Berlin in the Bush.
Queer World Building at WHOLE Festival
WHOLE Festival has become a benchmark for Queer gatherings in Europe and beyond, with Queers thronging from across the globe each year to Ferropolis, 25 km outside Berlin. Dazed caught up with WHOLE’s organisers, some of this year’s performers, and guests to find out why WHOLE is in a league of its own. When anyone talks about attending WHOLE, there’s a distinctiveness in how they describe their experiences—admiring sighs, devilish grins, bodies readjusting to homeostasis as they recall romps around the quarry. Now in its sixth and largest edition, held again in Ferropolis, 25km outside Berlin, WHOLE hit capacity, welcoming 9,000 guests. Rapidly expanding since its inception in 2017, the festival was conceived by Berlin’s international Queer party collectives, rooted in a devotion to quality sound and a recognition of the need for a festival by and for the queer community—a place to unite, learn, and celebrate. “We came to the realisation that festivals do not prioritise creating safe spaces for queers, we also felt there was a lack of queer representation at festivals, and decided it was important to create a place where our community could come together,” WHOLE’s organisers inform us ahead of last weekend’s event, “to co-create, share, exchange and learn from each other in a political context, but also to celebrate each other, ourselves and all our successes in fighting for queer acceptance in our respective cities and countries.”
These intentions are evidently seen, felt, and acknowledged by the artists, performers, and general feedback from the crowd, who rejoiced in telling us how far they have come to be here: to perform, host lectures, meet with their friends from all over the world or support their collective, the majority giving WHOLE the cake in comparison to other festivals.
While interviewing attendees on Saturday afternoon we met with Toronto-based DJ, Chippy Nonstop, who had just arrived and told us, “this is my first WHOLE. I have been here before for Melt Festival, but this is giving more homo, so I like this more.” Agreed.
As we continued our round of interviews, two close friends tenderly shared with us why the space is so important for them, “it feels like a massive sleepover with all our queer friends from Berlin, and all over the world,” “we couldn’t imagine a space like this were possible, where we are both originally from, it’s magic.” In a similar spirit back at our campsite, we spoke with a group of friends who discussed the importance of their lengthy trip from Cape Town in order to support their friends, The Death Of Glitter (D.O.G), one of the selected international collectives for this year's programme, D.O.G have made national noise around issues of inclusion and become fundamental to the LGBTQIA+ culture and community in Cape Town.
Beyond the dancefloor, the decadence and debauchery, WHOLE is staunchly political—a quality inseparable from Berlin’s Queer parties. Amidst the fervent rise of Nationalism and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, their extensive cultural programme felt heuristic and liberatory; tackling pressing social and political issues facing the Queer community today. A significant addition was TRINA: an experience crafted by and for the BIPoC community, which the organisers described as “essential.” The TRINA programme, which nurtures and fronts Black-led spaces, included the panel, Decolonising Desire: Navigating Misogynoir and Racial Fetishization in Sex Positive Spaces, led by performer Ivy Monteiro and author Jennifer Neal.
Most notable this year were two panels in WHOLE’s TALKS programme that focused on Islamophobia and Queer mobilisation for Palestine. Fund Healthcare Not Warfare, facilitated by ACT UP activist Dan Glass and Palestinian doctor, Qassem Massri, and Innocent Until Proven Muslim, led by Fouad Gehad Marei, a political scientist and editor of the forthcoming book, Race and Islam. Innocent Until Proven Muslim ensured the festival was inclusive of BPoC individuals, given the vulnerability and stigmatisation in recent times, exposing anti-Muslim racism and challenging misconceptions about Muslims' views on women's and LGBT rights, promoting unity between Queers and Muslims.
The lineup of specialists in the fields of activism, sex, and gender was as packed and hot as the music programme. Ben Miller, author of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History (Verso Books) along with João Florêncio, author of Bareback Porn, Porous Masculinities, Queer Futures: The Ethics of Becoming-Pig mapped the history and discussed the future for public sex in queer culture in their Darkroom Discourse workshop. They were joined by the team who led the DTF cruising space (Down To Fuck, or Dykes Trannies and Faggots) to unpack some of the ambiguities in queer public sex. DTF was introduced to the cruising areas offered at WHOLE this year, acting as a renegotiation of the FLINTA*-only space from the previous year, as some of the community felt the policing of, and segregation of Queers in these spaces is unnecessary. Instead, at DTF, individuals came together (as they historically have in this context) with the potential to face any internal conflict or discomfort that may arise from their experience. This example of negotiation and expansion of the cruising spaces mirrors the festival's ubiquitous attitude for continuous evolution. Through conflict resolution, evaluation, and recognition of the complexities involved in shared spaces, the festival promotes an environment where individuals are encouraged to embrace discomfort, surprise themselves, and engage in self-inquiry to counter the inevitable internal conflicts that come with being part of a larger queer community.
From Mephedrone information stations, prompts to fill PrEP scripts online prior to the festival, and signs sporting, "push your looks not your limits" there was a familial spirit that echoed what community and freedom can feel like when approached with respect and deep care. While manifesting a Queer utopia amid rampant hedonism and thundering techno might at first seem trite, the consensus from returning Queers and newcomers alike is that WHOLE walks the talk, standing unrivalled in its radicalism, sense of community, and energy.
This feedback stems from WHOLE’s willingness to continue experimenting and, more crucially, its openness to failure. A quality Jack Halberstam, in The Queer Art of Failure, describes as a powerful antinationalist weapon, that allows for new forms of relationships and political agendas. At WHOLE, the agenda is evident and results in Queer counter culture at its finest.
As a participant emotionally exclaims in one of our interviews, “why … why can't we live, even a little more like this? It's a good question and one WHOLE will be interrogating and dancing towards for years to come.
(original text)
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