AHC presents three artists at Roskilde Festival 2025
Date:
For the third year in a row, AHC has teamed up with Art & Activism at Roskilde Festival to present three artists, all of whom have previously been part of an AHC program. The three selected artists will present newly produced works that each in their own way touch upon themes of hope, diversity and love.
In previous years, the artists that AHC has commissioned to participate in Roskilde Festival have all been part of AHC’s To-Go residency program. As something new this year, the artists have been selected based on an open call, which was open for all artists who are, or previously have been, associated with AHC.
This has given more than a few artists the opportunity to apply to create works for Roskilde Festival’s Art & Activism program and try their hand at a very special platform for public art and an unusually large audience.
This year’s artists are Bartek Arobal Kociemba, Nicolai Risbjerg and Julie Nyman, who will present site-specific works ranging from performance, installation, sculpture and sound work. The works are full of hope, love, activism and spirituality and relate to Art & Activism’s cornerstone of utopia with their inspiring notions of a more inclusive world.
Since last year’s festival, the three artists have been in close dialogue with AHC and the team behind Art & Activism about the development of the works. AHC’s workshops at Thoravej 29 have been available for the artists to produce the works.
Engaging performances invite you to create deeper connections
During the warm-up days, you can experience performances by Bartek Arobal Kociemba and Nicolai Risbjerg. Already on Sunday, 29 June, Arobal will activate his installation Rehearsals of Belonging 2.0, where you can join a guided queer meditation.
Together with architect Mikkel Nielsen and composer Stefan Weglowski, Arobal has created a sensory atmosphere and a “safer space” where art, activism and spirituality merge. Here you will be invited to participate in interactive performances and meditations that invite immersion and reflection.
If you can’t sit still, you can return to The Yard the next day, where Arobal invites you to a participatory dance performance. Throughout the festival period, you can visit the Rehearsals of Belonging 2.0 pavilion. See the full overview of all the performances during the first festival days below.
Action Man plays with gender roles
On Monday, 30 June and Tuesday, 1 July, you can also experience Nicolai Risbjerg’s performance Action Man Collecting Sweethearts, where the otherwise hyper-masculine figure Action Man brings his love army around Flokkr and the camp site to spread love and flirt with festivalgoers.
Action Man has already sent love letters as paper planes, and they have landed in Roskilde city center. Risbjerg has created a series of sculptures in the shape of oversized paper planes that fill the city space with love and hopeful inquiries: “Do you want to be lovers – yes, no, maybe?”
The sculptures can be experienced throughout the summer.
The power of community is demonstrated in a choir performance about dyslexia
When the festival site opens, you can experience Julie Nymann’s installation ‘our voises carry futur dreams’ in Gloria’s foyer, which invites the audience to reflect on how our differences can strengthen the community rather than create divisions.
On Friday, Nymann will activate her sound installation Advantages of Being Dyslexic in a choir performance at Platform, consisting of professional singers and students from VUC Roskilde, who have experience with dyslexia. The choir will perform personal stories about life as dyslexic and neurodivergent.
~
Get a full overview of the program here:
Sunday 29 June
11.45 AM Nicolai Risbjerg: Action Man Collecting Sweethearts
Flokkr Performance
12.00 PM Arobal: Rehearsals of Belonging 2.0: Queer meditations
The Yard Installation, performance
Monday 30 June
12.20 PM Nicolai Risbjerg: Action Man Collecting Sweethearts
Flokkr Performance
2.00 AM Arobal: Rehearsals of Belonging 2.0: Participatory Dance Performance
The Yard Installation, performance
Tuesday 1 July
1.00 PM Arobal: Rehearsals of Belonging 2.0: Participatory Sound Bending
The Yard Installation, performance
Wednesday 2 July (and the rest of the festival period)
4.00 PM Julie Nymann: our voises carry futur dreams
Gloria’s foyer Installation, sculpture
Friday 4 July
11:45 AM Julie Nymann: Advantages of Being Dyslexic
Platform Choir performance + sound installation
~
ABOUT BARTEK AROBAL KOCIEMBA
Bartek Arobal Kociemba is a Copenhagen-based Polish visual artist, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of artist-run VLP Gallery. Self-taught, he works with mixed media, installation, performance, and ritual. Mentee of a renown curator Aneta Szyłak. He recently exhibited at the MOMA Warsaw and Juxtapose Art Fair. In his work, he seeks a common root for botanical, animalistic, and sensual motifs of otherness from the perspective of an uprooted migrant and a meditating seeker, where what’s visible and invisible are equal.
OM NICOLAI RISBJERG
Nicolai Risbjerg (DK) (he/him) is a sculptor and performance artist, who graduated from the Bergen Academy of Fine Arts in 2020. He works to create alternative narratives and perspectives on gender, love and identity. With a playful approach, he places recognizable symbols in new contexts and explores our perception of ourselves and each other with a desire to promote a more queer, loving and inclusive society.
OM JULIE NYMANN
Julie Nymann lives and works in Copenhagen. Her work is characterized by its engagement with and close attention to the visual and aural environments she investigates. Her installations are constructed as immersive sensory experiences, where film and sound are spread out in multi-channel arrangements. She graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2024.
