Carousell is composed of the artists Felice Hapetzeder, Kristina Kvalvik, Marit Lindberg and Henrik Lund Jørgensen, all of whom have worked extensively in video art. The project was set in motion in 2012, when they started talking about the amount of never-used footage that they all had. They discussed the reasons why the footage had run untouched on their hard drives instead of being developed further in an artistic process. Was the material overly emotional, or so personal that it wouldn't work in the visual arts? Was it too vague, or did it lack a clear concept? Thus emerged the idea to do something with these stranded films.

They decided to edit one another's filmed and unused material. All four donated some unedited footage, and it was up to fate who started editing what. The material varies in length; it can be anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on what each artist chose to contribute to the project.

Through discussions, they set down rules for the project and determined that the same material should be used for all of the new edits. Each artist may add or subtract as much as they want, but the source material to be edited is always the same.