Mangfoldsfesten: Haugesund’s celebration of diversity
On 9 August 2024, hip-hop artist Mohammed El-Susi, photojournalist Hayat Al-Sharif, and musicians Yusuf Suleiman and Arya Aramnejad performed at Mangfoldsfesten in the Norwegian city of Haugesund.
Despite the rainy weather, the programme of Mangfoldsfesten, an annual festival organised by Haugesund Public Library, with the support of Slidajazz festival, celebrated diversity and inclusivity. Through music, dance, art, and food, Mangfoldsfesten brought together and build bridges between people from different backgrounds, ages, languages, cultures, and traditions.
Four artists from the ICORN network, Yusuf Suleiman, Mohammed El-Susi, Hayat Al-Sharif, and Arya Aramnejad, participated in the programme of Mangfoldsfesten. Al-Sharif, a photojournalist from Yemen, currently in ICORN residence in Stavanger, was the first on stage to open and present her exhibition at Haugesund Public Library. Al-Sharif spoke of her photojournalistic work, documenting the contrast between the hardship of life during war in Yemen and her home country’s cultural and natural beauty.
Next on stage were the musician, starting with Yusuf Suleiman, a Uyghur musician currently in ICORN residence in Sweden, who performed a pop song in the Uyghur language. Iranian-Swedish musician Arya Aramnejad who was in ICORN residency in Stockholm between 2017 and 2019 was next to take the stage. Aramnejad performed four of his songs, capturing the intersection between the personal and the political. Palestinian hip-hop artist Mohammed El-Susi, who took up the ICORN residency in Stavanger in May 2024, performed a number of new and old songs, aimed at brining attention to the war in Gaza and the plight of the Palestinian people, more widely.
As well as the performances by artists in the ICORN network, Mangfoldsfesten included contributions by local artists and cultural groups, such as Thai, Ukrainian, Kurdish, Indian, Korean, Bangladeshi music acts and dance routines.
After the end of the official programme of Mangfoldsfesten, the artists and musicians from the ICORN network gathered at the Oud Gallery Café, founded and run by Evan Hikmat and Otail Al-Ogaili and bringing a taste of the Middle East to Norway. Hikmat is an illustrator, visual artist, journalist, and human rights activist from Iraq who has been the ICORN resident in Haugesund since 2022.
