How can club culture be at the forefront of social and political change? By considering the dancefloor as a democratic space, wherein new ideas can be exchanged, we want to give the floor to night actors who are leading political resistance and paving the way for greater social inclusion. From #BLM to #MeToo, safe spaces to queer cultures, sound system revolutions to night mayors, this collection will document the role of artists and activists in building cultural alternatives to the narratives of today.
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Breaking the Silence In the Polish Scene
Following a recent increase of sexual assaults reported in European clubs, bars and other party spaces, we looked at the social climate that fosters this phenomenon throughout Europe. In this interview, journalist and activist Magda Stanieszewska shares her perspective on the Polish scene.
Promoters and selectors from non-central cities in Colombia, such as Mocoa, Pitalito and Pereira, tell us what it is like to organize a party and keep an electronic music collective alive, before and during the pandemic, in these territories. Despite having several factors against them, the imagination and collective work of a few helps to fulfill the same dream: to diversify the sound circuit they inhabit.
For several years now, the electronic scene in Colombia has started to think about the consequences of violence on and off the dancefloor. Three initiatives are redefining the notion of care and safety at night and, from different angles, resist the normality of complicit silence and violent spaces.
During the massive 2021 Colombian protests, partying, dancing and electronic music were key tools to gather social fabric and resources in support of the mobilisations. Motivando a la Gyal, Génesis Sound System and Fuerzas Sónicas Unidas were three active collectives during those months, who found in electronic beats a form of activism.
Communities in resistances need safe spaces to live, meet and organize in. They also need physical testaments of their ideas that can be shared, away from the scrutiny of unwelcoming web servers and platforms, transported safely under a mantle, and transmitted in closed circles.
Fanzines are a fantastical tool able to do that just that, while at the same time creating a field for expression, experiments and liberating imaginaries. Girls* to the Front, the polish queer and feminist fanzines perfectly embodies that fonction. We were lucky to meet with Agata Wnuk for an in-depth interview around her zine project, which started as an event series in Warsaw.
In Kyiv, the mysterious club ∄ recently celebrated its second birthday. Over two years, this pioneer of local electronic music cultures has built a real community around its expansive project, which offers an artistic and educational platform for artists and audiences in the Ukrainian capital. We spoke to the actors of Kyiv's musical landscape to shed light on this club and its trailblazing scene, in a sometimes tense political and social climate.
Amplified by personal testimonies and illustrated by Romain Guédé's photographs, this letter acts as an alarm, in which the authors condense a worrying inventory following a recent liberation of stories around the topic of assaults and attacks happening in European festive spaces, as well as initiatives implemented to fight sexual and sexist abuse, initiatives creating windows of hope.
We partnered up with the team from Nique la Radio to create three special episodes of Faya, a podcast travelling across dancefloors all around the world. For this first one, we're headed all the way to Warsaw to meet up with local artists and activists who are fighting to preserve their music scenes and create safer night spaces for all.
Through her relationship to the radiophonic medium, her work on colonial archives and her performances as a DJ in events linked to the LGBTQIA+ community, Rokia Bamba draws a canvas in which sound waves and activism are tethered. We met the radio anchor, DJ and sound director at Café Congo in Brussels, for a conversation as part of Nuits sonores Brussels & European Lab Brussels.
