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Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement:

A phenomenological approach to four Norwegian
festivals

Anne Wally Ryan & Gjermund Wollan

To cite this article: Anne Wally Ryan & Gjermund Wollan (2013) Festivals, landscapes,
and aesthetic engagement: A phenomenological approach to four Norwegian festivals,
Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography, 67:2, 99-112, DOI:
10.1080/00291951.2013.784352

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2013.784352

Published online: 24 Apr 2013.

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 Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift
Norwegian Journal of Geography 2013
Vol. 67, No. 2, 99
112, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2013.784352

Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement: A phenomenological

approach to four Norwegian festivals

ANNE WALLY RYAN & GJERMUND WOLLAN

Ryan, A.W. & Wollan, G. 2013. Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement: A phenomenological approach to four Norwegian
festivals. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift
Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 67, 99
112. ISSN 0029-1951.
The article examines the relationship between festivals, landscapes, and aesthetics. Since the 1960s there has been considerable
growth in the numbers and types of festivals in the Western world, and in the creative use of landscape and environment as contexts
and frames for many of these festivals. The article addresses two central questions: What are the characteristics of the phenomenon
of festivals? In what ways do festivals in a Norwegian context relate to the landscape that both surrounds them and is part of their
constitution? Using a theatrical metaphor, festivals and landscape can be perceived as instant cultural and aesthetic encounters in a
performance space. The authors find that festivals as cultural events are characterized by social, aesthetic, and symbolic value, as
well as cohesion, joy, openness, expressive, play, and diversity, and that experience is not exclusively individual but rather rooted in
social and material interaction with other people and the environment. The approach is based on body-oriented, phenomenological,
multisensous (synaesthetic) perspectives on festivals and landscapes. The article provides examples from four festivals in Norway.
Keywords: aesthetics, festivals, landscape, performance, phenomenology
Anne Wally Ryan, University College of North-Trøndelag (HiNT), NO-7729 Steinkjer, Norway, and Department of Geography,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology University (NTNU), NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: anne.w.ryan@hint.no;
Gjermund Wollan, University College of North-Trøndelag (HiNT), NO-7729 Steinkjer, Norway, and Department of Geography,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology University (NTNU), NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: gjermund.wollan@hint.no

distance of ten minutes I reached a gondola which took me up to

Introduction
In recent years, festivals have become one of the most
pronounced cultural phenomena of the cultural scene (Getz
1991, 11
25; Gursoy et al. 2004; Picard & Robinson 2006;
Gibson et al. 2010) and a vital part of a new socio-cultural
and geographical reality. In addition to the dimension of
entertainment, festivals are an increasingly popular tool for
initiating economic renewal, enhancing community creativ-
ity, promoting community participation, and place-making.
However, festivals also function as sites on which hegemonic
practices are subverted, and where notions of identity,
community, and belonging are playfully questioned or
challenged (Duffy 2005). At the same time, festivals can
contribute to and enrich our everyday life. They are
celebratory moments that can give participants aesthetic
experiences that for a short period in time may reveal our
existential ground. In this article we examine festivals in a
dual context: as part of ongoing expressive individualism,
and from a perspective of aesthetic engagement. Further, we
focus on the ways in which both of the dimensions are
expressed through landscape. We argue that landscape is
more than the passive physical, tangible, and visual
surroundings of festivals.
Some extracts from our fieldwork notebooks based on
participatory observation at two Norwegian festivals pro-
vide a point of departure:
I could keep on walking along the lakeside and looking at all the
extreme sport activities, listening to the Caribbean music from an
exotic float, talking to people, or maybe I should stop at one of
the temporary cafés? At that moment I was stopped by some local
youths with a poster, and two words then changed my next three
hours. Try it! Tandem paraglide from Hanguren, a mountain
close to the main festival arena and centre of Voss. In walking
the starting point. After a while I floated 660 metres above sea
level, like a bird, and what I will describe as a dream position for a
geographer. My role was no longer a spectator, nor a competitor,
but an active participant with unforgettable experiences. (Field-
work notebook, Extremesportveko, Voss, 24 June 2008)
The audience went in procession accompanied by brass music on
their way to the cemetery. Arrived at the place, people sat down
on the grass, among the trees, in surroundings which looked like a
landscape garden. Some of them came there to listen to a jazz
concert followed by recitations of different poems. Other people
came to experience something totally new. And a few came
because of this happening in a place where some of their family
members were buried. The stage was set in the middle of the
cemetery, close to the chapel and the monuments. The acoustic
performance created a massive silence. Some closed their eyes,
other looked up to the sky or to the ground, and yet others were
holding each other tight. For many, including the participant
researcher, this was an extraordinary happening. A work of art
was created that morning, in this landscape, in the outskirts of the
coastal town Arendal. (Fieldwork notebook, Canal Street,
Arendal, 28 July 2008)
Experience concerns different senses and feelings, and the
body is prominent in festival participants’ engagement with
their surroundings. In our experience, landscape is more than
a backdrop and a frame for festivals. Simultaneously, the
complexity and dualistic character of landscape constitutes a
challenge. Festivals are clearly diverse, but although increas-
ing in numbers, they are by no means a recent phenomenon.
Current research literature on festivals is twofold: on the
one hand, there is literature related to instrumental issues
such as economic benefits and general event management
(Getz 2005; Allen et al. 2008; Sassatelli 2008; Gibson et al.
2010), and on the other hand we find there is an increasing
focus on festivals as phenomenological, liminal, and

