Scandinavian Culture Calendar: January 2025
By Karl Batterbe
Cildo Meireles, Babel 2001. Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Petri Virtanen
Feels Like Home (until 12 January)
An exhibition that showcases works from the Finnish National Gallery collection, Feels Like Home seeks to lead the audience into themes of home. The show investigates belonging from a variety of perspectives (how do people connect with each other and their environment?), while also examining the impacts of migration (how an individual’s sense of belonging can be undermined or strengthened by nationality, state or language). The collection of works also reaches out not only to the past but to the future as well, investigating the worlds that people dream of. It promises to be a thought-provoking exhibition that takes visitors to many places, questioning what and where can feel like home.
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki
Maarit Hohteri, Paula and Miro, Kuopio 1999. Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Petri Virtanen
Les Misérables, Peter Jöback as Valjean. Photo: Johan Persson
Les Miserables: The Arena Spectacular (16 January to 2 February)
Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Miserables: The Arena Spectacular tour is landing in Sweden, with the country’s three largest cities being treated to multiple dates at the beginning of the year. With Sweden’s foremost international musical star Peter Jöback in the lead role as Jean Valjean, these stops on the critically lauded tour are going to feel particularly special. Gothenburg, Stockholm and Malmö will get to see their favourite leading man tread the boards on a larger scale than ever.
Gothenburg / Stockholm / Malmö
Matka Nordic Travel Fair 2024.
Matka Nordic Travel Fair 2025 (17-19 January)
Matka is the largest travel industry event in Northern Europe, bringing together almost 850 tour operators, travel destinations and tourism organisations from over 70 countries. The programme features talks and presentations on the latest travel and tourism trends, travellers’ tales from around the world, and other topics that visitors will find useful. And perhaps best of all, the exhibitors showcase a wide range of exciting package deals, flights, accommodation options and last-minute offers, for holidays that attendees didn’t even know they wanted to take yet! Anyone coming along is promised their pick of offers, competitions and giveaways; making it an event that travel-hungry culture vultures may not be able to afford to miss!
Helsinki Expo and Convention Centre, Helsinki
Miriam Bryant. Press photo
Miriam Bryant – Okej Att Dö (23 January to 2 February)
Since debuting in 2012, Miriam Bryant has risen through the ranks of the Swedish music scene to become one of its most commercially successful and critically acclaimed artists. Arguably in her imperial phase right now, the singer and songwriter kicks off her 2025 with part 1 of the Okej Att Dö tour. The first leg takes in 8 dates across Norway and Sweden, promising to be all the insight you need into why she’s maintained her status as one of Scandinavia’s most cherished acts.
Norway / Sweden
Døssing will play in Winter Jazz 2025. Press photo
Winter Jazz (from 30 January)
Winter Jazz (known locally as Vinterjazz) is a nationwide celebration of jazz music with around 600 concerts at more than 150 venues all over Denmark. Starting on 30 January, three weeks of jazz music hits everywhere from Aalborg to Odense. The combination of the festival’s length and the countrywide aspect makes Vinterjazz an opportunity to meet international stars on tour, as well as Danish artists, both new and award-winning. Some of the concerts you can access for free and others you have to buy a ticket for; this can be done on the festival’s website, where you’ll also find the full programme for the 2025 edition of the festival.
All across Denmark
Sweeney Todd. Photo: Kungliga Operan
Sweeney Todd (until 10 February)
After a sold-out production thrilled audiences in 2023, Sweeney Todd is making an eagerly anticipated comeback to Kungliga Operan in Stockholm. Stephen Sondheim’s horror-filled Broadway classic will entertain and horrify Swedish theatre-goers once again throughout January and into February. Leading Swedish media outlet Dagens Nyheter wrote: “Experiencing Michael Cavanagh’s solid, measured and sonorous staging at the Royal Swedish Opera is a joy,” and who doesn’t need a touch more joy in their life right now? Albeit a little blood-soaked…
Kungliga Operan, Stockholm
Andy Warhol, spritmuseum. Photo: Dan Kullberg
Money On The Wall: Andy Warhol (until 27 April)
Spritmuseum presents the extensive exhibition Money on the Wall: Andy Warhol, curated by Blake Gopnik – author, art critic and one of the world’s foremost Warhol experts. The exhibition focuses on one of the artist’s most recurring themes: money. Visitors will get a unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of Warhol’s artistry and its connection to economics and society. It introduces the visitor to the concept of what Warhol called ‘Business Art’, in which he played with the idea that he was participating in the money-making values of the consumer culture he so famously depicted.
Spritmuseum, Stockholm
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