Material Conference 2017

In early 2016 Brian Suda, who spoke at my very first beyond tellerrand show in Berlin, and Joschi Kuphal, who was my partner in crime for border:none in 2013 and who is a restless doer, always on the hunt for new event adventures to set up, set up a Kickstarter for an event called Material, which they planned to run. The concept sounded lovely, but it wasn’t funded on Kickstarter and they did not run the event, sadly. This year Brian wanted to move ahead and start/run this event on a probably small, but good scale to get started. I had a couple of conversations with Joschi (and indirectly with Brian through this) and knew their fear of putting this event up, but also knowing the fear I’d have with this event. I mean, Iceland, at this specific time (the time when there is kind of a holiday season, I think – correct me, if I am wrong), next to the fact that there are soooo many other events taking place all over the world.

I was planning to go and even bring my family as we have got holiday season over here, but time and other circumstances sadly stopped me from going. But being who I am and following the stuff friends of mine do, I certainly was following what was happening, and was even more sad to not having attended.

Now Joschi has written a fantastic write-up with a bit of a back story and I simply love stuff like this. Insights into why someone decided to run an event and what they had to do/suffer during the time before. I so much wish I had been there, but I hope there is another chance … even though I missed the first one. Over all I want to thank people like Joschi and Brian, unrestingly doing stuff, even with the risk they know about. Those are people the event landscape needs to create events with a certain, a special atmosphere.