UK-BASED ARTIST TO UNDERTAKE 600KM JOURNEY ACROSS ARCTIC BORDERLANDS TO HIGHLIGHT THE CLIMATE IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL TOURING

• Bristol-based theatremaker and artist Tom Bailey will travel more than 600km across the Arctic borderland regions between Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden by ski, sled, foot and boat.
• The two-month ultra-slow journey begins on 10 March 2026, following festival workshops taking place from 19th to 22nd February alongside Barents Spektakel, an international contemporary arts festival in Kirkenes, northern Norway.
• The solo expedition/artwork, titled Threshold – A Wild New Border Journey will highlight climate change and the future of Arctic borderlands, rethinking how international cultural touring operates in a warming world.
• The project engages with growing geopolitical debates surrounding Arctic borderlands as melting ice opens up new shipping routes, and countries contest the ownership of newly available resources (highlighted by Donald Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland for its strategic and resource value).   
• Moving gradually through remote forests, frozen lakes and coastal mountains in the Nordic Arctic regions, Bailey will meet with local communities, artists and researchers, exploring people’s lived experiences in these borderlands, and documenting how environmental change is fast impacting the Arctic region. 
• The journey will include talks, workshops and performance at international festivals in Norway and Denmark, sharing Bailey’s experience during the journey, and advocating to influence new and creative ways of approaching sustainable touring practices
• The research will culminate in a new performance piece, which will debut next year.  

Beginning on 10th March 2026, Tom Bailey will embark on an ultra-low-carbon performance journey across Arctic Norway, Finland and Sweden,  documenting his experiences along the way. 

With climate change in the Arctic accelerating faster than anywhere else on Earth, and with alarming consequences for nature and local communities, the project will explore how new possibilities of how international performance touring might happen under increasing environmental constraints in a changing world. Threshold further explores how a slow journey might function as an artwork in its own right, as Tom chronicles his experiences along the journey.

Moving gradually through regions – proposing a slow, landscape-based mode of journeying that explores first-hand a fast-changing Arctic region – where national borders, indigenous territories, animal migration routes and geological formations intersect, Bailey will meet local residents, artists and researchers. He will also conduct workshops and conversations with communities along the route. 

These encounters, alongside physical and sensory research in the landscape, will form the material for new performance work, which will be presented in 2027. As Bailey progresses across borderlands during the spring, the physical design for this performance (responding to the landscapes encountered and the journey) will be simultaneously created by company designer Natasha Soonchild, working as an artist in residence in Kirkenes, northern Norway. 

Bailey’s solo journey will begin at Barents Spektakel in Northern Norway. Bailey will then travel westwards from the Russia–Finland–Norway border, moving through Northern Finland and Sweden to a second tri-border between Sweden, Norway and Finland. He will then continue west to conclude the journey at Stamsund International Theatre Festival in the Lofoten Islands in May 2026. 

Speaking about the work, Tom Bailey said, “Threshold comes from a desire to slow right down and ask what kind of performance-making is possible when time, geography and environmental responsibility are treated as creative forces rather than obstacles. This journey is about listening to landscapes, to people, and to the realities of a changing Arctic and allowing that process to shape the work.”

Threshold – A Wild New Border Journey is produced by UK theatre company MECHANIMAL with partners in Norway and Denmark, including Norwegian dramaturg Gulli Sekse and Aarhus-based ILT Festival in Denmark. The work is also supported by international climate action non-profit Julie’s Bicycle, and funded by a joint venture between Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway and the Danish Arts Foundation

KEY DATES & EVENTS

• 19-22nd February 2026
   PREPARATION: Threshold – A Wild New Border Journey launches, following a workshop at Barents Spektakel in northern Norway, with initial festival workshops and public engagement.
• 10th March–May 2026
   TOUR BEGINS: Two-month journey through Arctic Norway, Finland and Sweden begins, moving through four distinct landscape and thematic phases, with ongoing community engagement and landscape-based research.
• 27th May 2026
   Journey concludes at Stamsund International Theatre Festival in the Lofoten Islands, with the first public sharing of material gathered during the journey.

Threshold – A Wild New Border Journey represents the next stage in Bailey’s ongoing artistic investigation into how performance is made, toured and shared in a climate-changed world. This includes his Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 show Wild Thing!, which featured material from a previous slow, low-carbon journey across Scotland, Denmark and Norway in 2024.

Picture of Tom during previous work on ‘Boreal: Slow Conversations between Trees and People’

PREVIOUS PRAISE FOR MECHANIMAL

“Beautiful … a remarkable and urgent show”  The Guardian, Recommended Show
 ★★★★★ –‘utterly devastating’ The Stage
Fest Magazine Best Shows of the Fringe. ★★★★
“memorable… a requiem against a clock counting down” – The Scotsman

★★★★ – The Herald
 ★★★★ – The List
“Beautifully realised and thought-provoking” – Total Theatre
Herald Angel Award and Summerhall Lustrum Award winner

ITER (International Touring and Environmental Responsibility) is a UK–Nordic programme supporting artists to develop environmentally responsible international touring practices.

PARTNERS: 

Mechanimal (Tom Bailey & Natasha Soonchild):
 Mechanimal is a multi-award winning independent theatre and immersive experience design company led by director and performer Tom Bailey, and the company’s designer, Natasha Soonchild. It explores fresh perspectives about living on a changing planet. It has toured to over 15 countries, and pioneers in green touring methods.  Mechanimal a critically-acclaimed UK company, and has received grants from Innovate UK, British Council, Digital Catapult, Arts Council England, and Nordic Culture Point, Nordic Culture Fund, and many more. 

Gulli Sekse (Bergen, Norway)
 Gulli Sekse is an independent producer, artist and dramaturg. As Touring Director at Carte Blanche, she led the company’s national and international touring and collaboration strategies. Her artistic research focuses on ‘landscape dramaturgy’, and she has recently started a producing/ consultancy company ReArtica.

ILT Festival (Malene Pedersen – Aarhus Denmark) 
 ILT is a major international festival of contemporary performance in Aarhus, Denmark. Its mission is to present some of the world’s most acclaimed and innovative performing arts in a diverse festival program.

The festival runs on biennial cycles but also (throughout the year) runs performances, talks and workshops via ILT Academy. Website

EXTERNAL PARTNERS: 

Barents Spektakel / (Kirkenes, Norway)
 A renowned multi-artform and performance festival in the polar winter, is one of Europe’s northernmost festivals. Organised by Pikene pa Broen, Barents Spektakel engages thousands of local/ international artists 

Stamsund Festival (Lofoten, Norway)
An international contemporary theatre festival based in Stamsund, Lofoten Islands, showcasing contemporary performance. 

Julie’s Bicycle
 An international non-profit uniting culture, creativity and climate action to drive change. From practice to policy, it supports the creative community to lead on climate action. Its tools, training and consultancy have empowered over 2,000 cultural organisations worldwide.