Abstracts 2023 | Music, Research, and Activism | University of Helsinki (2024)

Hip-hop has long been recognised as a powerful medium of expression for political content and contesting dominant discourses. Within hip-hop scholarship there is a common distinction made between conscious rap and gangsta or party rap. Much of the analysis and understanding of hip-hop’s political capacities has been located in lyrical content, for good reason. Yet, there are other capacities of hip-hop beyond the lyrical, and beyond the explicitly political, that have yet to be fully explored for their transformative and decolonial potential. The core hip-hop ethic to represent combined with the aesthetics of remixing and practices of sampling provides a method for reorienting, reframing, and re-embodying, ancestral knowledge and practice for the future delinking from the colonial discourse of tradition as locked in the past. In doing so hip-hop facilitates a maintenance of ways of being in opposition to colonial thinking, structures and stereotypes. The dominant oppressive discourses countered in much conscious rap all have deep effects on the mind (Thiongo 1985) and the body with profound impact on how bodies are affectively inhabited (Fanon 1967). The embodied affect of coloniality is perpetuated through ‘subtle’ interactions between bodies as Fanon’s reflection on his encounter with the white gaze articulates. Hip hop provides a particular stance, or mode of inhabiting the body – a way of grasping the world (Merleau-Ponty 1964) - of navigating post-apocalyptic lifeworlds through a mode of rhythmic embodied wording that centres knowledge of self and deep connection to place.

Drawing on ethnographic research on Xhosa hip-hop in South Africa and Warlpiri hip-hop in Australia, this paper argues for a sensory understanding of emcee practice, for the hip-hop body as a locus of political practice.

After adopting the so-called Law on Freedom of Religion in Montenegro, 27.12.2019. massive civil protests were launched. They followed the principles of non-violent civil resistance, with very innovative tactics of activism. Well designed, without violence, with active use of social networks, and especially the so-called meme pages, the citizens managed to fight for the changes that followed in 2020. At these mass demonstrations, appropriate musical songs were also regularly played, among which one stood out, and became a kind of protest soundtrack. It is the song “Sviće, sviće rujna zora” by the socially active hip-hop group Beogradski Sindikat (Belgrade Syndicate). It is based on the elements of traditional Montenegrin music, as well as the song “Još ne sviće rujna zora”. Using, in fact, strong symbolism, which can be found both in music and lyrics, this song sends a clear message and has the function of raising the morale of the protesters. The music video itself was designed as a series of authentic recordings from the protest, i.e. “litije”, as these walks were called. In this sense, the track is full of dramatic elements that affect the emotional awareness of the recipients (currently the song has almost 6 million YouTube views, which, bearing in mind that Montenegro, according to the last census, has a little more than 600,000 inhabitants, is certainly a huge success). In my paper, I will analyze the different levels of meaning of this song, as well as the ways of its effect. It is an activist song, which undoubtedly significantly contributed to the massive fight against, not only the law but also the entire system.

Since the 1979 revolution, women as well as ethnic, religious and queer minorities have been massively oppressed in Iran. Over the years, there have been repeated uprisings against the mullahs' regime, which have been violently dispersed. Following the death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Jina Amini in early September 2022 after being taken into custody by the morality police, she has become the leading figure of the biggest protest movement in Iran since 1979. And if she is the face of the movement, the song "Baraye Azadi" ("For Freedom") by Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour is the soundtrack of the protest movement. Hajipour, who was allegedly arrested after the release of this song, assembled the lyrics using hundreds of tweets describing what people in Iran are protesting for (i.e. "for freedom, for my sister, for the future of my kids"), and provided the protesters with a musical voice through this song. In this conference presentation, I will place the Iranian feminist protest wave 2022 in the historical context of women's rights movements in Iran before examining the song "Baraye Azadi" in relation to protest music in Iran in order to draw attention to the specific meaning of this song and to describe why this protest wave is like no previous one.

