Festival Meeting Place — TANG by Trond Ansten and Kåre Grundvåg

TANG — an installation, as much as a social retreat and a seaweed bar, all generously hosted by a king crab.

Tang — as well as being one of the most common surnames in China — is the Norwegian word for seaweed. Tang is packed with a dizzying amount of nutrients and it is said to have once been brewed into beer by the indigenous civilisations of the Kamchatka peninsula in far east Russia. Inspired by this, we invite you to the Barents Spektakel festival bar and meeting place, welcome to TANG!

What is the taste of the future? What can we learn about the brewing crafts of the past? Can Chinese mould spores create wine from northern seaweed? The artists Trond Ansten and Kåre Grundvåg work to find out through their ecological and social experimentation into the use of seaweed and other marine resources.

Together with stage designer Tatiana Ludanik, Trond and Kåre create a social space where you can immerse into a marine world while tasting brews from the deep; a place where invited chef Håkon Kinakål prepares authentic street-style Chinese food and DJ Matti Aikio spins records from the booth, where guest performers take to the stage by night and guest speakers share ideas by day — and of course, where karaoke plays till last orders are taken.