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What the Reykjavík Arts Festival Can Tell Us About the Future of the Interdisciplinary Biennial

At a moment when global biennials are under pressure to differentiate themselves and sustain audience engagement, Reykjavík offers a compelling model for how these events can evolve through sound, scent and embodied connection.

Art historian and curator Paco Barragán makes a compelling argument that biennials negotiate a set of contradictions: “It is at once local and global, political and aesthetic, critical and institutional, temporary and perennial. Its success, however, comes at the cost of a growing sense of saturation.” In many countries, this negotiation results in spectacle that glazes over politics, celebrates the state or caters to international arts professionals rather than the broader public. The 35th Reykjavík Arts Festival, which engages over 1,300 artists from broader Iceland and the world, shows how sensory saturation can be a superpower: political and artistic, centered on local communities and international artists rather than the state, with programming for all ages. According to Statistics Iceland, in 2025, 12,900 people aged 16-74 were employed in the cultural and creative industries, which corresponds to 5.7 percent of the Icelandic labor market. Because creativity is ingrained in Icelandic culture, artists often maintain multiple practices regardless of economic status. Iceland’s creative ecosystem stands in contrast to the specialization and economic precarity that often shape artistic production in the United States. The prevalence of artists working across disciplines helps explain why experimentation feels so natural within the festival. Iceland’s environment for experimentation stems from its large creative sector, close-knit creative community and robust support for artists. The festival’s greatest innovation is refusing to treat artistic disciplines as separate.

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The festival is directed by Lára Sóley Jóhannsdóttir, who previously led the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and her background in classical music has shaped a distinctly interdisciplinary vision. “I am a musician and the arts festival is all the arts, so I feel a huge responsibility in serving all the art forms and making sure that they are equally treated,” she tells Observer. The festival was devised as an interdisciplinary and multisensory experience, with several types of connections made across geographies, ecologies and memories. Jóhannsdóttir also views Reykjavík as belonging to the entire country: “It’s owned by everyone living on this island… we also have events around the country. For the events taking place, also to be broadcast, built and shown on TV later.”

When imagining the festival, she worked with leaders of cultural institutions who helped shape programming at their respective venues, and Jóhannsdóttir looked to Luminato (Canada) and Bergen International Festival (Norway) as models and co-commissioned Hildur Guðnadóttir as the Artist in Residence at both the Reykjavík Arts Festival and the Holland Festival (the Netherlands). This residency model, found in a handful of biennials, embeds risk-taking into the festival structure by giving artists time to develop and premiere their work. Together, the three performances reveal the breadth of Guðnadóttir’s practice. “Close-Up” pairs her with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, “Where to From” layers her latest compositions with Theresa Baumgartner’s lighting design and “Generations in Harmony” reimagines her work through a choir in Hallgrímskirkja.

The festival program signals a broader shift in the biennial format. At a moment when global biennials are under pressure to differentiate and sustain audience engagement, Reykjavík offers a compelling model for how festivals are evolving through sound, scent and embodied connection. “Reykjavík Arts Festival is a festival of perception. It is a moment to come together, open our minds and let art speak to us in ways which only art is capable of,” Logi Einarsson, the Minister of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education, tells Observer.

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