Fan communities strategically and organizationally plan and execute collective movements to get what they want. The collective sharing and practice of voting and streaming tutorials clearly demonstrate their movement of strategic consumption as cultural consumers. Some fan communities, such as the BTS fandom, have begun to use this collective power to raise their voices on social issues in addition to using it as a means for their own internal interests. Could this fan activism contribute to human, individual and collective flourishing? On what societal issues does their collective consciousness be awakened? How are movements organized and carried out to make their voices heard? This series of questions will ultimately provide an opportunity to know, at least in part, whether grassroot movement of participatory culture has potential as an alternative to the culture of consumption as Jenkins (2006) hoped and as a lever for individual and collective flourishing for which Hesmondalgh (2013) emphasized the important valeur of music in our individual and collective life. The goal of this study is therefore to analyze the value of the music fan community in our collective life. To do this, we conducted an online ethnographic observation of the Facebook pages of the two BTS fan clubs, who were active in this collective movement en France (BTS France and BTS ARMY France). As a result of the study, it was found that their collective consciousness was more sensitive to environmental and racism issues. They learn how to act for others and for the planet by undertaking various charitable and environmental projects. In particular, when there have been problems of racism towards artists and Asian and black communities, the French ARMY has shown strong cooperation and solidarity to inform and condemn it and to support the collective movement.

Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) is widely known as “the World’s Greatest Gospel Singer.” A musical pioneer, Jackson fostered African American gospel music’s popularity from a marginalized sacred music expression into a music style embraced not only by American mainstream listeners but also audiences worldwide. In parallel, Jackson’s sacred music, whether she sung in churches, concerts or political events, conveyed a highly effective sonic subtext of social uplift and hope. With an ability to craft an effective musical message to various audiences, Jackson brought gospel music to the highest levels of national attention. For example, scholarship notes her performance of the national anthem of the United States at an inaugural gala for President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as a hallmark of gospel music’s recognition. Jackson also sung the Spiritual “I’ve Been Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” and gospel song “How I Got Over” before Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963. These two distinct occasions demonstrate her versatility and major accomplishments as a gospel singer. Yet, a closer study of her nationally significant performances suggests that her experiences in politics were more nuanced than current writings indicate. Furthermore, the spiritual dimensions of her musical work remain understudied. Hence, through the study of varied archival sources I seek to offer a newly detailed account of Jackson’s remarkable contributions to American political life.

In 2010 the Afro-Fusion band Freshlyground released the album Radio Africa, which included a song that challenged and mocked then-long-time Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, entitled Chicken to Change. The band was scheduled to perform at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) in 2014, but was deported from the country shortly before the concert was to take place and only allowed to return to perform four years later.

The paper wants to position the song and its accompanying music video in the social and political landscape of Zimbabwe at the time and use it as an example to showcase the relationship between music and social/political struggles as well as music as a social/political force. To do this, the situation in Zimbabwe and the position of Robert Mugabe will be retraced to the point of the song’s release and the ensuing consequences.

At the same time, the paper will also look at Freshlyground’s role as a multi-national band addressing social issues in their music. In addition, the consequences of performing the song in Zimbabwe will be highlighted in connection to issues such as artistic freedom and freedom of speech. In this sense, Freshlyground will be looked at as musical activists that try to spread messages for social change in their music, inspiring their audience to take a stand for positive change.

Scholars, activists, and musicians often attribute powers of solidarity to music. However, they rarely explain what ‘solidarity’ means, and how music may generate, sustain, strengthen, or express it. This paper therefore investigates how solidarity as a political concept intertwines with musical practices. It develops a model with four prongs: ontology, sociality, mobilisation, and intentionality. Each explores a different facet of solidarity as a relation between people that centres a sense of togetherness and support.

To delimit this research, I focus on popular music during the 1984–85 UK miners’ strike. The strike was a crisis in a period characterised by polarisation not dissimilar to the 2020s. It thus emerges as a relevant moment for the study of music and solidarity. Artists like Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and Bronski Beat openly supported the miners. Using discourse analysis, musical analysis, and philosophical inquiry, I examine how these musicians and activists mobilised the word ‘solidarity’ when discussing music, what this music sounded like, and what these discourses and sounds uncover about perceptions of solidarity and music’s connection to politics.