# 2013 Norwegian Geographical Society

100 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan
temporary activities. In this article, we treat festivals as a
cultural phenomenon that feeds into the practices and
networks of people’s everyday lives rather than as exotic
and isolated events. First, we ask: What are the character-
istics of the phenomenon of festivals? Our second research
question is: In what ways do festivals in a Norwegian
context relate to the landscape that both surrounds them
and is part of their constitution?
In recent years there has been increasing interest in the
relation between space, place, and festivals (O’Dell & Billing
2005; Bærenholdt & Sundbo 2007; Selberg & Gilje 2007;
Sassatelli 2008) and in bridging the gap between the material
and immaterial in the relation between people and landscape
(Olwig 1996; Ingold 2000; Bærenholdt et al. 2004; Wylie 2007;
Haldrup & Larsen 2010). There appears to be ongoing
acceptance of a holistic approach that emphasizes other
dimensions of experience than just the visual and representa-
tional. The body and its mental presence, and the performa-
tive dimension of experience, have gained increasing attention
(Thrift & Dewsbury 2000; Pearson 2006), for example in
cultural geography literature from the UK (Edensor 1998;
2010; della Dora 2007; Wylie 2007; Crouch 2010). According
to Crouch (2010), cultural practices in landscape, such as
tourism and festivals, are positioned well within notions of
embodiment, liveliness, rhythm, inhabitation, and dwelling.
This bears some similarity to the role of practice and
belonging in the notion of landscape that inspires the volume
on Nordic landscapes edited by Jones & Olwig (2008).
This article is intended to contribute to current research
on festivals and events by focusing on their holistic,
aesthetic, and contextual dimensions. It is inspired by a
new wave in landscape studies within human geography that
emphasizes phenomenological and non-representational
understandings of embodiment, materiality, and perfor-
mance. The article takes as its point of departure four
festivals and the places associated with them in Norway:
Ekstremsportveko in Voss, Eikerapen Roots Festival in
Åseral, Canal Street jazz and blues festival in Arendal,
and Steinkjerfestivalen in Steinkjer (Fig. 1). The hundreds of
festivals that take place in Norway each year are character-
ized by large diversity (Festivalmagasinet 2012). However,
rather than uncovering differences, in this study we aim to
grasp the living atmosphere and reflect upon festivals as
performance landscapes. Although other festivals could be
relevant to our study, and despite pragmatic considerations
such as available time and distance from our workplace, we
selected the above-mentioned four festivals because they
made creative use of landscape in their staging.
The study areas
Ekstremsportveko claims to be the largest sport and music
festivals of its kind in the world (Ekstremsportveko 2008),
and is hosted every year in Voss, Western Norway, which in
2012 had 13,985 inhabitants (SSB 2012). The festival
programme for Ekstremsportveko 2008 (unpublished) char-
acterizes the landscape surrounding Voss as a ‘breathtaking
setting’. The hilly environment is the venue for competitions
in various sports activities, such as kayaking, mountain
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
biking, bungee jumping, and skydiving. Although sports
activities are the main focus, the afternoon music programmes
and media performances have become important parts of the
total festival experience. The idea of implementing an extreme
sports festival in Voss took shape in the winter of 1998. Both
Voss Rafting Centre and Voss paragliding club (Voss Hang-
og Paragliderklubben) planned to host Norwegian cups in
1998, and therefore decided to cooperate and use the
opportunity to hold an annual festival under the of Ekstrem-
sportveko; for one week, national and international athletes
compete and challenge themselves against the elements. In
recent years the management of the event has become more
professional, and Ekstremsportveko has become a serious
concept within the tourism industry. Since 1998, Ekstrem-
sportveko’s impact has extended beyond Norway and extreme
sports. The building of the festival’s profile and the marketing
of Voss have become important aspects of the event
(Ekstremsportveko 2008; A. Gjøstein and A. Nornes,
personal communication 2008).
The host place of Eikerapen Roots Festival is Åseral, an
inland municipality in the southernmost part of Norway,
which had 906 inhabitants in 2012 (SSB 2012). In addition
to small-scale agriculture, the valley in which Åseral is
located has mountainous areas that are very attractive for
recreation, and house hundreds of cabins and three small-
scale alpine resorts. In the hamlet of Eikerapen, however,
there were only seven inhabitants and only one narrow road
up the mountainside (Fieldwork notebook, Eikerapen
Rootsfestival, 30 July 2008). Despite this, every year since
2004 a faithful organizing committee and hundreds of
volunteers have created a profiled festival that has received
national and international attention. This raises the question
of such a secluded small location was chosen as a venue for a
festival. At the time when we conducted our research, the
initiator of the festival lived elsewhere, but some of his
relatives lived at Eikerapen more and less permanently. The
initiator’s memorable childhood experiences and love of
the place, together with the support of his friends, led to the
choice of location. Their slogan has been ‘Make the
impossible possible!’ Another characteristic of the music
festival held at Eikerapen is how the influence of contacts in
the USA is maintained through symbols, music, and a drive-
in cinema; many Norwegians had emigrated from the region
to the USA in the first half of the 20th century (Eikerapen
Roots Festival 2008; T.Å. Eikerapen, personal communica-
tion 2008; R. Stokke, personal communication 2008).
The Canal Street jazz and blues festival was established in
1997 in the municipality of Arendal, which in 2012 had
42,842 inhabitants (SSB 2012). The town of Arendal is
located on the south coast of Norway, and has a history of
maritime trade, industry, and boatbuilding activities. Rock
festivals were held in Arendal in the 1970s and 1980s, but
Canal Street developed from the jazz milieu in the town in
the 1990s.1 One of the main characteristics of the Canal
Street jazz and blues festival is that the concerts are held in
different natural and cultural locations in the town and
municipality, including the skerries, industrial and harbour
areas, churches, a graveyard, and a cemetery. According to
the festival leaders, the main motive and policy for making
the connection between music and local geography is to
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
Fig. 1. Location of the four study festivals in Norway
enhance people’s sense of place, both for the local partici-
pants and the visitors (Fieldwork notebook, Canal Street, 28
July 2008). There is a conscious geographical framing to
enhance the festival experience and promote place identity
among the participants. In 2008, c.30,000 people visited the
