Moshpit ABC
@ SofortBooks - Hamburg (2023)
Galerie Ladøns - Gängeviertel, Hamburg (2023)
Q-O2 - workspace for experimental music and sound art - Bruxelles, Belgium (2023)
Pic: Zabriskie Buchladen
"In Moshpit ABC, Louise Vind Nielsen explores the phenomenon of the moshpit—blurry, wild, and chaotic as it may seem — through a very clean and orderly structure: the alphabet. A is for Anarchy, B is for Break Something, C is for Care. Next to a collection of personal anecdotes (“It's the first part of my autobiography”, the author explains to us half joking, half serious), we find lyrics, quotes from novels, theoretical texts, movies, and also more ephemeral messages like writings on the wall of a loo in a squatted house. They function as starting points into the nuances of a (sub)cultural practice which remains never fully graspable as either/or. Louise takes us with her into “the pit” and becomes a relentless narrator: at times funny, at others philosophical, always casually honest."
SofortBooks
Pics: Zabriskie Buchladen
The moshpit is a phenomenon at concerts in which the audience dance energetically, kicking and pushing against each other. The moshpit is a ritual space for fans and insiders. A condensation of energy and ecstasy. However, in the moshpit, generally perceived as rather aggressive, predominantly white and masculine, there is also a form of care being performed: a physical game of pushing away but catching each other, a dance between alertness and loss of control, between physical collision and bodily sensation, between emotional spaces and possible worlds.
In "Moshpit ABC", Louise Vind Nielsen, Danish artist, composer and drummer in a band, dives into the moshpit on a philosophical and poetical level, forming her own personal vocabulary for "the pit". She quotes from the past and the present mixing song lyrics, anecdotes and theory with her own personal stories.
Moshpit ABC
© Louise Vind Nielsen - Hamburg and Brussels, 2023
Proofreading: Henry Andersen (Q-O2) and Sarah Plochl (EDGY)
Layout: Louise Vind Nielsen
Photo: Original by Dead Fish, Brasil, remixed by Louise Vind Nielsen
Fonts: Branding Aliskaye, BroHugs and FUNGIS
Print: Risofort, Hamburg
Ink: Orange & Fluorescent Orange
Paper: Fedrigoni Arena White Rough 90g
Published by SofortBooks
First Edition: March 2023
Edition of 100
The booklet "Moshpit ABC" was conceived as a part of Louise Vind Nielsen's artist residency at Q-O2 - Workspace for experimental music and sound art, in Brussels, January 2023. It was published as a part of her exhibition "Moshpit" in Galerie Ladøns in Gängeviertel, in Hamburg, March 2023.
Thanks to: Sevgi Aka, Farida Amadou, Henry Andersen, Florian Bräunlich, Julia Eckhard, Ludo Engels, Inger Elisabeth Gleditsch, Samantha Gora, Katinka de Jonge, Martin Kollmann, Martin Langenbach, Lucie Perineau, Nina Petters, Sarah Plochl, Lisi Pressl, Caroline Profanter, Hannah Todt, to my sister, my friends and family.
Thanks to Q-O2 and Musikfonds e.V. for supporting my research.
Thanks to Galerie Ladøns and Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg for supporting the exhibition.
Pics: Claudia Höhne
Moshpit ABC
@ SofortBooks - Hamburg (2023)
Galerie Ladøns - Gängeviertel, Hamburg (2023)
Q-O2 - workspace for experimental music and sound art - Bruxelles, Belgium (2023)
"Breathe with me" was conceived as a part of a collaboration with the Danish artist Rita Barbro Wilcke.