I argue that ‘solidarity’ is a multivalent and underdefined, yet rhetorically powerful word. It is therefore perfectly suited to imbue popular music with political meaning and agency, particularly during moments of crisis. In turn, popular music is perceived as a medium that can rescue solidarity from extinction, co-construct its meaning, and broadcast this meaning to the people. Musicological analysis can reveal underlying assumptions about solidarity, including its fundamental processes of in- and exclusion. Music researchers can therefore make meaningful contributions to both scholarship and activism, by critically investigating the history and use of concepts central to the connection between music and politics.

Liisa Tuomi Dr. Mus, MSc Sociology, recently defended her thesis “Pop Singer in the Media. Representation of Women in Pop Music in the Finnish Newspapers and Magazines of the Early 2000s” at University Helsinki, Finland. Her Master’s thesis researched the “Liveaboards”- community in Bristol.

Music is a powerful tool for regulating emotions and maintaining mental well-being. Making music together connects people, as 'our music' creates a sense of belonging and unity. Choral singing has been a common activity among minority and under-represented groups, as well as by people with similar values. In our study, we examine the motivation of the members of the Estonian LGBTQ+ mixed choir Vikerlased (founded in 2017), focusing on psychological and identity-political aspects of singing. Furthermore, we look at how the joint singing contributes to the mental well-being of the choir members, both on the individual and group level, including within the choir and as supposedly people with LGBTQ+ identity in Estonian society. More broadly, we look at a globally widespread phenomenon – identity-based music – in a local context, focusing on the concert experience at the LGBTQ+ community's most symbolic series of events, the Pride Festival in Helsinki. For data gathering, we will use combined methods: participatory observation, a questionnaire and focus group interviews. Results will be analysed globally and locally within the local LGBTQ+ movement history and the Estonian choir movement.

Brigitta Davidjants studies the subcultural organization during the transition from late socialism to a post-communist society in Estonia. Her emphasis is on doubly marginalized identities that fall outside mainstream culture and are also peripheral to the relevant subculture because of gender, ethnicity, or gender representation. Besides, she has been active in the local human rights movement..

The paper examines how an amateur choir can act as a platform for civic participation and as a community for learning. Nearly five percent of Finns sing in a choir, but little research has explored the potential of such music hobbies to become spaces for social and environmental activism.

This paper explores the life and work of musician/activist Graeme Allwright and considers his legacy as a champion of social justice. When Allwright died in 2020 at the age of 93, his obituary in Le Monde referred to him as “a humanist singer with an atypical life” and hailed his early songs as “the anthems” of the 68 French student rebellion.Allwright’s translations/adaptations of protest songs by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, amongst others, made the socialist themes of 50s, 60s American folk music accessible to French audiences and especially resonated with the ‘soixante-huitards’ who brought down the Gaullist regime.I consider the distinctions between Allwright’s interpretations and the original works he translated, alongside an assessment of his own protest related compositions.The paper then explores the various protest movements Allwright was aligned to throughout his life and considers how these causes impacted on his musical output.Allwright was a truly global artist. Born in New Zealand in 1926, he moved to France in 1948 and subsequently travelled the world, capturing experiences that fed into his work.His repertoire was intensely humanist: consistently anti-militarist, anti-nuclear, and anti-consumerism. Yet while he was well known in the 60s and 70s, I suggest his refusal to follow traditional artist/fan relationships led to his marginalisation in later life. This paper calls for a reappraisal of Allwright’s position in thepantheon of ‘la chanson Francaise’, and as an influencer of French left-wing counterculture.

