Friday 28 May · Mandal
Different rooms. Different perspectives. The same water.
The Open Houses
The host opens the door. SALAR curates the conversation.
After SALAR Conversations, the programme moves into Mandal. From 19:00, delegates gather for dinner in five Open Houses, each offering a different perspective on the same connected water system.
Each house is hosted by a relevant organisation. Hosts help convene people, mobilise networks and create the setting — while SALAR curates three to four intimate fireside conversations, moving from international to national, local and cross-system.
What about the future?
Mandal Hotel
Sandskargata 33, 4515 Mandal
Walking distance from Buen · Directions
Where the water becomes home.
Rivers and coastal communities carry knowledge built over generations. Communities House explores the water system through place, identity, livelihood, culture and stewardship.
Host: Visitor Centre Wild salmon - Tana
Friday 28 May · Doors 19:00
Dinner · Fireside conversations · After party
What do we know?
SMOI – Mandals hemmeligheter
Store Elvegate 25, 4514 Mandal
~5 min walk from Buen · Directions
What do we know — and what are we still missing?
Science House explores evidence, uncertainty and the connections between rivers, fjords, coasts and oceans.
Host: TBA
Friday 28 May · Doors 19:00
Dinner · Fireside conversations · After party
How do we use it?
Restaurant Hr. Redaktør
Store Elvegate 23A, 4515 Mandal
~5 min walk from Buen · Directions
How do we use the same water?
Hydropower, aquaculture and fisheries all depend on the same connected water system — and all shape it in different ways.
Industry House explores food, energy, jobs, value creation and what responsible resource use requires across rivers, fjords, coasts and oceans.
Host: TBA
Friday 28 May · Doors 19:00
Dinner · Fireside conversations · After party
How do we decide?
Kastellet Mandal
Kastellgata 12E, 4514 Mandal
~10 min walk from Buen · Directions
Who decides what the water system becomes?
Political choices, public management and responsibility across fisheries, aquaculture, hydropower, marine protection and Norway's role as an ocean nation — explored through intimate conversations with one interviewer and one or two guests.
Host: TBA
Friday 28 May · Doors 19:00
Dinner · Fireside conversations · After party
What must we protect?
Brygga Pub & Restaurant
Store Elvegate 42, 4514 Mandal
~6 min walk from Buen · Directions
What must remain alive?
Conservation House explores ecological integrity, protection, restoration and what it means to safeguard rivers, fjords, coasts and oceans as one connected system.
Host: TBA
Friday 28 May · Doors 19:00
Dinner · Fireside conversations · After party
The evening
19:00
Doors open and dinner
Delegates arrive at their house and sit down to eat.
c. 19:30–21:00
Fireside conversations
Three to four intimate conversations, moving from international to national, local and cross-system.
From c. 21:00
After party
The evening becomes informal. Conversation continues — between houses and across Mandal.
Not five parallel conferences. Dinner, conversation and informal encounters flow into one another.
Mandal Hotel · Sandskargata 33, 4515 Mandal
A quiet working base by the river, one minute from Buen.
~1 min walk from Buen · Directions
Set inside Mandal Hotel, a minute's walk from Buen, the Media Hub gives accredited journalists, photographers and filmmakers a calm place to work throughout SALAR. It runs no programme of its own. Open from the first conversation at Buen and into the Open House evening, it is where interviews are arranged, material is filed and conversations from the day can continue in quieter rooms.
Seven locations · one compact town centre
SALAR Conversations
Buen Kulturhus
Havnegata 2, 4515 Mandal
The common conversation.
Friday 28 May · 08:30–17:00
Everyone begins together.
Walking times from Google Maps walking routes.