Wrap is a centre for artistic production and communication, which provides a wide range of facilities to professional artists, on a project-to-project basis. Wrap is artist-run, but none of our facilities are exclusively reserved for any particular artist. Our tools and spaces are maintained and organised by knowledgeable professionals and our prices are subsidised in order to reflect the means of most artists, and to maintain an inclusive profile.
We also initiate and curate various artistic projects that we believe benefit the artistic communities surrounding the centre.
Wrap is supported by:
Support and unity in the face of challenging times
We are happy to have enabled so many artists, groups and projects to produce great new performances, concerts and exhibitions that have traveled across Norway and Europe in 2024!
These are challenging times for people in many places and walks of life. Being an artist in Norway can be understood as a privileged position, and we are indeed very grateful to find ourselves part of the creative and inspiring artistic community in Bergen, but even here we face increasing challenges.
Towards the end of 2024 we found ourselves obliged to team up with many of our peers and colleagues within the Bergen arts scene, to fight back against poorly thought out cuts to municipal funding of the arts. It was encouraging to see how people united and were mobilised by this issue, and we are happy that the cuts were re-thought with more consideration for independent artists, groups working outside institutional frameworks, and artist-led infrastructure. We feel that in these challenging times, it is more urgent than ever for us to share experiences of art through concerts, performances, exhibitions and gatherings like the ones we manifest through our program, and support through the infrastructure we provide.
We look forward to a new year helping artists bring ambitious new projects to fruition from a wide range of interests and artistic disciplines, from Bergen, Vestland and beyond!
In the face of challenging times we will continue to provide the best possible environment for interdisciplinary, ambitious and high quality artistic endeavours, providing warm, supportive and respectful production spaces, with professional and well maintained tools and equipment.
2024 started with Wrap being awarded the Pernillestatuette (prize) from Bergen Theatre Society (Bergen Teaterforening) for our important role in the production of many performing arts projects over the years. As a place without permanent/resident artists, we facilitate hundreds of projects within the professional independent domain every year. We aim to respect the autonomy of all these projects and the artists responsible for them. Amongst other considerations, this means that artists decide themselves the extent to which they wish to attribute any of their eventual success and acclaim to Wrap. We are therefor particularly grateful for the acknowledgement symbolized by this prize.
Last (but not least) we would like to thank everyone who contributed to our program of concerts and events in 2024 and January 2025. These were some magical Audioglimt concerts and Sonisk Selskap events, and we saw our audience grow both live and online. Some of the videos from these events have received thousands of views on YouTube.
Wrap condems apartheid and racism in any form, and as a member of the BDS movement’s Apartheid Free Zones campaign, we have divested from companies that contribute to or profit from the Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza, and are withholding from cooperation with persons and organisations funded by the Israeli state. This is an ethical decision that reflects our respect for the idea of a rules based order and for established international definitions of human rights.
Image from the transdisciplinary performance / installation Hardscore by Jeremy Welsh, Mareike Dobewall, Michael Francis Duch and Alwynne Pritchard at Wrap.