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WedThis workshop/discussion unites several organisers and promoters from Germany and beyond who have have actively undertaken measures to reach out to different marginalised communities and to provide and protect safe spaces and who faced challenges in promoting, encouraging and defending diversity at their events.
While in Berlin we find ourselves in a relatively open, safe and tolerant environment, in many other places organisers and promoters face challenges from a number of perspectives, be they government restrictions, strategic policing, intolerant behaviour by people at odds with non-normative content and audiences, or even powerful disagreements within one’s own community. Starting with an examination of challenges past and present, the group will work towards devising practical guidelines with concrete examples from their own practices, including insight into potential pitfalls and difficulties as well as into unlikely allies and creative solutions.
We warmly welcome all interested promoters, organisers and members of the general public to actively join in the discussion.
Update 31.1.: Thanks to Pamela Owusu-Brenyah for joining on such short notice!
Gosia Płysa is a curator, arts and music promotor, artist and event manager, and Executive Director of Kraków-based Unsound Festival – international festival of electronic, experimental music and new forms of art.
András Nun set up volunteer-based Ultrasound Foundation in Budapest 1999, running UH Fest (aka Ultrahang) since 2001. The festival serves as one of Hungary’s notable links to international contemporary music networks. With Ultrasound Foundation, Nun has taged more than 500 concerts, mostly premieres in the country, helping foster a receptive, attentive and open minded audience.
Franz Thiem, born in East Germany, moved to Leipzig in 2005. He comes from a hardcore/punk background and studied humanities, cultural science and event management. From 2012 on, he has worked as a founding member and manager of the forward thinking club, Institut fuer Zukunft, which opened in 2014 in Leipzig, Germany.
Boo Lean (Lauren Goshinski), is an audio-visual curator and DJ behind some key underground platforms in North America. As a curator for New Forms Festival, co-founder of the VIA Festival, and resident DJ/booker at Hot Mass, she’s been recognized as one of the "top 50 women making noise" both on and off the stage.
Doris Akrap, born and raised in Flörsheim near Frankfurt am Main, where her father settled from Yugoslavia. She studied cultural and religious science in Berlin and works as a journalist and editor of the Berlin based German daily, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ). She also writes for other publications like Guardian and is founder of the popular anti-racist Show "Hate Poetry (www.hatepoetry.com).
LCavaliero is an organizer, booker, DJ and performer. Currently he is the artistic co-director at SchwuZ, one of the largest queer clubs in Berlin and one of the longest-running, existing for 40 years. Besides organising parties for a diverse LGBTIQ audience LCavaliero conceptualises and organises a wide range of events such as concerts, shows, exhibitions, film screenings and panel discussions.
Pamela Owusu-Brenyah aka DJ Pam Bam made her career DJing in Accra. She is a member of Booty Bootique Sounds, a Berlin-based female DJ collective influenced by Afro-diasporic music like Hip Hop, Reggae, Afrobeats, Dancehall & R'n b, and also runs the African Food Festival Berlin.
Dresden-based Albrecht Wassersleben has been involved in German club culture for the better part of ten years. As a political activist, promoter, label-owner, DJ and programmer, Wassersleben has made a name for himself both upon the stage and behind the scenes.
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