Midsummer at the Nordic House

We warmly welcome you to celebrate the Midsummer Festival with us on 23th of June. The day is filled with fun activities, flowers, music, and art for children and adults.

Program:

1– 3 pm
Greenhouse
Create and wear your own flower crown!

Guests are invited to make their own flower crowns or flower wreaths – using local flowers and plants that have been collected from the surroundings. Teachers from the Latvian School in Reykjavík will be in charge of teaching how to make handmade flower crowns from wild Icelandic flowers. Making flower crowns is also a Latvian tradition related to midsummer that is called Jāņi in Latvian. The celebrations include many ancient practices, including decorating the home with ferns, fragrant grasses, and freshly picked flowers, singing special solstice songs, lighting bonfires and preparing traditional foods. Midsummer was originally a pagan agricultural festival that existed long before the arrival of Christianity in the Baltics, but the traditions associated with it remain immensely popular to this day. Please bring your own flowers if you can as this event is popular and we might not have enough flowers.

2 pm
Outside
We dance around the midsummer pole!

“För att hedra en av de största högtiderna i Sverige firar den svensk-isländska samarbetsfonden, Föreningen Norden på Island och Sveriges ambassad, lanseringen av det svensk-isländska kulturåret. Utöver detta firar vi ett millenium av vänskap, 400 år av etablerad handel, 250 år av en vetenskaplig dialog och 85 år av diplomatiska förbindelser mellan Island och Sverige.”

Lindex and Nocco will give guests some goods.

4 – 5.30 pm
Outside
Finnish performance art 

A group of six experienced artists, dedicated to working with performance art, are touring across the Nordic Countries in order to present Finnish performance art and make it more known in all of the corners of the North – more info here.

5.30 – 6 pm
Elissa auditorium
Antti Ahonen gives a precentation on his performance art photography + Free drinks.

Antti Ahonen has documented Finnish performance- and underground art from the beginning of the 2000´s. He is the most dedicated performance art photographer in Finland and holds a photo archive of tens of thousands of images, which is without a doubt the largest private collection of performance art in Finland. He will open this unique archive to the audience, showing a selection of pictures and telling stories about his work and the many performances he has witnessed, through the past decades.

6 – 7 pm
Pavilion – outdoor area (or concert hall if it rains)
PIKKNIKK concerts!

Dance into the midsummer evening with POSSIMISTE playing live music in the Pavilion at the outdoor area. – more info here.

10 am – 5 pm
Hvelfing- exhibition hall
POST exhibition

Multimedia art exhibition presenting artwork from mainly Nordic artists who question and reflect our time and our future. The exhibition is a part of the Reykjavík Art Festival program 2024.

Accessibility to the building is temporarily restricted due to ongoing renovations, we update the information here if anything changes before the 23^rd June. Accessible and gender neutral bathrooms are on  the main floor of the building. From the main floor an elevator goes down to Hvelfing exhibition space. 

Access to The greenhouse is restricted for wheelchair users, there is a small step into the greenhouse. If weather allows the workshop will also be outside the Greenhouse where everyone can access it. The pavilion stands in front of small garden with grass and tables, a small pathway made of gravel leads up to the pavilion.