From the very outset, an ‘anti-system’ stance was integral to Czech adaptations of punk (sub)culture. This was expressed not only in opposition to the Communist state, with its police, army, education and psychiatric facilities, but also in attacks on the ‘conformist’ working class under late socialism and particularly on the Roma community, who were seen as a Communist-protected minority. As such, some punks engaged in radically anti-social acts that resembled those of the predominantly right-wing skinheads and hooligans. Meanwhile, a new and more self-reflective group of Czech punks with ties to alternative culture was voicing its opposition to fascism and moving steadily towards anarchism. Anarchist punks, in particular, were instrumental in organizing the first groups to oppose the far right. They were joined by other young members of alternative scenes, including relatively new ones that had emerged among Czech young people at the end of 1980s (for example, skateboarding and hardcore scenes) as well as some remnants of former underground and alternative groups under socialism. While Czech antifascism after 1989/1990 was based to some degree on a blank slate after the fall of the communist dictatorship, research on earlier modes of anti-fascism has helped identify key anti-fascist tropes, particularly from Germany. Both the history of political violence in western Germany and the German autonomist movement strongly influenced Czech antifascism. As a result, the latter tended to have a revolutionary mission that understood antifascism as the first step in the radical re-building of society. Research in punk fanzines of the early 1990s, also proved their green anarchist leanings by opposing nuclear energy, promoting the activities of Animal Liberation Front, and with critiques of militarism, and the direct action tactics of radical ecologists were also put into practice in violent protests against the annual horse race in Pardubice in 1991 and 1992.

The relations between Mexico and the U.S have for long time been marked by multiple crossings, permissions and prohibitions. On the one hand, the distinction of the Mexico-U.S. border as the world’s busiest land crossing point illustrates the dimension of the existing dynamics and flows. On the other hand, the policies and means employed by the U.S. government have been characterized by a material, legal and psychological harshness.

Bottom-up practices, in the form of activism or that use art forms and cultural traditions, have proven to be meaningful in the mediation of intercultural communications between diverse societies, particularly in contexts such as the Mexico-U.S. border where asymmetric power relations exist.

Finally, the non-Western values, principles, narratives, images, socio-cultural outcomes, and other elements produced by Fandango Fronterizo’s practices are assessed in terms of how they mediate intercultural communications between diverse societies. Therefore, proposing the case as an example of non-state, decolonial, and bottom-up form of cultural diplomacy.

Paola Nieto is a cultural manager and performing artist from Mexico City, based in Helsinki. She is experienced on artist management and event production in the fields of music and performing arts. She has worked for several organizations and artists in Finland and Mexico such as Compañía Kaari & Roni Martin, April Jazz Festival, Alejandro Marcovich, JazzMx, and The Cultural Centre of Spain in Mexico.

She holds an MA in Arts Management, Society and Creative Entrepreneurship by the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, with a secondary subject and research focus on Management of Global Cultural Expressions and Diplomacy. Therefore, Paola has interest in developing arts projects that promote intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding between societies.

The Siraya, an ancient and rooted aboriginal people dwelling on the Island of Formosa, have long been marginalized due to the lingering effects of colonization and Sinicization in Taiwan. Yet the Siraya have been strengthened with a spiritual awareness and determination that has helped them to thrive in contemporary Taiwan. Similar to the experiences of other indigenous communities elsewhere in the world, the Siraya people face a struggle to assert their identity and have their rights officially recognized by the Taiwanese government. In recent years, their cause has gained momentum due to the activism of Filipino-Taiwanese musician Edgar Macapili, his Sirayan-based household, and the Sirayan alliance. I investigate and assess the efficacy of Macapili’s musicking advocacy to achieve full official recognition of the Siraya community in Taiwan. In addition, I explore how contextual theology reflects an appreciation for ecology expressed within Siraya Christian music-making. I also analyze how Macapili’s music mediates in a reformed context, and what do cultural rights mean in Siraya music? This prompts the question how the contextualization concept revitalizes Siraya cultural identity, as they continue to deploy music as a vehicle for social justice, with their unrelenting efforts to pressure the Taiwanese government for equity and inclusion, hopefully leading to official recognition.

In this presentation, we present a sub-study of the Kone Foundation funded research project "Voices of a Silent People - Renovated Bodies", which examines deaf people's experiences of music education and their thoughts on deaf music. A three-year research project at the University of Oulu and Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences combine science and art, focusing on deafness and deaf history. Methodological starting point for the study is oral history research as the focus of the research is on the deaf people's memories of music education.

