User:Nathan Hamelberg/Stocktown

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Stocktown is a registered trademark, initiated by Teddy Goitom the founder of the Swedish organisation Rötter (Roots) in 1997. Under the trademark Stocktown, a series of exhibitions both in Sweden and internationally, as well as concerts and festivals has been organized to help independent culture to reach a wider audience. In the years since it's foundation, Stocktown has produced several series of documentaries covering international street culture in it's various forms.

In the winter 2009/2010 Stocktown went on to organize the Stocktown Africa project, documenting the vibrant urban cultures of various African capitals. The overriding concept of the project was to explore how creative and evolving fashion, music and art is in contemporary Africa, not least in comparison with the dominant images portrayed in western news media. Documentation of the project will be edited into a film, scheduled for world premier at CinemAfrica Festival release in march 2011. hyperlink

In 2011, the Stocktown.com web page will undergo thorough changes and start a new life as a online video channel dedicated to independent video culture, hosting music videos, guerrilla films, documentaries and more.

Contents

1. Stocktown history 1.1 Foundation

2. Stocktown projects 2.1 Exhibitions 2.2 Music festivals & concerts 2.3 Film festivals 2.4 Documentaries 2.5 Online

3 Filmography 4 References 5 External links

Stocktown history

Stocktown is the name of the various cultural projects of Swedish based group Rötter ("Roots"). Although based in Sweden, it's been active in various countries, tying together local forms of street culture through projects, exhibitions, and television documentaries

Foundation

Stocktown as a trademark was founded in 1998 in Stockholm, by Teddy Goitom head of the Swedish organisation Roots, (“Rötter”) where it's still mostly active as of 2011.

Stocktown projects

Exhibitions

One of the first public exhibitions was the graffiti exhibition "The Arrow" which was organized in conjuncture with the music festival Fanclub, held outside of Stockholm July 24 to 26 in 1998. Graffiti legends such as Blade, Futura, Quik and Seen (hyperlink to wiki) showcased their art on canvas in one of the most celebrated (and controversial) exhibitions of graffiti art in Sweden. 1)

In 2004, Stocktown participated in the Swedish Japanese exchange "Swedish Style in Tokyo". hyperlänk 2)

Music festivals & concerts

Within the framework of the Stockholm European cultural capital campaign of 1998, Stocktown organized the hip hop element (called Stocktown 1998) of the well attended (17500) Fanclub festival in Lida, south of Stockholm. All the traditional four elements (hyperlink) of hip hop culture (i e breaking, djing, emceeing and graffiti writing) were put to the fore, through 50 amongst the worlds foremost DJ’s, rappers, graffiti writers and dancers rather than the typical focus on music festivals only on rappers and to a lesser extend djs. DJ’s such as Cut Chemist & DJ Nu-Mark (from Jurrassic Five)(hyperlink), as well as DJ Babu (of the Beat Junkies/Dilated Peoples)(hyperlink) had turntablist (hyperlink) performances that were previously almost unheard of in Swedish music festivals. 3)

Film festivals

On October 2nd to 4th 1998, Stocktown together with alternative film festival Popcorn organized "Blaxplo" as a tribute to classical Blaxploitation movies (hyperlink) such as Shaft, Coffy and Foxy Brown but also to give a proper background to the cultural roots of contemporary street culture. Going beyond the exploitative aspect of the classics, the event highlighted the plight of the black community in USA by organizing a well attended seminar and discussion on the contemporary prison industrial complex (hyperlink) in America and resistance to it with professor of comparative religion studies Mattias Gardell. 4)

As the film festival Popcorn developed into a music film festival in 2002, Stocktown were chosen to curate the part of films about hip hop and reggae. 5)

Documentaries

In 2002, Swedish television broadcast StocktownTV, a series of documentaries about independent street culture around the world. In the course of the series, Stocktown travelled Los Angeles, Sydney, New York, Hawaii, Tokyo and more. The first six shows had an average 200 000 viewers and were later, in 2004, broadcast in Denmark and Finland. StocktownTV featured among others interviews with such artists such as DJ Spooky, Immortal Technique and Kool Keith (hyperlink)

Online

Stocktown hosts the website www.stocktown.com, home to lots of videos, articles, interviews etc. In 2011 it will be relaunched as a online video channel, focusing on independent video culture.

Filmography

The 2002 TV series were released as a double DVD with extra material in 2006. 2011 will see the premiere of a film on contemporary street culture in Africa with the project name Stocktown Africa.