festival during the course of one week; 70 national and
international bands and artists played at c.60 concerts, held
on 20 stages (Canal Street 2008; Wollan 2009).
The history of the music festival Steinkjerfestivalen started
when, after having spent several years spent in Oslo, the
initiator returned home filled with inspiration from his career
in the music industry. He had a genuine desire to create
something culturally based, to bring something back to his
hometown, and to serve as a catalyst for young people
wanting to start a rock band. He discussed his idea with a
friend, and in 2005 their dream was fulfilled. For three days
Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement 101
each year the centre of the small city of Steinkjer, which in
2012 had 21,314 inhabitants (SSB 2012), is transformed into
a vital and pulsating oasis. Different spaces such as a church,
the riverside (of Steinkjerelva), and cafes are used as arenas
for music and arts. An islet in the river has been used for an
art installation, and suggestions have been made to use this
area for intimate concerts (Steinkjerfestivalen 2008; S. Bjørge,
personal communication 2008).
Philosophical and methodological
approach
the role of the researcher
Inspired by Tuan (1977), Buttimer & Seamon (1980), and
others, during the last two decades there has been a general
refocusing upon practice and performance in geography
102 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan
(Thrift & Dewsbury 2000; Latham & Conradson 2003;
Lorimer 2005; Wylie 2007; 2011). On this basis, cultural
geographers and others have increasingly used phenomen-
ological modes to address issues of landscape, nature,
embodiment, and performance (Wylie 2007). Our focus on
the performative relationship between festival staging,
participants, and landscape required that we gave priority
to first-hand observations and participation in festivals.
Fieldwork was undertaken during the summer of 2008.
Inspired by methods of phenomenology (Giorgi 1985),
ethnography (Crang & Cook 2007), and performing ethno-
graphy (Morton 2005), we approached the festivals explora-
tively. One of us participated in three of the four festivals,
while the other participated in two (the Steinkjer festival was
attended by both of us). Although we had a common
research design,2 our fieldwork was individual because we
considered our subjective experiences essential in a phenom-
enological perspective. With the exception of quotes from
our fieldwork notes, the plural forms of our and we are used
throughout the text because we conducted the research in
collaboration. We made use of observant participation,
conversation, semi-structured interviews, and document
analysis, supplemented with visual methods such as photo-
graphy and sketches. Comprehensive fieldwork notes were
important because the phenomenon of festival and land-
scape requires depth, complexity, and multidimensionality in
terms of data. On the basis of our ontological concern with
embodiment and the sensory, we maintain that environ-
mental perception cannot be resolved with an epistemology
based only on what the eye can see (Mason 2002; Carlson
2009). As an example, a photo should not be interpreted in a
two-dimensional way as ‘text’, but as part of a multi-
dimensional, multisensory reality, based on the engagement
and presence of the researcher.
The analysis was based on our own narratives derived
from participation in the festivals (written in field notebooks
either during or a few minutes after the experience) and from
conservations or interviews with participants and represen-
tatives of authorities (municipality representatives and heads
of festival).
‘The Age of Authenticity’ and the growth
of the festive phenomenon
In his work title A Secular Age the philosopher Charles
Taylor (2007, 482) denominates our contemporary era as
‘the Age of Authenticity’, by which he means:
the understanding of life which emerges with the Romantic
expressivism of the late-eighteenth century, that each one of us
has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is
important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering
to conformity with the model imposed on us from outside, by
society, or the previous generation, or religious or political
authority. (Taylor 2007, 475)
In the Romantic period the cultural and artistic elite made a
quest for an authentic way of living, but since the 1960s (at
least symbolically) and in our contemporary consumer
society, this expressive individualism has become a mass
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
phenomenon. The kinds of music listened to, the styles of
dress adopted, and different leisure activities give expression
to the personality and affinities of the chooser within a space
of fashion and consumerism.
First, Taylor (2007) says that we cannot read contempor-
ary culture simply through the aspirations of the avant-garde
or the situation in the 1960s because the goals of integral
self-expression, embodiment, sensual release, equal relations,
and social bonding do not easily appear together. Therefore,
in the aftermath of the 1960s we often find a synthesis
between ‘the Bohemian and the bourgeois’, which cannot
easily be compared with the Dionysian spontaneity of the
1960s (Taylor 2007, 477).
Second, modern consumer society is inseparable from the
construction of spaces of display, for example music
festivals. A cheering crowd at a rock festival is similarly
fused. There is a heightened sense of excitement at such
moments of fusion, reminiscent of carnival, or of some of
the great collective rituals of earlier days. These moments
seem to respond to some social and existential need of
CITA ESTO APARTE TAMBIÉN
today’s ‘lonely crowd’ (Taylor 2007, 482). Taylor (2007, 482)
discusses the festive as ‘moments of fusion in a common
action/feeling, which both wrench us out of the everyday,
and seem to put us in touch with something exceptional,
beyond ourselves’. This suggests that an authentic way of
living, anchored in the need for expressive individualism,
presupposes something exceptional and beyond ourselves in
order to become meaningful.
The phenomenon of the festival
An attempt to define the term festival often ends up with a
pragmatic focus. Etymologically, the term ‘festival’ derives
from the Latin ‘festum’. Originally, Latin had two terms for
festive events: ‘festum’ for ‘public joy’ or ‘merriment,
revelry’, and ‘feria’ meaning ‘abstinence from work in
honour of the gods’ (Falassi 1987, 2). Both terms were
used in the plural form, ‘festa’ and ‘feriae’, which indicates
that at the time of Roman Empire festivals lasted many
days and included many events. In classical Latin, the two
terms tended to become synonyms, as the two types of
events tended to merge (Falassi 1987).
Today, terms such as events and festivals are well known
in our vocabulary, but the meanings are not clear. Allen et al.
(2008) point out that there are many ways of categorizing
events, including by size, form, and content. The terms are
all rooted in people’s desire to mark or celebrate important
happenings in their lives, such as the changing of the
seasons, a rite of passage, the carnival tradition dating
CITA ESTO APARTE
from the Middle Age, and sports competitions. TAMBIÉN
