Olga Gry Becker (she/her) // Festival director
is a Danish / German artist and organizer based in Tromsø. She moved to Tromsø in 2018 to study at the Academy of Art in Tromsø and to be close to mountains and rivers. She has been involved in Open Out since 2022. Her studies include exchange studies at the Danish National School of Performing Arts (scenography) and the National Film School of Denmark (set design). Apart from working with Open Out she works broadly within the field of art as a technician, host, designer and with her own work in collective projects. She also works with several other jobs such as assisting cooks at random peoples weddings, guarding metal festivals and serving overpriced falafel bowls.
Marion Bouvier (she/her) // Logistic and host Coordinator
is one of the co-founder of Open Out Festival. After being the festival’s director for 5 years, she happily passed on the baton to Olga, and is now part of the team as artists host and member of the selection committee. Marion works full-time as festival director for NUFF (Nordisk Ungdoms Filmfestival), promoting short films made by emerging talents and organizing film workshops for youth. She is also a writer and editor: she recently co-edited the Arctic Art Newspaper, publishes art essays for Hakapik.no, and printed the Pigeongram Collective’s collection of essays on Riso. Marion is originally from France and has been living in Tromsø for almost 8 years.
Amalie holthen (she/her) // curator and producer
is an artist based in Tromsø with a BFA degree from Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art. She works with different collaborative and organizational projects, besides her individual practice. In her own works, Amalie investigates expectations of the phenomenon brought by the language, and questions the limitations of language and representation, the fallibility of perception, and the construction of knowledge. “I am particularly interested in how language defines access or restriction and how constructed codes(rules) sometimes extend only certain bodies, and do not leave room for others. In living a queer life, codes constructed by language - such as traces of heterosexuality - make it difficult to take up a place without feeling those traces as points of pressure. Such pressure points impress on the body, involving the ‘not-expected’/unfamiliar, and these unfamiliar and subtle impressions redirect my attention to the ‘less proximate’, or even the deviant as an orienting effect in my artistic practice, and life in general.”
Tuva Johansen (she/they) // producer
Is a journalist, writer, youth organiser and activist based in Tromsø. They write for the sami newspaper Ságát and organise queer clubs for youth, as well as working with Open Out. She is always thinking of language, of how to use and not use language, how to build with language, and how it can evolve. There is always something she has forgotten to do. They are very happy to be a part of this festival in a town where it didnt exist when she was growing up.
Elisabeth Jørgensen (she/her) // assistant producer and curator
Is an art mediator and curator from Tromsø. She has a Master's degree in art history from the University of Oslo (2023), specializing in curating queer art. In her previous projects she has collaborated with the National Museum in Oslo, Pride Art and the Munch Museum. Jørgensen is particularly interested in questions of visibility and invisibility, as well as representations of minorities in the arts. Her latest art mediation project (2022-23), was the Rámis-series, a collaboration with SOLO OSLO Admir Batlak. Rámis explored Sami and queer identity through duodji and textile.
Elisabeth joined the Open Out team in 2024.