When British theatre maker Tom Bailey set off from the Norwegian-Russian border in March, he had a tent, a fuel stove, enough gear to survive temperatures ranging from -30°C to +15°C – and no finished show to perform. That was the point.
Bailey, who is based in Bristol and works under the theatre company MECHANIMAL, was travelling more than 600 kilometres across Arctic borderlands between Norway, Finland and Sweden by ski, sled, foot and boat.
The two-month journey, titled 'Threshold - A Wild New Border Journey', concluded at the Stamsund International Theatre Festival in the Lofoten Islands on 27 May.
"I'm a theatre maker, an environmental artist, and I'm passionate about making work about nature and climate change," Bailey tells Euronews Earth, speaking by video link from Svolvær in the Lofoten Islands. "In the last few years there's been more of a focus on how to tour and travel with work at a time of a changing climate."
Rather than fly to a location, Bailey chose to physically move through the landscape – spending around six weeks crossing remote forests, frozen lakes and coastal mountain terrain, meeting Sami communities, local residents, artists and researchers along the way.