Getz (1991,
54) states: ‘Festivals must have a theme, be open to the
public and have a social and cultural meaning for the host
destination. A festival is a thematic celebration for the
public’.
Gadamer (1986, 39) writes: ‘If there is one thing that
pertains to all festive experiences, then it is surely the fact
that they allow no separation between one person and
another . . . A festival is an experience of community.’
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
According to Malpas, a festival takes on the role that
Heidegger ascribes to art, and Gadamer
takes the festival as itself illustrative of the nature of the artwork,
emphasizing, like Heidegger, the character of the festival as no
mere ‘break from work’, but also describing the way in which it
constitutes the opening up of a different ‘time’ in which
celebration gathers human beings in community. (Malpas 2006,
275
276)
A common characteristic of the four festivals in our study is
their cultural diversity, although all of the festivals include
their local church, primarily as a concert arena and not
necessarily with a religious expression. As Gadamer (1986,
49) writes, ‘a festival unites everyone. It is characteristic of
festive celebration that it is meaningful only for those
actually taking part. As such, it represents a unique kind
of presence that must be fully appreciated.’ Gadamer’s
comment relates to people’s reasons for participating in
specific festivals. Some participants told us that the pull
factor was their favourite band, while others answered that
diverse music and the possibilities of listening to an
unknown band were attractions. Most of them informed
that a combination of social atmosphere, music, and sport
experiences was important. A mix of the familiar and
unfamiliar seems to be attractive. In contrast to more
bounded and private events, festivals erase social differences;
anyone can participate and people open up and recognize
something in themselves. According to Taylor (2007),
recognition is the basis for dialogue, and this relates also
to the democratic element of festivals (Reksten 2007, 175).
Both the social function and symbolic meaning of a
festival are closely related to a series of overt values that a
community recognizes as essential to its ideology and
worldview, its social identity, its historical continuity, and
its physical survival, which are ultimately what festivals
celebrate (Falassi 1987, 2). Turner (1982) and Falassi (1987)
conceive of festivals as having their own reality, which tends
to end up in ‘time out of time’. In this way, festivals
constitute a performative landscape. However, there is an
additional dimension which, according to Sassatelli (2008),
Turner and Falassi both appear to forget: the equally
relevant contextualization of festivals in the world outside.
‘The Age of Authenticity’ indicates a context of social
change focusing on expressive individualism, related to an
aesthetic cultural economy. Our study positions festivals in a
context that is fluid and that resonates with the realities of
ongoing change.
We found that there were relatively strong bonds between
all four studied festivals and their respective landscapes,
especially in the case of Eikerapen Roots Festival and
Ekstremsportveko. The municipalities in which the festivals
are held are proactive in using the events in their image-
making. At Eikerapen, the festival’s success has resulted in
permanent visual and physical change. Due to socio-political
and structural changes in agriculture, some of the land has
been covered with gravel to provide a festival scene. Other
parts of the scene are the remaining agriculture land, the
view over the valley, and the small farm buildings.
Beside this transformation of practice, we cannot ignore
the passage of time, which is related to the immaterial and to
Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement 103
memories of past experiences that incorporate the experi-
ences of the present time, as is captured in the following
excerpt:
When I walked along the narrow road from the information tent,
which is the first staging element of Eikerapen Roots Festival, I
couldn’t help but to think about the last moment I arrived here.
About 20 years ago we drove one and half hours by bus from our
school to enjoy a day in this [small-scale] alpine resort. As a
teenager I thought that downhill skiing (alpine) was the only
thing to do at such a lonely and boring place . . . I believe that the
contemporary youths here will have other preferences in their
memories of the place. (Fieldwork notebook, 31 July 2008)
Theatrical events and festivals
Cultural performances, such as festivals, are created in front
of an audience, and do not exist physically except at the
moment when they are presented. Although prepared over
time, they do not have any concrete duration after the fall of
the curtain and the concluding applause. As cultural and
theatrical events, they are created, performed, and experi-
enced at a single time and place. To experience such live
events physically, we have to travel to the site, participate,
and play, as is evident from the following excerpt relating to
the Canal Street festival held at Arendel (Fig. 2):
At the cemetery in Arendal, the festival audience waited for and
was dedicated to the same artist and genre, jazz. The people I
talked to had great expectations and experiences, both concerning
the music and the place . . . A woman (29 [years]) from Arendal:
‘This is fantastic! This surroundings gives the music another
dimension!’ A woman (48 [years]) visiting Arendal confirms this
impression and adds: ‘In a brilliant way, the arrangement
managed to combine music with the dignity of the place.’ A
woman (85 [years]) living in Arendal told us that she missed the
concert at this place last year. ‘You know, my husband is buried at
this place, and I visited his grave yesterday and laid down some
flowers. You know, the place must look nice during a happening
like this.’ (Fieldwork notebook, 28 July 2008)
A music festival audience is not at all monolithic socially or
culturally, nor when it comes to age, gender, taste, and
musical genre. Figure 3 shows how, in the industrial and
harbour area at Eydehavn in Arendal in 2008, only part of
the crowd seemed to be totally dedicated to the performers
about to play. The members of the attentive crowd probably
knew the genre and artist and had great expectations of their
performance. By contrast, others waited for their favourite
performers to play later in the evening, and meanwhile they
talked, drank, and had a good time together. This segmenta-
tion of interest and degree of communication was confirmed
during the performance. While the audience closest to the
stage were concentrated and seemed to have great experi-
ences and a deep sense of communication with the perfor-
mers, others were still drinking and talking as before. After
the concert, one of us talked to some members of the
audience about the opening concert at Eydehavn. A man
(aged 48 years) who lived in Arendal said: ‘This was great
music and a great jazz concert dedicated to the development
of this traditional industrial area! This is a once in a lifetime
104 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)

