BEK invites to join them November rain of Bergen for the symposium The Only Lasting Truth is Change: Voice, Seed, Brutality.

The symposium covers providing speculative weather forecasts, diving into platform brutality, listening to the sound of luggage, becoming a landscape, philosophising with gneiss, claiming the land, tracing the history of silk production, and dancing it all out.

Taking its title from Octavia Butler’s seminal sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower (1993), which has frightening similarities to the political realities of today, we are exploring aspects of resistance and questions of how to practice. These ideas are expressed in the novel, in how the protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina pushes through experiences of horror and abandonment to find new ways of creating communities.

The three symposium days in Bergen will present a programme looking into the possibility of eco-social revolution through three notions: Voice, Seed, Brutality. Voice can transform isolation into connection, making history heard, and voice is a medium that holds storytelling and thus can counter cultural extinction. Within the notion of seed inspired by Olamina´s Earthseed religion from Butler’s novel, a philosophy centred to the idea that ‘God is Change’, we aim to learn from degrowth, land use, indigenous knowledge systems, and the revolutionary potential in collective organising and alliance building around alternative approaches to cultivation, living and artistic practice. And lastly, while critically reflecting on the brutality of technofeudalism and platform economy, we want to address the need to rethink the use of internet technology. Brutality also reflects the polarised times we are living in, with increasing militarisation as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

With contributions from: Shuruq Harb, Marwa Arsanios, Open-weather, Carol Stampone, Geert Lovink, Touki & Rehana Zaman, Nasim Mashak, Omar Itani, Jenny Berger Myhre & Niklas Adam, DJ Daeva, Russell Haswell, Ameneh Solati, Mihkkal Hætta.

The Only Lasting Truth is Change is a symposium investigating how artistic practice and its methodologies are constantly changing in response to the shifting political, technological and ecological landscapes we live in. The 2025 and previous editions have sought to step away from a traditional discursive event of talks and debates. We aim instead for the symposium to be a thinking-in-process, where the cultural field has a chance to rethink our methodologies of research, production, presentation and dissemination, in response to a constantly shifting world around us.

The symposium is organised by BEK with support from Arts Council Norway, Fritt Ord Foundation, City of Bergen, Vestland County Council, KORO, Balansekunst and The Bergesen Foundation. BEK is a partner of the New Perspectives for Action network; a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.

Graphic design: Papa Kofi Yirrah

Programme

The talks will be streamed live on vimeo.com/bekdotno

Friday 21 November 2025
BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts
10:00–14:00 Workshop with Open-weather: How To Read A Storm

Bergen Storsenter
18:00 Rats, and other downtrodden subjects: Performance by Omar Itani. NB! Not streamed
The tunnel by Lille Lungegårdsvannet, between Bergen Storsenter and Byparken

Østre
18:30 Doors open
19:00 Introduction by the curators
19:15 Gneiss: an extended live performance by Touki and Rehana Zaman NB! Not streamed
20:30 Sound of my luggage: Audiovisual performance by Nasim Mashak
21:00 Three notes on political animals: Audiovisual essay by Marwa Arsanios NB! Not streamed
22:00 Whispers of Reindeer Milk (2023): Film screening by Mihkkal Hætta
22:30 Phloem Sap: Concert by Jenny Berger Myhre and Niklas Adam
23:30 DJ set by DJ Daeva

Saturday 22 November 2025
Bergen Assembly

13:00 Doors open and lunch
14:00 Introduction by the curators
14:15 How to Read a Storm: Presentations and conversation on satellite imagery by Open-weather & the Bjerknes Centre
15:15 Platform Brutality: Lecture by Geert Lovink
16:00 Chronesthetic Wound: Artist talk by Lesia Vasylchenko
17:00 Conversation between Marwa Arsanios, Shuruq Harb, and Omar Itani, lead by Sarah Lookofsky
18:15 On Change, Time and the Burnout Society: A performative lecture or participatory poem by Carol Stampone
19:45 Conflict Grains: Performance dinner by soso brafield. Sign up required. NB! Not streamed

Sunday 23 November 2025
13:00–20:00 Østre
13:00 Doors open and lunch
14:00 Introduction by the curators
14:15 Wetlands Beyond Water: Performance lecture by Ameneh Solati
15:30 In the Presence of Absence: Live Performance by Shuruq Harb
16:00 Muorra (2024): Film screening and artist presentation by Mihkkal Hætta
17:00 Conversation between Shuruq Harb and Mihkkal Hætta
17:45 Live concert with workshop participants and Russell Haswell