Future Festivals Lab
About the Lab
During the project’s co-design process in spring 2023, the partners identified shared challenges surrounding questions of accessibility, resilience and sustainability.
Over 18 months, each participating festival hosts a Future Festivals Lab that gathers the group, their extended network and selected experts in addressing these fundamental questions of festival-making.
The goal: deeply analyze shared problems and prototype solutions—from immediate, easy to implement measures to more ambitious, long-term proposals.
Next Lab
Mois Multi – Québec City, February 2024
The upcoming Lab activities in the frame of Mois Multi present a crucial transition point moving from knowledge gathering about the state of our cultural ecosystems towards addressing shared challenges heads-on.
From February 7 to 11, the cohort of partners gathers in a semi-public setting inviting emerging festival-makers and local cultural professionals in drafting a roadmap for addressing shared challenges. These focused work sessions are complemented by public talks and roundtables welcoming artists, audiences, and cultural professionals to join the discussions as part of Mois Multi’s Volet Pro conference program.
Past Labs
New Now Festival – Essen, June 2023
The first in-person activity of the Lab, which took place at New Now Festival in June 2023 presented the conclusion of the co-design process. The activities manifested the needs of festival makers to share knowledge with each other and to jointly advocate for their work and the challenges they are facing.
MUTEK Forum – Montreal, August 2023
Following the first Lab at New Now Festival in June 2023, the activities at MUTEK Forum 2023 were geared towards expanding the discussions beyond the core partners to the wider cultural milieu, our international network of festival-makers and cultural professionals, which annually visit MUTEK in Montreal.
The activities were set to
provoke a rethinking of festivals
to advocate for the work of festival makers and their challenges
to rejuvenate old and form new alliances, and
take steps towards Future Festivals.
MUTEK.MX – Mexico City, October 2023
On October 11, 2023, as part of the day time Digi Lab program MUTEK.MX hosted a panel discussion on Future Festivals with local organizations Hipnosis, Bahidorá, Marvin, Ceremonia moderated by journalist Cynthia Flores.
imagineNATIVE – Toronto, October 2023
On October 18, 2023, the indigenous film and media arts festival imagineNative hosted a roundtable discussion regarding the current ecosystem of Festivals. Inviting Toronto-based, Indigenous and visiting Festival organizers to join the conversation in regards to current challenges, post-pandemic realities, and how to approach collective solutions. In addition, Future Festivals was presented as part of the opening talks of imagineNative’s day time program.
Upcoming Labs
MUTEK Forum – Montreal, August 2024
send+receive – Winnipeg, September 2024
MUTEK.MX – Mexico City, October 2024
New Forms – Vancouver, October 2024
Documentation & Publication
The on-going documentation and publication is an inherent part of the project. We partnered with HOLO magazine, which are accompanying the project through an evolving multimedia dossier on holo.mg.
Interested?
Get in touch at futurefestivals@mutek.org
