From economics, democracy and artificial intelligence to nature, art and future generations. This year’s GRASP Festival brings together a wide range of voices and perspectives that challenge the familiar and open up new ideas about what the future could look like.
With the final additions to the programme now in place, there is even more to look forward to. Experience regenerative experiments with soil and plants, artworks created for people hundreds of years into the future, and new perspectives on how art, politics and communities can help drive change.
In Designing Degrowth, Regenerating Life, artists, permaculture designers, land artists and degrowth activists come together to explore regenerative ways of living. Through performative presentations and exercises, participants investigate what collaborating with soil microbes, pollinators and plant life can teach us about community, care and sustainability.
Nature comes even closer at the Harvest Celebration at GROW Langkærhave. Starting at Musicon, the walk takes you through a landscape shaped by culture, traces of the festival and green spaces before arriving at the regenerative garden GROW Langkærhave. The walk ends with a harvest celebration featuring music, local ingredients and activities centred on biodiversity, soil and community.
In the exhibition Art in the Service of the Future, the concept of time is pushed to the extreme. Here, you can encounter a musical composition that lasts 1,000 years, a forest growing paper for books that cannot be read until 2114, and a pyramid being built one stone at a time over the course of 1,200 years.
Curated by Fremtidskoalitionen, the exhibition explores through art, culture and practices from around the world how future generations can be made present in the choices we make today.
The political perspective continues in Future Generations as a Political Responsibility, where Fremtidskoalitionen and Johanna Bernsel, Deputy Head of Cabinet to EU Commissioner Glenn Micallef, present the European Commission’s strategy for intergenerational fairness and explore how long-term considerations can be translated into Danish political practice.
And in Love Letters to the Future, Generation Hope turns its attention to children and young people. Drawing on more than 4,000 letters about their hopes, dreams and fears, participants are invited to put into words the kind of future they hope for.
In Imagining Otherwise? Worlds of Our Own Making, researchers and authors explore speculative fiction’s ability to do something that analysis and critique cannot always achieve: give shape to worlds that do not yet exist. From dystopias and climate fiction to technological futures, the panel explores both the possibilities and pitfalls of imagining something different.
Music becomes a catalyst for change in The Sound of Equality, where Pernille Rosendahl, Chris Poole and Raymonde Gaunoux, among others, come together across generations. Drawing on the musical struggles of the Red Stocking Movement and today’s music scene, they explore how music can challenge norms and power structures – and what it takes to create a more diverse music scene in the future.
In Social Work in Art, Roskilde Festival Gruppen, artist Sahar Jamili and the social housing initiative En drøm om i morgen share their first experiences from an artistic collaboration with young people from Taastrupgaard, where art is used to build communities and open up new opportunities for participation.
How do we make room for ideas that challenge established perspectives on our society? This question is at the heart of Fremtidskraft: New thinking in Good Times and Bad Times, where researchers, authors and public commentators come together for a conversation about new ideas, resistance, hope and the power to act.
The conversation also marks the launch of Fremtidskraft, a new partnership between the Queen Mary Centre at the University of Copenhagen, Hans Reitzels Forlag and Roskilde Festival Gruppen.
Through books, events and lectures, the partnership aims to create space for new perspectives on the society of the future.
The panel features disability researcher and author Emil Falster, sociologist and author Nikolaj Schultz, economist Agnete Vienberg and climate journalist Christine Roj.
With the final programme announcement, the programme for GRASP Festival 2026 is now complete. From talks and panel discussions to workshops, art and music, there are plenty of opportunities to take part yourself. Over three days at Musicon, different disciplines, experiences and ideas come together, creating space for reflection, new encounters and conversations that can continue long after the festival.
GRASP Festival takes place 1–3 October at Musicon in Roskilde.
Explore the full programme and register for the festival for DKK 100.
