Saturday 9 September 2023, 7.30pm
The livestream will be live on this page from 7:45pm on the night.
Exist is a festival and event series founded in Palestine, with the aim of building bridges between artists, musicians, DJs and curators from Palestine and across the globe. Its broad, transnational family are united in a desire to use art to impact their environments in critical ways, and through their engagement with anti-colonialism in the context of Palestine and beyond. Originally founded in 2019 by Odai Masri, Exist has since taken place as an ephemeral but impactful meeting point for musicians and artists who care for the Palestinian cause, and manifest this care in how they love one another. We've listened to our music, grown our family and danced together for hours in Ramallah, Amman, Beirut, Athens, Oslo and Berlin; now we've invited our collective to grace Cafe Oto and The Yard in London. The festival now defines itself as a growing family of siege-breakers who refuse to let Palestinian artists confront injustice alone. Exist is proud to bring together film, talks, music, performance, and dance events from underground veterans such as Choronzon and Drew McDowall as well as super powerful Exist heads like Kujo and Dirar Kalash.
This festival is generously funded by the following parties:
Tony Tremlett
Laure Genillard
DRTCO
Other People Imprint
On Friday the 30th of June 2023, Odai Masri aka Oddz, the founder of the festival suddenly passed away, leaving us with an abundant and deep conviction of what a generous ancestor can do for us.
We owe Odai the vision and groundwork for the accomplishments of this festival, its tightly knit network, and most importantly, we owe him our ethos of marrying uncompromising sound curation with uncompromising caregiving. He insisted on queering Palestinian narratives while resisting victimhood by acting as one another's care structures. This edition acts as a moment to remember him gracefully and extend gratitude for the time we were lucky to share with him. We invite our audience to act as carriers for these memories which we are so privileged to be able to keep with us. Exist is Odai's legacy, and we insist on keeping it strong, fearless and bound by love
Drew McDowall is a Scottish born, NYC based composer and musician. He was a member of Coil in the 90’s contributing heavily to some of their most respected and influential works.
An artist who has refused to conform in music and in life, McDowall mines the hallucinatory spaces that exist between reality and transcendental otherness. His work has been described as “sacraments to alterity”, with meditative compositions that are haunting and spiritual, melding intricate modular soundscapes with cut-up field recordings, deconstructing and reconfiguring sounds into otherworldly structures and shapes. The disorienting ambient mirages that result elicit terror, tender melancholy, and heavenly flickers of expansive beauty. He has released four albums on Dais Records since 2015 the most recent being Agalma (2020) and is known for his diverse collaborations, working with Kali Malone, Catarina Barbieri, Robert Aki Aubrey Lowe, Hiro Kone, Varg, Puce Mary, Shapednoise and others and has performed at many international festivals including CTM, Berlin Atonal, Dark Mofo, Unsound, Le Guess Who, Semibreve, WOS and Ambient Church. In July 2023 Dais Records released Lamina, a 6 CD career spanning, retrospective box set.
Kujo is the alter persona of Karl Choueiri, a multidisciplinary artist, mastering engineer, founder of Modular Mind Records and co-director of Exist Festival (Palestine) from Beirut, Lebanon.
Weaponising the usage of noise, drone, and rooted instrumentation as means of confrontation, Kujo’s uncompromising approach to music is to observe, interpret and report the current state. Expressing angst on stage, and drawing a parallels between global conflict and internal turmoil, Kujo's anti-ideological statement can be heard in their debut double gatefold album The Rebels Have No King out on Modular Mind.
Through their Modular Mind Records imprint Kujo curates an arsenal of select artists that embody a counter culture narration of different human conditions.The label presents audio-visual works and unique crafts with each release.
As a mastering engineer Kujo’s work can be found on Hospital Productions (USA), Constant Value (SK), UIQ (UK), Parrish Smith (NL), Drowned By Locals (JO), Dekmantel (NL), Voidance Berlin (DE), Limbic Resonance (DE), Al Gharib (AUS), Judgement Hall (UK), Exist Records (PS), Beirut & Beyond International Music Festival (LB) and more.
Ali is a curious being, in search for deeper meaning in our relationship with sound and with plants, mainly researching the physical and mystical properties of sound on one hand and plant cognition through biosonics and biosonics and bioacoustics on the other hand. Trying to express his obsessions through deep listening and connecting with those who share his passions.
