"Awareness is not a status just like allyship, they are active activities"

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Interview and text by Sophie Kübler | 17.06.2022

In
Conversation with Fluid
Festival

Learning from each other and with each other. Heterotopie e.V. creates Fluid Festival, a cultural hub for safer spaces in the club landscape, gathering workshops, art and music with artists CCL, Sedef Adasi, Felicitas Butt, Nahyun Park, Jamie Tiller, Binh and many others.

The last two years have been dominated by two spaces. A very narrow space - the home - and the infinite space - the internet. Two extremes that demand responsibility from their users to make them work for the individual and in the community.

Heterotopie e.V. creates in a cultural context Fluid Festival for safer spaces in the club landscape. Breaking social conventions, creating meet-up spaces and drawing attention to voids in (rave) culture with a diverse program is in the focus of the meanwhile almost 40-person crew that carries the Fluid Festival. With links to experienced people from the fields of awareness and anti-discrimination, as well as the perspective of those affected, a broad spectrum of knowledge comes together to shape both the concept and the social impulses.

Over the course of two years, small teams have formed within the organization, connected by the idea of learning from and with each other. Under a progressive line-up from local scenes, the dance community is brought together.

The subject may be aging, but the visibility, awareness and spaces create important actions and people like Fluid Festival and the people behind it. Changes in music culture and the broader context can only unfold and spread if these calls for change are also used as opportunities for interaction that lead to new movements. Only in this way can a healthy and non-discriminatory community grow.

On June 24 - 26 at the "Zurück Zu den Wurzeln Festival Gelände" in Brandenburg, near Berlin the Fluid Festival will take place. Invited guests include CCL, Sedef Adasi, Felicitas Butt, Nahyun Park, Jamie Tiller, Bin and many more.

What the goal is during the festival days, who is involved and when the festival was created, tells us the team in the interview.

Image by: Mathilda Noelia

Summer is coming and we finally have space to spread out again, to dance, to meet with each other in company....

Space is an important point here, because the last two years have taken place in a very narrow space - at home - on the one hand, and in an endless space - the internet - on the other. Heterotopie e.V. has therefore organized the Fluid Festival in order to create a common space again after a long period of distance, in which each person feels comfortable.

Why is this kind of space so important at this time?

In particular, the people and the cultural landscape have suffered from the restrictions of the pandemic, which has only strengthened our decision to create a festival. The idea of opening such a space, however, is based above all on the fact that we want to create spaces for interactions. A place that breaks with social conventions and offers a place where everyone can feel comfortable.

**Can you tell people who might not know about Fluid Festival something about your work and yourselves?

We are now a permanent team of about 40 people who have been working exclusively on a voluntary basis for more than two years. This shows the vision and also the passion that goes along with this work. We are all united by our interest in music, art and culture in general, as well as the idea of learning from and with each other. For us, the Fluid Festival offers great potential for developing and sharing knowledge. We see the project first and foremost as a learning project, with the aim of firmly anchoring Fluid Festival in the cultural landscape, to give artists and DJs a platform and to give visitors a good time.

The project has been around for almost two years and not only brings together different people and perspectives on safer spaces, interaction and awareness at electronic dance events. Through the work with e.g. WirMüsstenMalReden, Fluid also has a political and social impetus. What is Fluid's field of activity and what goals are you pursuing with the project? Are there perhaps higher goals that could be achieved through it?

Besides preserving and contributing to culture, we want to create a space where people are aware of their different positions and privileges in the white, cis-hetero-dominated society.

Together with experienced people who bring expertise in the field of awareness and anti-discrimination and/or speak from an affected person's perspective, we want to create a space that makes Fluid Festival as protected and non-discriminatory a place as possible and creates safer/braver spaces. We do not tolerate any behaviour or expression that is homophobic, trans*, non-binary or misogynistic. We are against forms of discrimination and racism at our festival, which we clearly name here: Anti-Black racism, Jew-hatred, Anti-Muslim racism, Anti-Roma and Sinti racism, Anti-Asian racism, Slavism, Cissexism, Ableism, Ageism, Adultism, Lookism and Colorism. Discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender construction, race, nationality, socio-economic living conditions and religion.

By clearly pointing out and raising awareness, we want to draw attention to the voids in (rave) culture and facilitate a festival that makes people and their communities feel safer.

It should be noted that the Fluid team is largely made up of white cis people with a majority academic background and German citizenship. Our group represents queer and straight perspectives. The team actively engages with these power dynamics and is in the process of learning and working through the concept of allyship and powersharing.

Image by Tim Schütze

At the beginning, the basic idea was developed by ten people with different competences. Due to the growth, you now organize yourselves in the form of small teams and, in addition to your individual core competences, you also contribute to other areas of expertise. What are these areas and how does this method affect the working environment? Are there any anecdotes or situations that you can think of where this way of working has worked particularly well?

Over the two years, firmly established small teams have been formed, which ar ein charge of different areas of responsibility. However, many people do not only participate in one small team, as we do not only want to use competences, but also to encourage and build them. Thus, many people are also part of a team without bringing any prior knowledge with them, but in order to acquire this knowledge together. The following small teams are firmly anchored in our organization: Awareness & Our Space, Music Booking, Development & Project Management, Funding, Art, Sustainability, Finance, Creation, Production, Gastronomy, PR and Plasma (Programme & Design).