Fig. 2. Concert at the cemetery, Arendal (Photo: Pål Benjamin Wollan, 2008)

happening!’, while in contrast, a woman (aged 41 years) who
was visiting Arendal expressed: ‘I didn’t like the place at all.
There was nothing wrong with the music, but the area felt
rather impersonal to me. I felt imprisoned the whole
evening. I rather prefer the more intimate concerts in the
centre of Arendal’ (Fieldwork notebook, 28 July 2008). The
two examples show that the audience must have enough
interest in the performers and genres they wanted to
communicate in order to make other levels of communica-
tion work sufficiently. Further, the place and the landscape

Fig. 3. Festival venue Eydehavn, Arendal (Photo: Pål Benjamin Wollan, 2008)
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
at the festival area were important, because the location
created certain expectations and affections. In addition, the
perceptions and reactions were closely related to the
presentation and actions of the performers and the way
the concerts were staged, both technically and where they
took place. Moreover, the symbolic outcome was closely
related to the other levels of communication because this
level is where the festival participants reacted emotionally
and intellectually by interpreting the action on stage and
relating to the landscape as a whole. Some participants may
have a strong sense of identification, whereas others find it is
not necessary for their enjoyment. For one of the female
respondents, the industrial area at Eydehavn felt like a
strange, impersonal (male) landscape.
In his model of theatrical communication, Sauter (2000)
focuses on the mutual play or happening of the performer
and the spectator. The stage actions are called ‘presenta-
tions’, and initially they are presented for someone, a
spectator, who ‘perceives’ them. Even though the sensory,
artistic, and symbolic levels are distinguishable in a thea-
trical or festival event, they are deeply interwoven with each
other and dynamic, because of shifting emphases and
rhythmic changes. Even if a landscape is a part of something
strictly choreographed, we argue that such performances are
never completely choreographed because of the playful and
liminal aspects of an event. A playing culture can never be
fully controlled (Huizinga 1949; Gadamer 1986; Ryan 2012).
More specifically, a landscape is an important part of the
sensory, artistic, and symbolic dimension of a theatrical
event or festival event.
An ephemeral and memorable landscape

inseparable from the festival
Wylie (2007, 1) proclaims: ‘Landscape is tension.’ Inspired
by paintings of landscape, Wylie discusses tensions in studies
of landscape in cultural geography. Such tensions are
between proximity and distance, body and mind, and
sensuous immersion and detached observation. A central
question is whether landscape is a world we live ‘in’, a scene
we look ‘at’, or both. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s,
under the aegis of the cultural turn in human geography,
there was a shift from assessing landscape as an external and
physical object to examining it as a culturally specific way of
seeing or representing the world (Cosgrove 1998; Wylie 2007,
13). There was also a focus on landscape as the material
result of practice, and as a reflection of exercising power but
also as attempts to subvert power (Gregson & Rose 2000;
Olwig 2002; Mitchell 2003; Wylie 2011). ‘The performative
turn’ in cultural geography has paid increasing attention to
the embodiment of practice and performance in relation to
landscape (Wylie 2007; 2011).
Perceptions of the landscape
a picture or integrated in
our daily life?
It is possible to arrive at the music venue Dam 3, at
Eikerapen Roots Festival, either by bus from the central
Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement 105
camp (it is not legal to drive a car) along an narrow 8 km
stretch of road or by undertaking a three-hour mountain
hike. At the end of the road there are three dams connected
to a plant producing hydroelectric energy. The second
alternative means that the time spent walking can be used
to converse with other participants:
After fast walking a steep uphill I caught up with the others, who
started 15 minutes before. Fortunately, they took a break at a
mountain lake, and after cooling a while I started to make small
talk with the others. I think that the average age in the group was
about 40
45 years, and it was obvious that they were experienced
mountaineers, many also in this specific area. It turned out that
several owned a second house [Norwegian: hytte] nearby the main
festival venue. The contact with natural elements, and the aim to
combine an experience of both a beautiful landscape and a music
concert, were the most common answers regarding why they
preferred this route. Their meaning of the term landscape was
similar to that of the younger, local volunteers at the Dam 3
venue: ‘All that you see around here: mountains, hills, river, forest,
water and so on.’ Other teenagers claimed that ‘landscape is the
nature in your surroundings.’ Further asking them whether
the human-made physical constructions were part of the land-
scape, they were thoughtful before most of them confirmed that
they thought this to be the case. Landscape is what you see
around you, especially the physical attributes and its character-
istics. (Fieldwork notebook, 31 July 2008).
In the above excerpt, the ways of seeing the landscape
are probably the most common ways (Jackson 1994;
Benediktsson 2007; Cosgrove 2008). As the example illus-
trates, a combination of a morphological and visual
perspectives dominates: ‘Landscape is a tangible, measurable
complex of material/visual forms in a given geographic area’
(Cosgrove 2003, 249). In some academic traditions, a
similarity between public ways of seeing landscape is the
omission of the viewer and a distance between the viewer
and the object, i.e. the physical features in landscapes. The
words of Porteous (1990, 7) come to mind: ‘All the senses
except sight are subject to proximity’ (see also Granö 1997
for further perceptions on the use of all senses).
Attention to temporality and mobility related to land-
scape has been increasing in recent years. According to
Jackson (1997, 205),
The view is no longer static; it is a revolving, uninterrupted
panorama of 360 degrees . . . The traditional way of seeing and
experiencing the world is abandoned; in its stead we become
active participants, the shifting focus of a moving, abstract world;
our nerves and muscles are all of them brought into play.
Following Cresswell (2003), Wylie (2007) notes that the
attention is on how landscape is inhabited and experienced
from the inside rather than standing back and looking at
landscape from the outside. della Dora (2009) focuses on
graphic landscape representations, not for what they repre-
sent or show, but for what they are. One example is the raree
(rarity) showmen, who wandered around Europe in the
17th and 18th centuries with a box on their back. For a
small sum of money, passers-by were allowed to look
through a round window in the box, inside which a magical
world in miniature became visible. More than two centuries
later, we still travel the world ‘in boxes’ (della Dora 2009).
106 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan
Such boxes
cameras, televisions, and computers
indirectly
create memories, which are important dimensions of
experiences. During Ekstremsportveko there is a daily
multimedia show in a tent at the main festival venue, which
is also shown on a Norwegian national TV channel. Films
and interviews from different competitions are ‘celebrated’,
and competitors, participants (audiences), managers, and
media are shown enjoying the event. Afterwards, the
‘celebration’ continues with concerts by well-known artists.
Looking at landscapes through boxes has gained much
scientific attention, especially since the mid-1980s. The post-
modern notion of this way of looking has been related to
landscapes as ‘text’ and the object of gaze (Cosgrove &
Daniels 1988; Duncan 1990; Urry 2002). Ingold (1993;
2000), among others, criticizes the iconographic approach
for neglecting the practices of everyday social life and
disregarding the ‘dwelling perspective’ based on the lives
and work of past generations. della Dora (2009) points out
that instead of looking at photographs as two-dimensional
text (what they show), we should consider graphic landscape
representations as three-dimensional material objects (what
they are), and that means acknowledging materiality’s own
agency. Different materials imply different levels of engage-
ment and embodied sensuous interactions with the subject.
They imply different levels of affection and produce different
‘geographies of emotion’. As an example, della Dora uses
the image of an old picture of a landscape with edges
beginning to crumble when handled: ‘It makes us aware of
the passage of time, of the ephemeral nature of human
things, of life and death’ (della Dora 2009, 346).
Bender (1993) claims that an experiential or phenomen-
ological approach to landscape allows us to consider how we
move around, how we attach meaning to places, entwining
them with memories, histories, and stories, and creating a
sense of belonging: ‘Landscapes are created by people

