This was FIBER 2021!

With an afterglow, we look back on the three memorable days of FIBER 2021. These were days in which, after a long time, we were able to enjoy performances, dance, discuss and bring all our physical senses into action. Thank you for your presence, the inspiring conversations, and for enjoying the music and performances together.

In two evening programmes we explored and shapeshifted from calmly listening beings into dancing creatures. We were kept on our toes constantly and we have learned to expect not to expect. The performances and installations during FIBER 2021 were extraordinary, both hauntingly beautiful and challenging mind and body. The premiere of sound installation Raumklang at Muziekgebouw prompted a unique experience that demands to let go of vision as the primary sense to rely on.

During the talks, we met artistic makers and thinkers, who examined and discussed our state of being in a world that is becoming more and more alienated and uninhabitable. In line with the theme Mutation, topics like mental and physical care, uncovering toxicity, our ideas about what nature is, and the power of storytelling to imagine new worlds were discussed.

On top of all this, our Sound Ecologies Lab was running from 25 — 30 October, simultaneously with FIBER 2021. With Sound Ecologies we boosted interdisciplinary collaborations between sixteen artists, designers, researchers,  musicians, ecologists and scientists in order to raise awareness or make experienceable the invisible effects of the Anthropocene.

We thank all performing artists, installation artists, speakers, moderators, all Sound Ecologies lab participants, our lab organisers and curators Xandra van der Eijk and Mark Ijzerman and the many others who made this edition possible. A very special thanks to our partners Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, creative industries fund NL / Stimuleringsfonds, Tolhuistuin, Muziekgebouw / The Rest Is Noise, De Veemvloer, V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media, Ecology Futures, Glamcult, We Are Public and Subbacultcha.

In the coming weeks we will look back at FIBER 2021, share the online talks for replay (first for those who bought tickets) and also share many of the outcomes of the Sound Ecologies lab.