K O - H U M is a Berlin based company which curates, develops and promotes stimulating projects by artists working across sound, music, visual and performing arts.
Through close dialogue with a range of collaborators, the company supports artists in releasing their works, facilitating performances and establishing authentic ventures with cultural institutions, bookings, media outlets and venues.
At the heart of the company's practice is a process-based relationship between artist and audiences, which seeks to give the projects space to find their own rhythm, public outputs, and discourse.
Founded in 2017, K O - H U M ’s core aim is to foster a dialogue between a range of disciplines by providing a platform where adventurous minds can encounter art that contextualizes, interprets, educates and expands culture, leading us to the edges of the contemporary experience.
EASTERNDAZE × BERLIN 2021:
DIY MUSIC TOPOGRAPHIES
PRESS & MEDIA PARTNERSHIPS
The fourth festival edition continues to pair electronic music collectives of Eastern Europe and Berlin to celebrate DIY arts and communal ethos.
From the press-release:
For the 2021 festival edition with Easterndaze x Berlin, the connection between communities and collectives was symbolic - it did not happen physically per se, nor via online streams or virtual get-togethers. The collaborations took place in the form of a compilation and zine, an immersive installation, a week-long community radio marathon, and a presentation of historical and contemporary music videos.
An Embrace is a collaborative project between the Bulgarian experimental music collective Amek and the German music label Vaagner. Commissioned by Easterndaze x Berlin as part of the festival’s fourth edition, An Embrace aims to create a bridge between two communities from the different cultural environments of Eastern Europe and Berlin.
Each label invited artists from the respective regions to form four duos. Evitceles & Fortunes Brine, Zhe Pechorin & Anasisana, Krāllār & Ekin Fil, as well as Vague Voices & Crosspolar collaborated remotely to compose a piece inspired by the project's theme - An Embrace.
The final results are compiled and presented as a joint release between Amek and Vaagner, comprising of a limited edition cassette tape and a riso-printed zine offering further insight into the artists' creative process, as well as writings by S. N., Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Krisztián Puskár, and Stanimir Panayotov.
Community radios from Central and Eastern Europe connected through the Easterndaze x Berlin platform in an effort to encourage collaboration between these DIY mediums which play a crucial role in their respective artistic and community milieus (being implicitly political, especially in Poland and Hungary).
Community radios from Central or Eastern Europe Radio Kapital (Warsaw), Lahmacun Radio (Budapest), and IDA Radio (Tallinn/Helsinki), were hosted by Berlin's Cashmere Radio.
The project encompassed a week-long collaborative programming (including swapping shows and moderators - ie. a Cashmere Radio show would be moderated and presented - in a way remixed, or recontextualised - on Lahmacun by their own moderators).
The week culminated in a live broadcasting session and a panel talk about the issue of community radios on Friday, 23 April.
Listen back to Easterndaze On Air - Community Radio Project Archive - 19th to 23rd April 2021
Picture on courtesy of Lahmacun Radio
© Easterndaze 2021
Images on courtesy of the artists
© Easterndaze 2021
Another project is the immersive installation by Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus titled The Double, and presented in collaboration with Subtext Recordings.
The Double is part of a fictitious quantum entangled network of European colonial gardens with which the artist duo is engaging.
In The Double, botanical spaces are problematised, as sites of camouflaged violence, of appropriation and deletion. This iteration of the work takes place on the twin islands of Bärenzwinger, formerly used to cage captive city bears, and engages with the history of Köllnischer Park, once owned by the Freemason lodge. The Double will be presented to limited audiences as listening sessions on the evenings of 10, 11 and 12 September 2021.
The project by Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus received support by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and is part of the annual program “Bricolage” initiated by the Bärenzwinger curatorial team.
A selection of current and past music videos from the CEE region were shown at Zönotéka in Berlin's Neukölln, a collaboration with the Klipzona project, an archive of audiovisual music from Central and Eastern Europe, from the 1960s to the present.
Performers: Marijn Degenaar, Kani Marouf
Narrator: Elliott Lauren Ryan
Photography: Gedvilė Tamošiūnaitė
Costume: Limo
Installation assistance: Eglė Eigirdaitė
Commissioned by Easterndaze with support from Subtext Recordings and Bärenzwinger
Created by Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus
Festival program
Friday March 26, 2021
Compilation & Zine
Amek (Sofia) x Vaagner (Berlin) present 'An Embrace'
Compilation format: cassette & digital
Stream & download on Bandcamp
April 19 - April 23, 2021
Community Radio Week
Cashmere Radio (Berlin) x IDA Radio (Tallinn / Helsinki) x Lahmacun (Budapest) x Kapital (Warsaw)
Listen back: Easterndaze x Berlin 2021 On Air
September 10 - 12, 2021
Installation & listening session
Subtext Recordings presents
'The Double' by Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus at Bärenzwinger, Berlin
September 23 - 26, 2021
Easterndaze x Klipzona Videodrome at ZÖNOTÉKA, Berlin
Festival team
Curated by Lucia Udvardyova
Produced by Natalie Gravenor
Graphic design by Elod Janky
Press by Maria Orciuoli
Partners
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
Selected press
Kaltblut - Crack Magazine - CLOT Magazine - Monument - The Quietus: 'An Embrace' Cassette Review - Tzvetnik - Berlin Art Link - Groove Magazin - The Wire 449: Radio Activity - KAJET Journal - Kaput Magazin - LOLA Magazine - Cashmere Radio