through their experience and engagement with the world
around them’ (Bender 1993, 1). It would be naive to ignore
the dimension of power that is implemented in the produc-
tion of landscape as a performance space. Later in this
article, we argue that the economic and political aspects are
part of the performative process, both from a structural and
a critical perspective. This means that a multisensous and
phenomenological approach to landscape does not focus
exclusively on the immaterial aspects. Lefebvre (1991) says
that landscape is not produced in order to be read and
grasped, but rather to be lived in by people with bodies and
lives in their own particular context. Although experiences
are subjectively perceived, the commodification of and
search for experiences has a material base that is itself
anchored in space. It is to material objects, places, and icons
that we attach feelings and anchor memories (della Dora
2009). Digital cameras and mobile phones have increased
these possibilities, yet photographs have enhanced meaning
when related to self-experience. The feeling of flow (Csiks-
zentmihalyi 2008) or the air pressure can never be the same
for people just looking at a picture taken during a paraglid-
ing tour as they are for someone who has taken part in the
tour (Fig. 4). For one of the authors of this article, a
paragliding tour brought a new dimension to a panoramic
view: it was impossible to disconnect the relationship
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
between the view and the paraglider or the material
environment:
Although I have always loved the panoramic view, standing on a
top and enjoy the overview of landscape; its structure, elements,
colours, this paragliding tour brought it to a new dimension. The
wonderful feeling of freedom, wind that led to tears from my eyes,
a strange feeling of lack of control. If there was a life after death, I
would definitely be a bird! (Ekstremsportveko, fieldwork note-
book, 24 June 2008)
In accordance with Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, one’s body
is not simply something one has, but represents what one is
(2004). It is as if one is searching for the meaning of
something that one cannot grasp; to find it, one must feel it
in one’s body. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s thinking, the
notion that we can stand aside and observe the passage of
time is founded upon an illusion of disembodiment (Ingold
1993). Ingold (2000) explains that essential engagement with
the material environment (as in the example of the para-
gliding tour quoted above) is the root of practical activities,
which in turn constitute the dwelling perspective. This
derives from the later work of Heidegger, and in particular
his essay ‘Building dwelling thinking’ (Heidegger 1993).
Heidegger’s understanding of dwelling is rooted in ideas of
home and inhabitation.
Seasonal and ephemeral landscape
A characteristic of festivals is that the festivities are regular
annual happenings. Festivals can therefore be understood as
seasonal, rhythmical, and temporal features of landscapes
(Palang et al. 2005). They are also linked to the landscape
through some common temporal features such as seasonal
colours, smells, and sounds. Seasonal variations are not a
problem for festival organizers, unlike some tourism desti-
nations that experience a decrease in demand for part of the
year. The four festivals in this study are all ‘summer
festivals’, and many of the participants that we spoke to
expressed that they looked forward to the days they spent at
the annual event. Bunkše (2004, 75) writes: ‘For individuals
the seasons are bound up with place and memory. With time
spent in place, they come to represent powerful emotional
and intellectual associations with that place’. Jones (2004)
makes a distinction between ‘seasonal landscapes’ and
‘ephemeral landscapes’, where the latter are characterized
by phenomena that are short-lived and come and go on an
irregular basis. Ephemeral features such as weather condi-
tions, traffic, and the number of people constitute major
challenges to festivals, both from the organizers’ perspective
and with respect to the experiences. Although festivals are
seasonally staged in landscapes, they may cause permanent
physical transformations to them. In 2010, part of the hilly
landscape of Eikerapen was transformed by excavators into
a large flat festival venue, Eikerapen Arena. In addition, a
terrace was built on the side of the barn facing the area.
Similarly, memories of participating in a festival can trans-
form the perception of the venue’s landscape. When
participants of Eikerapen Roots Festival visit the site during
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
Fig. 4. Voss
from a paraglider’s viewpoint (Photo: Anne Wally Ryan, 2008)
the winter, when it becomes an alpine resort, they have new
stories to tell about the area.
Landscape as theatre
festival staged in the landscape
One venue at Eikerapen Roots Festival is ‘The Garden of
Uncle Elling’, an intimate, informal staging that provides a
