Join us for the 52nd Annual Northwest Folklife Festival presented by Northwest Folklife in partnership with Seattle Center.

Last year’s Cultural Focus, Metamorphosis, took us through a journey of change, transformations, and transition. We reminded ourselves that change happens all around us and that it is natural to adjust and reorient. We also reminded ourselves that healthy change embraces the old as well as the new. Change is how we survive!

The journey continues with this year’s Cultural Focus, Lagom: Not too much, not too little, but just right!

This Scandinavian term speaks to the notions of balance. When change happens in a person’s or communities life, you have to adapt to your new environment. You’ve got to reassess, find your footing, interrogate your conditions, and create a path for new beginnings. Just like metamorphosis, this requires hands-on involvement and participation.

Everyone and everything’s Lagom is different. Different experiences and different environments inform different paths, different processes, and different resources to determine that balance. No person or community is a monolith, and our stories—past, present, and future—are a constant tinkering to find and sustain that balance.

This marks the beginning of the next leg of our journey—a wandering to find our stride in an evolving ecosystem that obliges us to find equilibrium, composure, and presence of mind. Balance is how we survive!