Based on the interviews (N=85), it is possible to classify the lack of actual music education, especially during the oralistic period of education (officially until 1970). Many scholars and activists compare the era of oralism to colonialism: sign language and deaf people were oppressed in a society and school system that favored the hearing and speaking. Among the older generation of deaf people there are a few memories related to music education, as it depended entirely on the teachers’ own attitudes and skills. During the oralistic period, music education was strongly associated with the training of hearing and speech. Teachers used music to teach deaf and hard of hearing students to hear and speak, rather than to learn or enjoy music. However, the hegemony of the hearing in music and music education has been challenged in recent years.

In this presentation we ask following questions: what is deaf music like? How do deaf people perceive music? Based on preliminary results show that most of them sense with their body, but if they use hearing aids one can sense through hearing, depending on the high or low sound. In addition to that, deaf people experience vibrations and sound waves with their bodies. The presentation takes the form of a dialogue between a deaf and hearing researcher

Outi Ahonen is a PhD researcher, and Senior Lecture at Humak University of Applied Science.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Black and white lesbians disrupted the heteronormative map of London’s nightclubs by creating their own spaces to dance, DJ and get lost in the music and each other. While the material power of white gay men afforded them access to leisure spaces, London’s lesbians worked in a cultural contraflow to provide their own spaces of pleasure. This activism was anti-capitalist and inclusive, it came from a DIY (Do it Yourself) approach, grounded in post-punk methods and Black British sound system culture’s influences. Designing, printing and distributing their own flyers and publicity, lesbian promoters and DJs worked collaboratively to secure venues and club nights upsetting the city’s gendered spaces and practices (Massey). These were fragile and short-lived events that existed on the peripheries and edges of the straight and gay club scenes.

The music of the Black Atlantic played on this scene (funk, soul, jazz and reggae) offered imaginings of hope and redemption (Gilroy). The messages in the music chimed with many of London’s Black, white and diasporic lesbians, presenting a sonic and imagined escape from the oppressive and threatening environments that women faced every day, at home, in work, on the street, and as lesbians. The music played was repurposed and refashioned in these women-only spaces by the lesbian dancers and DJ’s, creating an alternative imaginary world and offering ‘wiggle room’ (Ahmed) for women to expand into and express themselves.

This paper offers ephemeral items (flyers, mixtapes, playlists) as a method to recover and retell the history of the cultural activism that lesbians were involved in. Connecting these archival fragments with queer oral history accounts from lesbians who were on this scene, the resulting stories disrupt (Summerskill et al) existing histories of nightclubbing, centring on the experiences of queer women to tell a vibrant musical history.

The ethnomusicological studies proposed from the more conventional Academy offer a neutral and objective analysis of the data collected in the field, thus turning ethnomusicologists into neutral, non-political observers of the cultural and social processes of their objects of study. However, problems as urgent as ethnic inequalities, class inequalities, the right to cultural representation and the protection of cultural diversity seem to be left out of the ethnomusicological research agenda. Building on Appadurai's concept of "research from below" (1996) and "performance studies" proposed by Diana Taylor (2003), I propose a type of activist ethnomusicological research that is both politically engaged and scholarly.

In this communication I will address the problems that arise from the application of activist research methodologies, such as (self)reflection on my political positions and how these affect my research projects, collaboration during the research process with members of the local community and, ultimately, the social responsibility of the Academy. To do this, I will start from the long-term ethnographic fieldwork carried out with the women of Ons Island (NW Iberian Peninsula) between 2018 and 2021, which led to the creation of an audiovisual archive in collaboration with the Galician Culture Council and the recovery by the local community of its vocal musical repertoire accompanied with tambourines as well as its most representative dances.