nostalgic atmosphere (Fig. 5):
When I sat down at the grass I smelt the flowers and the freshly
fried lapper [similar to small, thick pancakes], I heard the sound
of the insects, the whispers of other participants, and I looked at
the artists and not at least the scene that surround them; the yard
on the farm and the panoramic view beyond the valley. On top of
that, I sat in this garden, together with about 150 other relaxed
people, and listened to a wonderful music performance. (Field-
work notebook, 1 August 2008)
The music and the artists are the main pull factors at
festivals, yet both the music and the experiences are
undoubtedly influenced by the performance spaces (Smith
2000), and the staged scene, such as ‘The Garden of Uncle
Elling’, is part of a bigger scene, the wider landscape (Fig. 5).
According to Tuan (1974), based on the tradition of English
Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement 107
landscape painting from the end of the 16th century,
landscape came to mean a prospect seen from a specific
standpoint. However, ‘scenery’ has traditionally been asso-
ciated with the world of illusion or imitations of reality,
which is the theatre. The word ‘theatre’ derives from the
Greek word theasthai, meaning ‘to view’, with the root thea,
meaning ‘the act of seeing’ (Olwig 2001). According to Tuan,
landscape is also the background of an official portrait
a
scene. As such, landscape both refers to the real world and
the world of art or make-believe, and the scenery and
landscape are almost synonymous (Tuan 1974, 133). Jackson
(1997, 301) proclaims: ‘there is no better indication of how
our relation to the environment can change over the
centuries than in the role of stage scenery’. However, a
theatre is inherently ephemeral because it is constituted
through its acting, and this gives insight into landscape
scenery as not just spatial representation but also a
performance space (Pearson 2006; Olwig 2011). Festivals
as a phenomenon with certain similarities to theatre (Sauter
2000; 2006) constitute seasonal, ephemeral, and staged
scenery. According to Tuan (1978), a tension derives from
the fact that the different meanings of landscape as ‘domain’
and ‘scenery’ belong to two different discourses: the
108 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan
Fig. 5. Festival venue ‘The Garden of Uncle Elling’, Eikerapen (Photo: Anne Wally Ryan, 2008)
discourse of politics and economics, and the discourse of
aesthetics. The two discourses are also relevant to the
discussion of theatre and festivals. The roots of theatre
and festivals are related to ancient street festivity and rituals,
and at the same time the celebrations are an expression of
both aesthetics and political power. In modern times the
majority of such performances are organized with the aim of
either earning money or at least of ‘breaking even’. Smith
(1994, 625) states that ‘musical performance in this context
is above all about the making of an economic space’. There
are further inevitable contrasts integrated in the phenomen-
on of festivals and landscape, between the resistant and the
temporary, between seasonal and ephemeral features, be-
tween the rebellious and the constituent in humans, and
between the organizers’ genuine desire to create and express
something authentic and the need to satisfy political and
economic expectations. This confirms, the words of Ingold
(1993, 171), that ‘[t]he landscape, in short, is not the totality
that you or anyone else can look at, it is rather the world in
which we stand in taking up a point of view on our
surroundings.’
Staging in landscape and aesthetic engagement
A common characteristic of the four study festivals is the
variety of venue locations and the creative use of existing
possibilities. The characteristic is mainly an advantage
because it creates a specific image and a distinctive stamp
of intimacy, and a cosy, sometimes spectacular atmosphere,
when the evenings become darker and the scenes are lit up
with rainbow colours, as exemplified in Fig. 6. Coleman &
Crang (2002) assume that the mystification and glorification
of an experience depend greatly on the environment in which
that experience occurs. Even if every experience is unique,
the venue at Dam 3 (Fig. 6) shows how peculiar elements in
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
the landscape are linked to the festival experience. The
combination of travelling 8000 m into the mountains to
arrive at the arena, the staging of both human-made and
natural landscapes, and participants sitting on the ground
together with friends increased the sensory engagement and
the potential of aesthetic quality. This was also the case at
the concert held in a cemetery in Arendal. However, the
intention and deliberate choice of such a festival venue could
be controversial and have a contradictory morality.
Cosgrove (1985) points out that landscape conveys the
idea that the combination of opposite elements such as
process and form, nature and culture, and land and life, is

