Oulun kulttuurisäätiö, Oulu2026

TAR - SUB-ARCTIC SOUNDFESTIVAL ANNOUNCES ITS PROGRAMME

18.6.2026 07:30:00 EEST | Oulun kulttuurisäätiö, Oulu2026 | Press release

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The new subarctic sound festival TAR has made its first artist announcement. TAR Festival is part of the Oulu2026 Lumo Art & Tech festival in November.

Poster for TAR Festival, part of Lumo Art & Tech and Oulu2026 programs. Features artistic text design and nature imagery. Event dates: November 11-15, 2026, in Oulu, Finland.
TAR Festival is part of the Lumo Art & Tech festival and the Oulu2026 program. Photographer: Inkeri Jäntti, graphic designer: Terezie Stindlova TAR Festival

TAR stands for Time, Ahnung, and Rajaton: three words, three languages, and still growing – not towards a genre, a scene, or a style, but towards the element itself. Sound.

Sound as a technology, as a physical phenomenon – acoustic pressure, that affects the body before it becomes music.

From 11 to 15 November, Tarkastamo, Oulu's Market Hall, City Library, Cathedral, Intiö Water Tower and Aalto Siilo are united by the first edition of TAR, returning sound back to its materiality, offering a different way of listening to and tuning with the world.

The festival opens with a commission for 24 subwoofers by low-frequency artist Stefanie Egedy. Extremely low bass and infra-sound materialized in the newly built event venue Tarkastamo, the main arena of TAR.

Beyond the music, the programme features a discourse series at the City Library accompanied by a small selection of curated films including the premiere of a documentary by Cedrik Fermont (Syrphe), drawing on decades of traveling and interviews with figures from the global sonic underground.

The rest of the now announced line-up include Mark Fell, Rian Treanor, Sofia Jernberg, Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, Nerve, Michaela Turcerová, Lucio Capece, Perera Elsewhere, Mary C, María Gabriela Rubio Hernández, and Oulu-based Transistori.

The TAR festival is finding its home in Oulu, a city that never served as a centre but always as a gate – whether to the north and Arctic or to the vulnerable ecosystem of the boreal forest – the festival speaks from a peripheral position: between the known and the open, between the industrial and the primal.

The event is curated by the artistic director duo AGF and Vladislav Delay, aka Antye Greie-Ripatti and Sasu Ripatti.

TAR Festival is part of the Lumo Art & Tech festival and the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture program.

The full schedule and program will be published in August.

More information about the program and the event at tar-festival.info

Buy tickets at www.lippu.fi/en/artist/tar-festivaali

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Contacts

Inquiries: time@tar-festivaali.info

Producer: Pekka Heinonen / +358 40 583 8864

Images

Poster for TAR Festival, part of Lumo Art & Tech and Oulu2026 programs. Features artistic text design and nature imagery. Event dates: November 11-15, 2026, in Oulu, Finland.
TAR Festival is part of the Lumo Art & Tech festival and the Oulu2026 program.
Photographer: Inkeri Jäntti, graphic designer: Terezie Stindlova TAR Festival
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Oulu is European Capital of Culture in 2026

The European Capital of Culture year reaches 39 partner municipalities in Northern Finland. The goal is permanent cultural climate change.  

Cultural climate change means a permanently richer cultural life and a change in the region. Cultural climate change combines culture, art and technology in a surprising way, creates encounters and generates interaction.  

The Oulu Culture Foundation sr. is responsible for the Oulu2026 operations. Oulu2026 main supporting partners are Pohjolan OP and Kaleva Media.   

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