Expressing grievances, mobilizing, and promoting reflection on contemporary issues, music in social movements has a vibrant history. Today, ‘the rise of populism’, which pits ‘good people’ against ‘corrupt elites’, pervades the political climate; with Poland and Hungary exemplifying its rapid escalation. The nationalism and authoritarianism of many European parties are now often inseparable from their populism. Popular music is at times used by populists to normalize their ideas, but so far, its role in movements that resist populism has been under-researched. In my presentation, I analyze the different multimodal strategies of resisting (right-wing, authoritarian) populism as expressed in protest music based on examples from Poland.

In 2015, a populist-nationalist party, Law and Justice (PiS) won the elections in Poland. Since then, widespread opposition to the party’s increasingly authoritarian and nationalist policies continues to manifest within movements that bring anti-populism to the streets; often with song and dance. By now, over 80 songs have been written to challenge PiS’ continued rule, diverse anti-PiS playlists have been shared on Spotify, and music became the central practice of protests with the emergence of so-called ‘techno-blocades’ and with lyric-inspired protest banners.

As I will show, the dichotomies that authoritarian populism relies on per definition are challenged within much of such protest music which presents new ways of defining ‘the will of the people’. Through lyrics, sound, and visuals, the protesters subvert populist-nationalist narratives, combine transgressive fun with serious political commentary, while also often reaching the cultural mainstream. By showing how social divides can be complicated, protest music has the potential to deconstruct right-wing populists’ self-proclaimed monopoly on the ‘will of the people’ and undermine their myth that society can be cleanly divided into fundamentally opposed groups of ‘the [conservative] people’ and the liberal ‘(pseudo)elites’.

For almost a century, the United States’ Left-wing and Labor Movement’s conception of revolutionary U.S. working class music has been dominated by a specific musical canon and performance practice derived from the Communist Party USA’s (CPUSA) Popular Front-era folk-revival (1939-1949). Indeed, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, for many the leading figure of the contemporary U.S. Left, recently held a talk on U.S. working class music, during which his recorded examples were overwhelmingly drawn from this period. In fact, two of the seven recordings were taken from the same 1941 album, CPUSA-affiliated musical group the Almanac Singers’ “Talking Union.” However, this has led to a situation in which the musical cultures of the U.S. diverse working classes have been coded as trans-historically Appalachian, as it was on the musical styles of this region that CPUSA folk-revivalists developed their notions of ‘folk-music.’

For example, the music of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), arguably the U.S. socialist organization best-known for its musical output (1909-1917), is almost always recorded in an Appalchian-derived style, despite there being little evidence that its famous songs were performed this way. In fact, primary sources relevant to the early IWW’s music indicate a heterogeneous performance practice reflective of its international, multi-ethnic membership. The earliest extant recording of an IWW song, Finnish-American singer Hannes Saari’s 1928 Finnish-langauge recording of Joe Hill’s 1915 IWW anthem “Workers of the World, Awaken” (“Proletaaarit Nouskaa”), arranged as a march and performed by a small orchestra, lends further credence to the thesis that IWW music was performed in a diversity of styles. Through a systematic analysis of the relevant evidence, this presentation will reveal the diversity of the IWW’s musical life in order to break the hold Popular Front folk-revivalism has on contemporary U.S. left-wing musical practice.

This article emerges from a postgraduate research project on the experiences of women in contemporary jazz, in Cape Town, a city in South Africa well known for its longstanding jazz culture and its ‘intrinsic relationship with politics. South Africa is a country steeped in histories of jazz closely tied to black-led anti-colonial, and later, anti-apartheid struggle, and questions of violent gender dynamics have always been raised within these histories.

The post-democratic state prioritized both racial and gender injustices, and contemporary jazz musicians are embedded within social discourses superficially interested in “change.” This paper will draw on qualitative material offered by South African women jazz artists to interrogate their multi-layered gendered experiences through an intersectional lens as marginal individuals and how these experiences tie into traditional African constructions of gender and sexuality, and subsequent limitations they place on women jazz performers. It will be a critical analysis of the presence, practice and impact of hegemonic notions of gender and sexuality within normative jazz culture in South Africa, and will illuminate some of their narratives on gendered surveillance over their bodies and careers, and explore these artists’ strategies to subvert this.

