The Immersive Festival of Scandinavian Kulture and Art FIKA(S) will present a day of programming around the place of women in the music industry at the PHI Centre on October 19th
As part of its fourth edition, FIKA(S) – The Immersive Festival of Scandinavian Kulture and Art – will organize a day of activities around women’s place in the music industry on October 19. The event will crossover Québécois and Scandinavian perspectives on the issue and will take place both online and in person at the PHI Centre, which is co-presenting the event along with shesaid.so. The activities are all Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), and all proceeds will benefit Rock Camp for Girls Montreal.
Founded in 2015 by Christel Durand, The Immersive Festival of Scandinavian Kulture and Art is back in October 2022 for a 4th edition. An intimate and tight-knit event, FIKA(S) builds artistic and cultural bridges between Quebec and the Scandinavian countries. It offers unique musical programming featuring artists from both sides of the Atlantic.
During this 2022 edition, Québécois and Scandinavian professionals will exchange their experiences as workers in the music industry during a series of conferences beginning at 1:00 pm. It will be an opportunity for participants to gather, share their views and speak openly. The conferences will cover three main subjects: a lack of representativity in the sector, exporting talent, and finally, the values and mission of the organization shesaid.so, which works to advance the position of women and gender minority communities in the music industry. At 5:00 pm, following the conferences, a series of unique musical showcases will take place at the PHI Centre featuring Swedish pop singer Raindear, Norwegian artist Marte Eberson, and Montreal DJ Killa-Jewel.
Several panelists will take part in the day’s activities, among them Lola Baraldi, Partnerships and Virtual Platform coordinator for Mutek Montreal, Vanessa Blais-Tremblay, a musicology and women’s studies professor and researcher at UQAM, and Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser, a Norwegian indie rock singer who has totaled over 40 million streams on Spotify.
Reserve your ticket here.
Learn more about FIKA(S) from the director of the festival, Christel Durand, below, and stay up to date with FIKA(S) via their socials.
First off, care to explain what FIKA(S) is all about?
FIKA(S) is a multidisciplinary Nordic festival (music, encounters, cinema, workshops…) that seeks to create artistic and relational bridges between Québec/Canada and the Nordic and Scandinavian countries. To do this, we encourage and create opportunities for meetings and dialogues between artists from here and Scandinavia: lectures, residencies, and shows.
How did the idea of building artistic and cultural bridges between Quebec and Scandinavian countries come to be?
Twenty-three years ago, I discovered the music of the Swede Kristofer Åström. As a fan of folk music, his work changed my life. Thanks to him, I discovered a whole Nordic scene that I didn’t know existed: the Swedish scene, Icelanders, the Norwegian scene, etc. However, all the Scandinavian and Nordic artists I knew rarely came here, if at all. Except for the most famous ones, of course! So I thought it might be interesting to offer a platform in Montréal for Scandinavian and Nordic artists. They could discover new territory, other audiences, meet local artists, broaden their horizons…
It is from this idea that the FIKA(S) Festival was born. As I was developing the project and talking about it to people around me, they shared their passion for literature, gastronomy, cinema and design from Scandinavian countries. I came to the conclusion that our event had to be multidisciplinary.
A year later, in March 2016, FIKA(S) became a reality, and Kristofer Åström closed the first edition. At the time, there was no definite plan for the future of this project, but as the interest grew from one edition to the next, we let ourselves be carried along, kept working, and today we are on the eve of the fourth edition!
What would you say is the main issue women encounter in the music industry?
I believe that the music industry is no different than any other area of our society and suffers from similar ills, such as the scourge of unequal opportunities.
As the subject is broad and we do not claim to be able to broach one main issue rather than another, we have chosen to highlight not one but two topics that are important, from our point of view, to highlight the areas that deserve to be addressed:
1/ The space of women in the music industry: perspectives from Québec / Nordic and Scandinavian countries. Lack of representation in the industry (recordings, radio, festivals).
2/ Exporting female talent between Northern Europe and Canada: perspectives
During your 2022 edition, you will organize a day of activities around women’s place in the music industry. What will this entail?
The general objective is to encourage exchanges between the Nordic countries and Québec based on the expertise developed by these two regions. Society is, fortunately, constantly changing, and we need to evolve with it – to reflect on these changes concerning the place of women in the music industry. As the Nordic countries are considered leaders in social and gender issues, this day will draw on these countries’ experiences. Our other, more general, objectives are to address the stereotypes of our societies and to promote the place of women in the music industry while putting forth values of exchange, discovery, and sharing.
Through FIKA(S)’s activities, we constantly seek to create a dialogue between Québec and Northern Europe. I, therefore, found the international organization Shesaid.so to be the perfect representative for this. Indeed, Shessaid.so is the first community of women and gender minorities in music that connects members from all sectors of the industry worldwide. So, in collaboration with Shesaid.so Montréal, we invited their colleagues from Shesaid.so Norway, and Sweden to engage in a dialogue on the topic.
How were the musical performers chosen, and what can you tell us about them?
We wanted the musical showcase to embody the three territories of the Shesaid.so branches present: Norway, Québec, and Sweden. As our collaborations are always based on mutual trust, we asked the three organizations to invite the person they wanted. The only constraint for the Scandinavian branches was to invite an artist who had never performed in Montréal. The specific aim of this restriction is to participate, in our own way, in promoting her career and potential outreach to a new audience.
Thus, you will discover:
Raindear, Shesaid.so Sweden guest, Marte Eberson, Shesaid.so Norway guest in order to offer a musically eclectic happy hour, DJ Killa-Jewel has been invited by Shesaid.so Montréal and will close the event.
If you could leave our readers with one fact to remember about helping to advance the position of women in the industry?
In March 2021, an open letter signed by 150 people from the music community denounced the under-representation of female artists from Québec on the radio, pointing out that “the proportion of female artists broadcast in French-language programming fluctuates between only 2% and 30%. […] the visibility of female role models being reduced on the radio, women who want to pursue a career in the field feel partly excluded from the outset.
Although it sometimes seems that the situation is now adequate and that equal opportunities have almost been achieved, the statistics remind us daily that we can and must do better!