Oulu is the European Capital of Culture for the year 2026! The programme, created with more than 500 cultural organisations, festivals and creative professionals, places the North firmly at the centre of Europe’s cultural map. With over 1,000 events listed in the official calendar, there’s definitely something for everyone!
Discover the full programme on the Oulu2026 website. Discover are our staff highlights:
Johanna: Eanangiella – Voice of the Land
16.1–3.5.2026
Oulu Art Museum
The Oulu Art Museum is presenting a major exhibition of Sámi art and duodji that explores the diversity, resilience and sustainability of Sámi culture. Eanangiella – Voice of the Land features around 70 artists and duojárs from Sápmi. The exhibition is curated by Inga-Wiktoria Påve, Fredrik Prost, and Áilu Valle, and its themes focus on ancestors, paths of memory, between worlds, land, green colonialism, spirituality, and the ornaments of life. This exhibition is important for several reasons as it’s raising the many-side voices and themes from Sápmi.
Eppu: Arctic Food Lab
Arctic Food Lab is the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture year’s food culture programme, showcasing the unique flavours, pure Arctic ingredients and rich food traditions of the Oulu region and Northern Finland. Highlights include a Summer Night’s Dinner on 15.8.2026 with a kilometre-long dinner table in the city centre, celebrating the power of food and culture to unite people.
Tilda: Hyökkäys – The Attack
Sat 28.11.2026 at 17:00 – 19:00
Vojakkalan Teatteri, Oravaisensaarentie 16, 95500 Tornio
Hyökkäys – The Attack, is a theatre piece opening on 28.11 that centres Vojakkala artist Eetu Isto (1865-1905) and the dramatic stages of his famous painting The Attack. The painting’s significance as an uplifter of spirit was more significant than any other work of art during the so-called years of oppression. The play will be performed in Finnish in Isto’s birthplace, Vojakkala.
Margareeta: VILLIT – THE WILD ONES
20–29.8.2026 at 18:00
Seminaarin Taidekampus, Satamakatu 3, 87100 Kajaani
The immersive performance, VILLIT, combining aspects of self-reflection, dance, and everyday surroundings will lead audience groups through different routes in the urban space and offer an opportunity to get to know one’s inner monsters and tame them. At the end of the route, there will be a disco for all the wild ones. This production is created by a large international working group, led by choreographer Sari Palmgren from Routa Company and it is a collaboration with local dance schools in Kajaani.
Malin: Xulu202x: S.I.E.L.L.Ä.
9.2.2026–21.2.2026
S.I.E.L.L.Ä. is the culmination and final performance of the Xulu202x project, of which we shared a taster in Brussels late last year with a performance by Antti Uimonen and Viivi Forsman. We have also had the chance to collaborate with Julian Owusu as part of our Boys Won’t Be Boys Finland production in 2024.
Xulu202x is a multi-year project combining community art practices and futures research methods originating from hip-hop culture, which includes workshops, performing arts works and an art academic symposium. The project explores shared dreams about the Oulu of the future. The project has been practicing dreaming with several groups in workshops since 2023, with Julian Owusu, Antti Uimonen, Viivi Forsman, Marja Isotalo, Antti Kyllönen and Kalle Jurvelin.
Ela: Underground Clash (working title)
Part of the Autumn 2026 Lumo Art & Tech Festival, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen creates artworks exploring how changes to our physical world impact our inner mental ones, including memories linked to shifting and changing environments. For Underground Clash (working title) Steensen is creating a living, immersive world beneath Oulu city centre, where memories of past local landscapes converge with the de-extinction seed vault of the Oulu Botanical Garden.
Cover image: Risku. Photo: Sanna Krook. Edit: Tomi Huotari.