When punk exploded onto the music scene in the 1970s, the wider socio-political environment in Britain was one of resurgent fascism, racial tensions and misogyny. In 1976 the National Front gained political ground winning 18.5% of the vote in Leicester and 10% in Bradford, and the national press engaged in relentless attacks on immigrants. In 1979, an anti-abortion bill was introduced by Conservative MP John Corrie, posing a threat to women's rights. This paper examines, primarily through an engagement with the punk fanzine collection and other archival material at Bishopsgate Institute (London, UK) the strong anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-sexist thread running through 1970s British punk-rock. It examines the role both music and fanzines played in the creation and ongoing development of social movements Rock Against Racism (RAR) and Rock Against Sexism (RAS), and the ways in which RAR and RAS organised and campaigned alongside other movements to combat the threat of racism and misogyny in both the punk scene itself and wider British society.

Drawing upon ongoing PhD research into the digital feminist activism of women and non-binary extreme metal vocalists, this paper will address how extreme metal vocalists are utilizing the conventions of extreme metal to incorporate feminism and feminist activism into their artwork. This includes the ways in which vocalists use their lyrics, music videos, stage aesthetics and album imagery to engage with their feminism and do feminist activism. This paper will dedicate attention to the reasons why vocalists are choosing to do feminist activism through their music with consideration of the importance vocalists attribute to their feminism and their ability to bring their feminist activism into the genre. This is significant given the historically anti-feminist and misogynistic environment extreme metal has fostered. Nevertheless, the rise of feminism in the genre in recent years has allowed extreme metal to become a space where vocalists are able to shout back against oppressive narratives and experiences in the genre. The motivations for choosing specific feminist topics, both specific to extreme metal and wider society, will be highlighted, including why they have spoken about these topics within extreme metal. Lastly, the paper will examine what the conventions of extreme metal music can do for feminists by addressing the ways in which extreme metal allows feminists to do feminist activism in new and exciting ways.

John Godschall Johnson (1912-2003) was an Australian luthier, artist, and committed communist who became famous for his refusal to sell instruments, preferring to give them away to talented young players. He inscribed his violins, violas, and cellos with the letters ‘TIMBFG NBOS’, meaning ‘this instrument may be freely given, never bought or sold’, a label that stripped his creations permanently of monetary value at their very inception. Besides his rejection of the market economy he also eschewed all electric tools, preferring to embrace and rediscover, through research and experimentation, the most traditional aspects of the luthier’s craft. He tracked down old materials for his instruments and in the 1980s made the first ensemble of ‘baroque’ instruments on the continent. From that decade he also gave thousands of hours of demonstrations in public exhibitions and museums around Australia, and volunteered at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Public accolades of Johnson late in his life, as well as articles published in his memory, acknowledged that his generosity was connected to his political convictions. In 1932 he joined the Communist Party, in which he later met his wife Phyllis Johnson, née Mather (1917-2009). They were active in demonstrations for the decolonisation of Indonesia in the mid-1940s, and lifelong supporters of union movements. Johnson spent time in the Torres Strait and advocated for the rights of the islands’ Indigenous populations; in Sydney he contributed to the raising of awareness of Aboriginal people’s struggles. In the 1990s he constructed a string quartet in honour of Jessie Street (1889-1970), a prominent campaigner for women’s rights and Indigenous rights, and Australia’s first woman delegate to the United Nations. When publicly exhibiting these instruments-in-progress, he displayed information about Street’s life and work. This paper examines Johnson’s activism and praxis, exploring how his luthiery and his politics were intertwined.

The surge in the cases of gender-based violence and femicide in Latin America in recent years has sparked a social outburst in the region. Feminist groups are addressing this social problem calling for protests and leading actions of visibility and denunciation through growing efforts coming from collectives and organizations, as well as from scholarly and artistic spaces. In their struggle against patriarchal violence, the ideas and practices articulated through music and artistic performances have gained increasing visibility expanding to other feminist groups outside the region who adopt and transfer these ideas and practices to their own context.

