Goteborg Film Festival Invite Visitors to Take Part Live-Streamed Civil Disobedience from their Cinema Seats

Jan. 24, 2025

What part can art play in activism? Can acts of defiance become works of art? This year, visitors to the Göteborg Film Festival will get their chance to explore these questions themselves. Alongside artist-in-residence Britta Marakatt-Labba, Greenpeace, and the Saami reindeer herding community Ohredahke, the festival’s organizers have created an art installation: placed in a secret location, deep inside a severely-threatened area of untouched forest, with the purpose of stopping its deforestation. And as part of The Activist Cinema at Göteborg Film Festival, this act of civil disobedience will be broadcast from a special screening room, allowing festival-goers to themselves become watchful activists.

The festival aims to give its attendees the chance to explore to acts of rebellion as a driving force of activism, all as part of this year’s Focus: Disobedience theme. The question then becomes whether the art installation, located deep inside an at-risk forest, can change how we see both nature and art: and, by extension, whether disobedience can itself become a work of art.

If destruction of the forest and the art installation begins, people watching from the cinema can choose to alert on-call activists from Greenpeace via an alarm button – or they can choose to take no action at all. Will the world-famous artist’s valuable work be the thing which stops deforestation, or will it be placed at risk of destruction alongside the forest it stands in, right in front of cinemagoers’ eyes?

Pia Lundberg, artistic director at the Göteborg Film Festival said:

"Along with the public, we want to explore the power of civil disobedience and the value of art. The live broadcast creates an opportunity for visitors to explore, and perhaps even take part in, an act of rebellion. We hope that this will create discussions about the role of civil disobedience and the part it plays in society today."

 

The exhibition will be broadcast in “The Activist Cinema,” an auditorium in Biograf Draken, as well as via the Göteborg Film Festival’s digital streaming service. In the physical screening room itself, members of the public will be invited alongside guests from the film and culture world to watch over the art installation, as well as the forest it resides in.

Britta Marakatt-Labba said:

"It’s always important to find new ways to approach the preservation of our nature. I am, therefore, very proud that my art will be used by Greenpeace to protect the untouched forest by the Ohredahke Saami reindeer herding community, and I am looking forward to coming to the festival and seeing how the action unfolds."

 

Greenpeace’s artistic protest is carried out in collaboration with Climate Live, which will participate in panel discussions and other activities highlighting the role of art and music in justice issues.