UK artist to cross 600km of Arctic borderlands in climate-conscious performance
New international performance project Threshold – A Wild New Border Journey, will see Bristol-based theatre-maker Tom Bailey undertake a 600km ultra-slow journey across Arctic borderlands.
Beginning on 10th March 2026, Tom Bailey will embark on a two month ultra slow, ultra-low-carbon performance journey across Arctic Norway, Finland and Sweden, documenting his experiences along the way. This 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. 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. This is especially timely given escalating debates around Arctic sovereignty and resource extraction and growing pressure on the arts sector to radically reduce its environmental impact.
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. 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.
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