The basis for this paper is the analysis of the practices and processes that music and the artistic performance afford and promote within these feminist movements. We focus on the autonomous feminist movement in Vienna around the alliance "Claim the Space" and take as an example the performance of Las Tesis "Un violador en tu camino" and Vivir Quintana's song "Canción sin miedo". Both have achieved great popularity in Vienna with versions in different languages and adaptations into the context of a variety of political and social struggles.

For the analysis, we depart from understanding music and sounds as iterable musical marks with the ability to adapt to different social and political contexts. This musical mark has a close link with corporeality and the body in the performance, which entails an impact on the way in which the activist message is articulated, transmitted, and reproduced. Our purpose is to examine the interaction and dynamics between music, corporeality, and discourse in the transmission of the activist message, to determine the extent to which participation in the artistic performance in the context of feminist protests can help strengthen the sense of community and thus empower new participants and new forms of activism.

Tessa Balser-Schuhmann (she/her) is a musicologist working on her master's thesis on voice and the category of social class. She is a collaborator in the research project "Women Musicians from Syria: Performance, Networks, Belonging/s" at MDW Vienna and also researches on TikTok, activism and music.

In recent years, we have seen a significant paradigmatic shift in contemporary music and sound practices and aesthetics. The role and scope of contemporary music and sound art are increasingly considered against the backdrop of modernist tradition and dogmas such as aesthetic purity, the ideal of l'art pour l’art, and detachment from societal or earthly matters. Thanks to the Frankfurt School of thought in general, and Adorno and his Philosophy of New Music in particular, contemporary music composers and organizers for too long remained wary of possible criticism the social and political engagement of contemporary music might spark. In recent years, this seems to be less and less the case as contemporary music and sound art festivals are proving to be actively engaging in positive social change, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, questioning their power structures, and engaging in expanding their communities, audiences, networks, collaborators, and partners. This mobilization of communities takes place at festivals through a wide variety of activities, formats, and initiatives. One of them is the Sounds Now network, an initiative of 9 European music festivals and art centers that address music and sound curating as a creative strategy that enables the reshuffling of the hierarchical power structures while allowing new and underrepresented voices to enter the professional field. In this paper, I would like to consider the agency, empowerment, community-building capacities, and resistance of contemporary music and sound art as intrinsic and address it as an aesthetic category integral to the compositional and sound art practice. If contemporary music and sound art are to remain sustainable, relevant, and necessary in our current turbulent times of political, societal, and environmental upheaval, we need to radically reconsider their social and political potential for community building, transnational solidarities, justice, and care.

Monika Żyła is a musicologist, cultural theorist, author, artistic director, and pianist. She is workingon her Ph.D. dissertation “Contemporary Music and Its Others: Female Composers, Gender Politics and Constructions of National Identity at the Warsaw Autumn Festival” (working title) in the Department of Musicology and Dance Studies at the University of Salzburg. She gives workshops and lectures on gender, diversity and inclusion in contemporary music and sound art both in the academic and festival context. She is currently affiliated with the University of Salzburg, the University of Vienna and Berlin University of the Arts. She has published research and critical articles in Glissando, Ruch Muzyczny, Dwutygodnik, Odra, Krytyka Polityczna, Circuit-Musiques Contemporaines, and Contemporary Music Review. Her peer-reviewed article “The Need for Otherness: Hispanic Music at ‘Warsaw Autumn’” was published Contemporary Music Review, Volume 38 Issue 1-2. Earlier, her peer-reviewed article “Cornelius Cardew behind the Iron Curtain” appeared in the Canadian musicological journal Circuit — Musiques Contemporaines (Volume 28, Issue 3) published by the University of Montreal. She is an author and producer of the series of podcasts about contemporary music called “Radio w Kuchni”. In 2018/2019 she directed and produced a series of 24-hour participatory staged performances VEXATIONS: REVISITED based on Eric Sate’s Vexations from 1893.

https://www.udk-berlin.de/studium/sound-studies-and-sonic-arts-master-of-arts/faculty-staff/guest-faculty/monika-zyla/