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7:30 PM-9:00 PM

Banned in DC: How a Local Punk/Hardcore Scene co-initiated a Global Network of like minded cultural activists

Discussion|With Cynthia Connolly, Thomas Venker & Natalie Avery

Register here (Eventbrite)

A compilation of images from the punk scene © Diane Krauthamer, Chris Boarts Larson, Petra Gall, via Wikimedia Commons

A compilation of images from the punk scene © Diane Krauthamer, Chris Boarts Larson, Petra Gall, via Wikimedia Commons

Join Banned in DC co-author Cynthia Connolly, Kaput Magazin’s Thomas Venker, and Fire Party’s Natalie Avery as they explore how the 1980s DC punk scene helped shape a nationwide and international network of underground culture.
 
The three speakers will share experiences ranging from making zines and organizing shows to documenting scenes and connecting with underground punk and hardcore networks across the United States and Europe. They will explore how punk / hardcore in the DC area cross-pollinated with scenes around the world, inspiring decades of explosive cultural change—and how those experiences have shaped their own lives and creative pursuits four decades later. They will also examine the changing cultural context between this highly influential era and today’s socio-political climate.
 
The three participants will also create a playlist featuring songs that had a lasting influence on them, accompanied by a slideshow of photographs from Banned in DC, Fire Party tours and the wider DC scene, placing the images and experiences within a broader historical context.
 
The event will be followed by a Banned in DC book signing with Cynthia Connolly.

This event is part of the Alle gegen Alles: 50 Years of Punk and The Art of Freedom series and is organized in collaboration with the DC Punk Archive and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

About the Speakers

More information to follow soon!

  • Cynthia Connolly is a photographer, curator, letterpress printer, and artist. She was involved in the punk music scene in both Los Angeles and the Washington, DC area, where she now resides. The punk DIY ethos had a profound impact on her curatorial and artistic work. She graduated from both the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and Auburn University's Rural Studio in Alabama, worked for Dischord Records and booked an avant-garde performance venue, d.c. space. In 1988 she self-published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes From the DC Punk Underground (79–86) through her independent press Sun Dog Propaganda. Her photographic work is ininstitutions including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smithsonian’s American History Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Deutsche Bank Art Collection and many private collections.She has won two National Endowment for the Arts grants for her projects and continues to work as Special Projects Curator for Arlington, Virginia.

  • Thomas Venker lives and works in Cologne, Germany.

    He is co-publisher and co-editor-in-chief of Kaput – Magazine for Bankruptcy & Pop, and co-curator of the concert series “Köln ist kaput” and “Talking Kaput.” In recent years, Kaput has received numerous accolades, including the Rocco Clein Award for Best Music Magazine (2015), the VUT Award for Best Experiment (2016), and three Anchor Awards, the music journalism prize presented by Hamburg’s Reeperbahn Festival, for articles by its contributors in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

    Before founding Kaput in 2014, Venker served for 14 years as editor-in-chief of Intro Magazine, at the time Germany’s highest-circulation music magazine, with a print run of 150,000 copies. In 2008, Intro received the Grimme Online Award for its groundbreaking digital presence.
    Venker regularly contributes to a wide range of magazines and daily newspapers, moderates panels and symposia for cultural institutions, runs the art vinyl label Edition Fieber, and is part of the curatorial team of the Monheim Triennale.

    In addition to his journalistic work, he teaches music journalism and artist marketing at several German universities, including the Institute for Popular Music at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Paderborn University, and the University of Cologne.

    He also advises musicians on career development and has worked with artists and projects such as Sid LeRock, Phillip Sollmann (Efdemin), the audiovisual performance project Phantom Kino Ballett (Sarah Szczesny & Lena Willikens), and the performance collective LABOUR.

    Most recently, his book Talking to Americans was published by Ventil Verlag in Mainz.

    https://kaput-mag.com/en/

Related links

Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50