Marion, Amalie, Tuva and Elisabeth