I'm a Finnish-Dutch artist, organiser and teacher living in Amsterdam-Noord. In my work I explore the revolutionary potential of collective creativity. As an autodidact DJ, filmmaker and anarchist, clubs are my art school and protests my phd.
I'm a Finnish-Dutch artist, organiser and teacher living in Amsterdam-Noord. In my work I explore the revolutionary potential of collective creativity. As an autodidact DJ, filmmaker and anarchist, clubs are my art school and protests my phd.
02.09.2022 - 30.10.2022
Artists: Harvey Ross Ball, Aukje Dekker & Gerald van der Kaap, Meeus van Dis, Franklin, Thomas van Linge, Michele Rizzo, Sarah Schönfeld, Alyson Sillon, Ari Versluis, Juha van 't Zelfde, Spyros Rennt, Mark Leckey, Vinca Petersen, Paul Blanca, Leigh Bowery, Cleo Campert, Jean-Paul Commandeur, Erik Fens, Peter Giele, Pieter Bijwaard, Harry Heyink, René Habermacher, Jurriaan van Hall, Gerald van der Kaap, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Seymour Likely, Siert Dallinga, Maxim Meekes, Erwin Olaf, Ruud van der Peijl, Walter Russ, Niels Schumm & Nepco, Gebr. Silvestri, Aam Solleveld, Jan Verburg, Guus van der Werf.
Collaborator: Karl Klomp
Photos: Nick Chesnaye
Tags: art, club culture, film, music,
Rave has been a breeding ground for creative expression since its inception in the US (Chicago and Detroit), the UK, the Balearics and continental Europe. Sweet Harmony shows works of artists who came from rave culture or are inspired by it in their practice. Their artistic expressions touch upon themes such as the spiritual and mythical aspects of rave; rave as a space for queer play and resistance; and exposes how rave culture has emerged in various cities worldwide at the same time.
The nightclubs Waakzaamheid in Koog aan de Zaan, Parkzicht in Rotterdam, and the RoXY in Amsterdam were places of prominence where manifestations of the Dutch rave and house culture in the late eighties and early nineties originated.
Sweet Harmony outlines the broad international context in which Dutch rave culture is embedded. It gives new meaning to local, seemingly self-contained expressions of mass youth culture and its impact on contemporary art and culture on a global scale.
ROXY
In 1938 the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga published his highly influential book Homo Ludens, in which he argues that all forms of human culture originate in play. In post-war Amsterdam this book became a primary inspiration for various cultural movements such as CoBrA, Provo, and punk, with Constant Nieuwenhuys’ utopian design of the anti-capitalist entitled New Babylon (1959-74) and John and Yoko’s Bed-In being some of its best-known results. Artist, DJ and organiser Juha van ‘t Zelfde sees the same spirit of Homo Ludens amplified in Amsterdam’s RoXY (1987-1999), a nightclub conceived as total art and aglow with collective resistance through radical imagination and play.
After previous editions in London and Manchester, the third edition of Sweet Harmony takes place in the most suitable space in Het HEM: the 200m-long former shooting range in the basement of the building. Raw and dark with multigenerational graffiti on its concrete walls, the tunnel’s post-industrial architecture will feel like familiar territory to ravers old and new.