Generation – a festival on ageing

What is hope?

Talk

This year’s edition of the Generation festival invites both older and younger people to explore hope. For this conversation, festival director Anna Helle-Valle has brought together two stars from different generations and fields for a radical exploration of hope. Join an exploratory and improvised meeting between conductor and leader of the BIT20 Ensemble Bjarni Frimann, professor emeritus and brain researcher Kenneth Hugdahl, and Anna Helle-Valle who is also a psychologist.

Is hope the driving force behind both faith and love, or does it always remain outside us, longing? Can the dynamics of hope be grasped through musical tones, descriptions of behaviour, and neurological measurements? How does hope change over seconds, days, and years? Do people become more hopeful or more hopeless as they age? Is hope an eternal melody that resonates in the human soul, or does the brain trick us into seeing hope where there is really only silence and emptiness? How does hope live within us, and should one believe in one’s own hopelessness?

See also the event Generation singalong at the Festival square at 14:00 on the same day.

Photo: Thor Brødreskift

Contributors

• Bjarni Frimann conductor, musician and artistic director at the BIT20 Ensemble

• Kenneth Hugdahl professor emeritus, neuropsychology

• Anna Helle-Valle festival director at Generation, psychologist

Language

The talk will be held in Norwegian

A collaboration between

Bergen International Festival and Generation - a festival on ageing