or should be
balanced and harmonious, and that harmony
is visible geographically. Balance and harmony carry positive
moral weight, so that a disordered or formless landscape
seems something of a contradiction. Scenic values thus come
to act as a moral barometer. However, as Thyssen (2005, 36)
remarks: ‘Aesthetics is not about empirical or moral
information, it is about sensual forms and patterns. It is
therefore neutral compared to both truth and moral
correctness.’ This phenomenon is related to what is termed
the ‘new aesthetics’, an integrated, multisensous, and
synaesthetic dimension (Berleant 1991; Thyssen 2005;
Arntzen & Brady 2008). According to Berleant (1991),
engagement is the central feature of the new aesthetics and
it stresses the active nature of aesthetic experience and its
essential participatory quality. Aesthetic engagement joins
perceiver and object into a perceptual unity. It establishes a
coherence that displays at least three related characteristics:
continuity, perceptual integration, and participation.
Continuity contributes to the unity through the insepar-
ability of subject-object, contextual relevance, and historic
pluralism that give identity to an aesthetic experience.
Perceptual integration occurs in synaesthesia, the experien-
tial fusion of the senses as they join in a resonance of
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
Fig. 6. Festival venue ‘Under the Dam’, Eikerapen (Photo: Anne Wally Ryan, 2008)
meaning and significance. The appreciator participates in the
aesthetic process by activating the unity of the factors that
compose it. Engagement is a feature of the world of action,
of social exchange, of personal and emotional encounters, of
play, of cultural movements, and of direct and powerful
experiences that enclose us in situations involving art,
nature, or the human world in intimate and compelling
ways. Aesthetic engagement joins together the object and the
appreciator, the artist and the art object, the creator and the
perceiver, and all of these under the active influence of
performance: ‘The concept that best expresses the integral
yet complex experience we call aesthetic is the aesthetic field’
(Berleant 1991, 49). The concept of the aesthetic field is
useful because it shows the fusion of the objective, percep-
tual, creative, and performative, something that is experi-
enced as integral. The consequence of this understanding for
the landscape that is operative in an expressive and festive
Festivals, landscapes, and aesthetic engagement 109
context is that landscape is something that ‘becomes’, in the
light of the happening of an event.
This section on landscape as a performance space can be
summarized based on the empirical examples and theore-
tical considerations. There are two basic aspects: time (e.g.
temporal changes, seasons, and ages) and space (proximity
versus, such as distance and existing materiality). Regarding
the perception of landscape, we argue that landscape is part
of daily life, primarily because of the embodied relationship
between people and environment. Central to the perception
is aesthetic engagement, i.e. emotional encounters between
the participants, organizers, artists, and environments.
Engagement is a central feature of the new aesthetics: an
integrated and multisensous aesthetic dimension. Landscape
refers both to the real world (the scenery or background in
the picture) and the human-made world of art. Festivals
can be understood as artwork, and thus festivals staged in
110 A.W. Ryan & G. Wollan
landscape take the form of theatre. Accordingly, we can
consider an existing landscape as backstage and the
performance landscape as frontstage. However, the two
stages are integrated, not least because of the temporal
features of landscape. The seasonal and ephemeral features of
landscape are related to, for example, the weather, seasons,
number of people, and festival materiality, which indicate the
dynamic and instant character of the performance space
a
kind of landscape that becomes, and an experience that
requires the proximity of the participants. The notion of
dwelling, which we have rooted in seasonal, ephemeral, and
creative activities in landscape, can be related to the idea of
landscape from a Nordic perspective. In the Scandinavian
languages the term ‘landscape’ retains a historically rooted
notion of belonging to region, place, or polity (Olwig 2002).
Concluding remarks
Reality is composed both of what we intuitively and
immediate perceive, and what we have learned to see, based
on our pre-understanding and bodily engagement in the
world. At its most intense, such as in play, the boundaries
between person and place, or between the self and the
landscape, dissolve altogether, only to return in the everyday.
However, the everyday is not a static phenomenon. When
Taylor talks about ‘the Age of Authenticity’ and the festive,
he talks about the moments that seem to respond to some
social and existential need of today’s ‘lonely crowd’ (Taylor
2007, 482). Hence, festivals provide some insight into social
change, changes in values, and aestheticization processes in
contemporary Western societies.
Eikerapen Roots Festival has a conscious expression of
symbols and activities related to the USA emigration history
of the region and to the small-scale agriculture of the barren
environment. Ekstremsportveko emphasizes pictures, film,
clothes, and equipment related to different extreme sports
activities, and it is claimed that this is the world’s biggest
festival of its kind. Steinkjerfestivalen and Canal Street
challenge their participants and provide examples of the
subversive in the festivals. Performance art and the music
programme of Steinkjerfestivalen create diversity, whereas
the jazz concert held annually in the cemetery in Arendal
(Canal Street) challenges the participants to accept some-
thing different.
When experienced together with other people, the physical
surroundings, silence, and unexpected all function to create
an atmosphere and an aesthetic engagement that affect our
existential feeling of being. Common features of the study
festivals are a focus on intimate social spaces, combined with
the creators’ love of and association to the places. Such
festivals are characterized as cultural events by their social,
aesthetic, and symbolic values, and their cohesion, joy,
openness, expressiveness, play, and diversity. The partici-
pants’ experience is not exclusively individual, but rather
rooted in a social and material interaction with other people
and the environment. The encounters are instant and
synaesthetic: they engage several senses and are created,
performed, and experienced in a limited time and place.
Festivals are comparable with theatre, and belong to a
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 67 (2013)
playing culture. Even if the landscape is part of something
that is strictly choreographed, we argue that such perfor-
mances are never completely choreographed because of the
playful and liminal aspects of the events. To experience such
live events in our body, we have to travel to the sites where
they occur, and then participate and play.
At Eikerapen, both spectacular and intimate venues are
staged based on creative ideas, vision, and with attention to
the marketing effect. Ekstremsportveko is increasingly con-
trolled by the existing topography because the different
sports activities are dependent on the particular types of
landscape. Canal Street and Steinkjerfestivalen are small-
city festivals that use outdoor public spaces in a diverse way.
All four festivals are economically high-risk projects, pri-
marily because of the relation between the weather, number
of participants, and income, and secondarily because they
are vulnerable to the possibility of decline in their public
support. The organizers’ genuine desire to create and express
something authentic and the need to satisfy political and
economic expectations are tensions that are also recognized
in the perception of landscape. Festivals are recurring and
rhythmical on an annual basis, but their content and social
atmosphere are ephemeral, and feelings and engagement
with place and landscape are always in making.
Thus, it is apparent that landscapes are not just about
seeing, but rather about intimate synaesthetic encounters.
Landscapes constitute the world we live in, and for festivals
they are performative landscapes.
Notes
1 ‘The Canal Street Tribune’ was a festival newspaper produced for the
Arendal Jazz & Bluesfestival, held 27 July
1 August 2004.
2 This article is one of several publications from a research programme on
festivals, ‘Innovasjon i nettverk
opplevelseskvalitet og ‘‘performing
places’’’ (2008
2009), funded by the Research Council of Norway. The
research partners were Trøndelag Research & Development and North-
Trøndelag University College.
Acknowledgements.
The authors acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for
their constructive comments to the first two versions of this article. Figures 2
and 3 are reproduced by kind permission of the photographer, Pål Benjamin
Wollan.
Manuscript submitted 7 November 2011; accepted 26 November 2012
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