Fantastically luminous flower animals, sea anemones, glide through the underwater worlds on the advertising posters for this year’s eighth edition of the Berlin festival called Pop-Kultur, which takes place from August 24th to 26th in Berlin. A dive below the surface of what is always visible anyway. The advertising visuals fit perfectly with what pop culture stands for: while the same white male bands are often booked at the country’s major commercial music festivals, pop culture always gives a big stage to those who are generally given too little attention .
Queer and (post-)migrant acts, especially from the African diaspora, are the focus of the pop culture festival this time. People with and without disabilities meet as equals. The festival area is wheelchair accessible. Some of the concerts and panels will be translated live into German sign language. Pop culture wants to do everything right where other festivals fail.
Still, some people take offense at the pop culture festival. The Israeli Embassy was one of the sponsors of the festival at some editions, including this year. From the perspective of the Israel-critical BDS movement (“Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions”), which has its own online presence and the associated Twitter channel BoycottPKBerlin operates, the festival is thus in common with the policies of the Israeli government, which accuse BDS and numerous civil society organizations inside and outside of Israel of “apartheid” towards Palestinians.
It is true that the comparatively low – one might almost say symbolic – three-digit funding sums from the Israeli embassy in previous years only related to individual projects, such as travel allowances for Israeli participants. But that was enough for the BDS activists to call for a boycott of the festival. In 2017 they managed a scoop by persuading the Scottish hip-hop act Young Fathers to cancel the festival.
At the request of the Berliner Zeitung, the press department of Pop-Kultur announced on Tuesday afternoon that the commissioned work “BĘÃTFÓØT feat. Kunty Klub” received a project grant of 5000 euros from the cultural department of the Embassy of Israel.
Lafawndah canceled her participation and criticized censorship in Germany
After it had been quiet for a long time in the run-up to the boycott of the pop culture festival, something is now brewing: the Parisian experimental pop musician Lafawndah and the act Trustfall announced their non-participation via Instagram two days before the festival began . As someone who “stands against all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination – including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism and hatred of LGBTQ+” she decided to join the protest of those who had already canceled their participation in the festival , write Lafawndah on Instagram. She agrees with Amnesty International, Btselem and other civil society organizations that Israel is systematically oppressing Palestinians. The pop culture festival contributes to the embellishment of this through the cooperation with Israel.
Lafawndah also criticized the festival for hiding the cooperation with Israel on its website three weeks ago. When asked by the Berliner Zeitung, the Pop-Kultur press department countered: “No logo was put online for a short time and then removed again. However, the partner site has moved to a different URL this year.” This has “very practical reasons of clarity and accessibility”. In fact, the logo of the embassy can be seen on the festival’s partner website – with a reference to the sponsored project. There can be no question of concealment.
In her post, Lafawndah also referred to the Bundestag’s BDS resolution, which created an “atmosphere of censorship and oppression” and the “Cosmopolitan initiative” of numerous German cultural institutions that opposed the effects of that resolution. She hopes her decision to cancel her participation will be understood in this context.
More acts followed and the BDS activists applauded
A day before the start of the festival, the Saudi Arabian-born Londoner Alewya followed, who would have wanted to chase trap and dub and Afrobeats through the sound mixer in pop culture. BDS is already applauding them. And maybe this is just the beginning. In any case, the losers of the boycott are the many exciting acts at the festival, which glide under the water like glowing sea anemones – but will certainly attract less attention than the political debate. The festival wants discourse around pop, you can tell from the panels. But that’s probably not how they imagined it.
What can actually be criticized about the festival (initiated by the Berlin Musicboard and subsidized by the state): that with almost a hundred events in just three days it is much too densely programmed and thus reliably triggers a nervous FOMO (fear of missing out): During on the opening Wednesday from 9.40 p.m. in the Palais, the first Pakistani Grammy winner Arooj Aftab serves a sound cocktail of jazz and Hindu classics, you could also listen to the celestial synth reverie of the Latvian Sign Libra in the Alte Kantine next door. Typical pop culture effect: you would love to dance at at least two weddings at the same time.