Ten Cities, is a global and culturally revelatory project that is documenting the social practice of going clubbing. It is the brainchild of Goethe-Institut Kenya in partnership with Adaptr and C/O Berlin. The project spans two continents, 10 countries and three disciplines (music, photography and writing).
The cities involved are Berlin, Bristol, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kiev, Lagos, Lisbon, Luanda, Nairobi and Naples. The criteria set down by the project: cities with highly developed club cultures with outstanding musicians, cities with specific local forms of music and characteristics in terms of urban development, or home to well established subcultures and subaltern public spheres and voices. About 50 DJs, producers and musicians are teamed up therefore enabling them to produce music together and exchange their knowledge about the club scenes in their countries.
The European guys are not teaching anything to the African colleagues. That would be ridiculous. The bridges are built by producing music together. The symmetrical and equal exchange is crucial here. — Johannes Hossfeld, Director of Goethe Institut Kenya
As a culture, clubbing is one of the most dynamic cultural forms worldwide with regards to space and the public sphere. It is also a space for experimenting with identities and lifestyles. Musicians today keep in touch with global pop culture viathe Internet which in turn, inspires local creativity and finds its way back into the Western world. However this Eurocentric attitude, often leads to a lack in both the appreciation of the African cultures within which all western styles of club music have their roots, and in the physical exchange between musicians and activists between the two continents. The Ten Cities project answers these concerns through a combination of music production, photography, and interdisciplinary research.
TEN CITIES Luanda – DJeff, DJSatelite, LucioAquilina, MarcoMessina
TEN CITIES Luanda – Concert Luanda
TEN CITIES Luanda – MC Sacerdote
A research project comprising of 23 researchers will use the perspective of club cultures to explore and investigate the term of the public sphere. They will work on essays and studies about those partly unknown music scenes and their sub cultures; ten photographers will capture the same on an artistic level.
Ciné Kenya 