I feel like at this place if you blink you miss 10 things already, because it just moves at such a quick pace.

Welcome back everyone to the Basecamp, which has been in full swing lately and I’m here to bring you some fantastical updates and insights.

Since much has already unfolded in the last few weeks, I’ve asked Esther Westra, Basecamp coordinator of the Space Making domain, to give us a little run down on one or two of the new events that are transpiring at the Basecamp in this next phase.

So just as a quick reminder we ended just at the start of the summer with the Storytelling workshops by New Women’s collective.

Esther: “So two or three weeks ago we had the final event of the storytelling workshop. It was so beautiful and nice to see the trajectory of the stories. Before Solidarity Storytelling, the final event on the first of November, we had a rehearsal so they could get comfortable on stage, like feel what is it like being on this podium with a mic in your hand. From that moment on to the final event the stories still changed. There were some musical interludes. It had good vibes and was lovely to see and hear the outcome.

I feel like at this place if you blink you miss 10 things already, because it just moves at such a quick pace.
We started again with the VOKU with more festive vibes and some DJs playing. We also launched some new programs which have been very exciting this period. For example, we had our first addition of the Music Café called Piece the Resistance organized by Triwish Hanoeman. The whole idea about the Music Café is to give local artists/musicians a platform and a podium to share their stories, while connecting different communities together through music. The first addition was with a local band called Small Axe, it was their first performance. They have been playing for years, but in different forms, they know each other from their youth, then they got back in contact in covid times and decided to start playing music together instead of separate. The evening included an open mic, offering other smaller artists and the participants that attended the workshop storytelling through music, which was hosted earlier that afternoon, the opportunity and space to share what they created. This came out in the form of some spoken word and rap, or for example Meg, who played some beautiful songs with her acoustic guitar. This was all in combination with the previously mentioned rock band, very much Rage Against the Machine, kind of like “we have a message, we're mad about it and we’re going to push it”. So, a mixture of different genres was played that evening and I think that’s the nice thing about music is that it brings people from different backgrounds together. We have our second addition in December, so keep an eye on our agenda.

We also started our youth program called Young Revolt organized and curated by a former BAK fellow Raidan Baqi. These are a series of events for youth by youth, workshops, spoken word, pop-up exhibition, good discussions and more.”

I must say thank you to Esther for sharing this with us. These new nuggets of info are drawing me into the space with even more curiosity than before, and I hope that you too will make space in your agendas to join some of these carefully curated programs.

Maybe I will see you at one or more of the upcoming programs and otherwise I’ll catch you up in the next blog post.