Besides the work in these small teams, a festival mainly requires interface work. Good, transparent and documented communication is essential for optimal cooperation, which was difficult to implement during the pandemic and also due to the demographic composition of our team. However, we have been working with notion, a project management tool, for some time now, which has made our daily tasks easier.

Of course, it is optimal if the interface work is done by a person who belongs to both Team A and Team B. This is not at all unusual. This way, no information is lost and communication is eliminated.

**Fluid writes on the website that you deal with allies and powersharing and have therefore also called on other collectives to join in. This means that many different voices and perspectives come together, which is an excellent basis for your project. In your opinion, what are the advantages of getting others on board?

It's not about advantages, but about the fact that we as a team are a relatively homogenous group of people and cover very little variance in perspectives. We are aware of this and of our privileges and, for this very reason, we want to try to open up the space and also make other people aware of their positions in the white cis hetero-dominated society. Moreover, other (affected) perspectives always offer the chance to stimulate further unlearning processes. Only in this way can we realize our goal of making the Fluid Festival a place that is as protected and free of discrimination as possible and create safer/braver spaces. With our festival we try to learn and establish the approach of powersharing and allyship and to develop and implement a concept in the long term. To this end, we are continuously dealing with these issues within the team and organizing joint further training.

**At the moment, news of spiking is also circulating in Berlin, which is an enormous danger for all those involved in an event. But this is only one of many problem areas that make an awareness team at events necessary. You also have an awareness team at the festival that looks after the concerns of visitors and intervenes and comes to the aid in an emergency. What are some situations that you can name where someone should not be afraid to go to the Awareness Team?

In principle, in any situation where a visitor does not feel comfortable or safe or has noticed an inappropriate situation at the festival, he/she can confide in all visible team members of the festival (awareness team, bar team, toilet team, psycare team, security, etc.).

This is not only about situations where, for example, a person's circulation is unstable, but also about respecting personal and individual boundaries and needs. If these have been exceeded, we act according to the principle of power definition. We always believe the person concerned and support them in resolving the situation according to their wishes and needs. This includes, among other things, sexual assault, insults and any form of discrimination, as well as psychological and physical violence.

The line-up is very progressive, bringing together many artists from different parts of the world and, most importantly, many are also part of other collectives or well-known groups in the electronic music scene from Berlin. Who did the curation for you and was there a musical goal?

Input for the line-up was collected from the whole team and finally curated and implemented by two people from the team. As we are rooted in the electronic music scene ourselves, we wanted this to be reflected in our line-up. We didn't go for big headliners, but for progressive DJs from local scenes, because it's also about creating a feeling of community between DJs and dancers. Musically, we don't want to serve any templates, but have consciously booked DJs who like to go new ways and surprise, whereby the focus always remains on danceability. The focus will always be on danceability, with all subgenres between house, techno, electro and disco.

We want to represent diversity and have therefore made sure that our line-up is not dominated by white cis men. We also try not to fly in artists, which of course had an impact on the selection of artists. In principle, we also want to offer a stage to young, not yet established artists.

**At the festival, different art forms and formats get a place in the programme. Can you give us a little preview of who you have invited, with what kind of work besides electronic music?

We have five artists who will present their works through different media. We have Felicitas Butt, Nahyun Park, Paula Eggert & Lukas Hartmann and Mathilda Noelia, among others, with photography and various forms of installations. We have also arranged for a varied programme that is (politically) educational, as well as exciting - with a reading, a live podcast, a screening, a dance choreography, walk-in tattooing and various workshops by: Şeyda Kurt, Futur Drei, Juicy, Body Textures, Queering the Perspective, (In) Submission, Tanja Sova and Venus Vigital.

You can also find more info at fluidfestival.de (http://fluidfestival.de) or on our Instagram page @fluidfestival.

**What do you think is the most empowering element?

We are convinced that the combination of the different elements is empowering. On the one hand, we would like to highlight the Our Spaces, two safer/braver spaces, each of which creates spaces for these communities that are not only meant to enable retreat, but above all empowerment. We are also proud to include not only music booking, but also installation artists and a diverse programme - from readings to walk-in tattooing to exciting workshops on the weekend of 24-26th June.

It is also important for us to create space and visibility for FLINTA+ and Bi_PoC DJs in the heteronormative techno scene.

**What do you say to allies who sincerely want to support Safer Spaces?

Awareness is not a status just like allyship, they are active activities. If you want to contribute to creating safer spaces it is important to be aware of your own privileges and to continuously address them and their impact. It is about listening to people and giving them space, about recognizing and acknowledging that violence and power relations cannot be dissolved, but that they can be made visible. It is about supporting each other and thus creating safer and braver spaces together - spaces that can be experienced as safe and empowering places through the assumption of responsibility by each individual person.

You can also find more information at fluidfestival.de (http://fluidfestival.de) or on our Instagram page @fluidfestival.