KEYNOTE | Opening Talk: Festivals as radical rituals

On the surface, festivals are viewed as spaces that gather artists, fans, and culture makers in a showcase of art and music, some might reduce this even to the notion of entertainment. Under the surface, festivals present co-created gathering space that carries potentials for individual and communal transformation and meaning making.
In a post-pandemic reality, the role of festivals as places of radical love, solidarity and community, but also of resistance and liberation appears more important than ever. How can modes of festival production and the wider cultural ecosystem be reimagined and disrupted to bring us closer to this intention?
Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, co-founder of Discwoman and founder of Dweller Festival, delivers the opening talk of the Forum’s 9th edition. In this session, she examines the festival’s role as a site for resistance and reclamation through the lens of her work building Dweller, a self-sustaining festival founded in 2019 that celebrates and centers black electronic artists and perspectives.

The main Forum Room activities in English will be simultaneously transcribed live by the artificial intelligence application Colibri.ai (this concerns panels, presentations, Q&A and keynotes) for any attendees who will benefit from this accessibility feature.
Those wishing to access this feature will find the session link at the beginning of each content in the MUTEK Forum application. This is a beta service, we cannot guarantee 100% accurate transcription.