Stocktown

Last updated
Stocktown
FormationJanuary 1, 1998;26 years ago (1998-01-01)
FounderTeddy Goitom
Legal statusCollective
PurposeDocumenting worldwide street culture
Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden
Region served
Worldwide
Official language
English
Parent organization
Rötter ("Roots")
Website stocktown.com

Stocktown started out in the late 1990s as a collective documenting all aspects of street culture via an online magazine, documentaries, exhibitions, music- and film festivals. Stocktown was founded by Teddy Goitom, and is based in Stockholm, Sweden but has collaborated with artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, programmers, architects and fashion designers all over the world. In the years since it was founded, Stocktown has produced several series’ of documentaries covering international street culture in its various forms. Stocktown also runs an online video magazine focusing on worldwide street culture.

Contents

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 an online magazine, documentaries, exhibitions, music- and film festivals. Stocktown started out in the late 1990s as a collective of creative souls documenting all aspects of street culture via documentaries, pirate television and various exhibition projects. Stocktown was founded by Teddy Goitom and is based in Stockholm, Sweden but has always collaborated with artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, programmers, architects and fashion designers all over the world.

Stocktown projects

Online

In 2011 Stocktown launched an online video magazine dedicated to worldwide street culture. [1] It's curated by a committed team of video enthusiasts searching for the most inspiring content out there. During the summer of 2011, the content from the site was displayed as a part of the exhibition StockTV at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. [2]

Documentaries

To date Stocktown has created two documentary series, Stocktown - A Global Underground Journey and Stocktown Africa.

Stocktown - A Global Underground Journey

In 2002, the TV series Stocktown - A Global Underground Journey [3] was broadcast by the Swedish public broadcasting channel SVT1. The first six episodes had an average 200 000 viewers and were later, in 2004, broadcast in Denmark and Finland. Stocktown - A Global Underground Journey featured interviews with artists such as DJ Spooky, Immortal Technique and Kool Keith [4] and was shot in Los Angeles, Sydney, New York, Hawaii, Tokyo. In 2006, it was released as a DVD with extra material. In 2008, Stocktown released all 9 episodes for free on the Internet, it can currently be viewed at Vimeo, [5] Internet Archive [6] and downloaded as torrents on the Piratebay tracker. [7]

Stocktown Africa

Stocktown Africa is a documentary series about the lively, creative and social contemporary culture blossoming in Africa’s big cities today. Stocktown Africa will bring you face to face with the new urban Africa, where fashion creators, mobile phone journalists, cultural entrepreneurs, music producers and guerrilla filmmakers define what it is to be young, talented and passionate in Africa’s 21st century. [8]

Stocktown x South Africa

Stocktown X South Africa is a road movie directed by Swedish-based directors Teddy Goitom and Benjamin Taft. Stocktown X South Africa takes viewers beyond the stereotypical stories coming out of South Africa. The documentary introduces heavy metal band Ree-Burth, Soweto style-setters Smarteez and Gazelle, the inventor of the Limpop music genre, capturing the creative energy and street vibes of Johannesburg and Cape Town. In 2011 Stocktown x South Africa premiered at Cinemafrica film festival in Stockholm, Sweden, [9] and it was featured in various international news media and blogs, [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] including being featured on CNN [16] and shown at international exhibitions and film festivals, such as at the Victoria and Albert museum in London., [17] Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, [18] Africa In The Picture Festival in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, [19] Basel African Cinema in Basel, Switzerland. [20]

Xander Ferreira and Nick Matthews aka DJ Invisible of the South African band Gazelle in Stocktown X South Africa. Gazelle-with-umbrella.jpg
Xander Ferreira and Nick Matthews aka DJ Invisible of the South African band Gazelle in Stocktown X South Africa.

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 2000, Quik and Seen showcased their art on canvas in one of the most celebrated and controversial exhibitions of graffiti art in Sweden. [21] [22]

In 2004, Stocktown participated in the Swedish Japanese exchange Swedish Style in Tokyo [23]

Music festivals & concerts

Within the framework of the Stockholm European Capital of Culture of 1998, Stocktown organized the hip hop element Stocktown 1998 of the well attended Fanclub festival in Lida, south of Stockholm. All of the four elements of hip hop culture, B-Boying, DJing, MCing and graffiti) were featured, rather than the typical focus of music festivals on only rappers and to a lesser extent DJs. DJ’s such as Cut Chemist & DJ Nu-Mark (from Jurassic 5), as well as DJ Babu (of the Beat Junkies/Dilated Peoples) had turntablist performances that were previously almost unheard of in Swedish music festivals. [24]

Film festivals

On October 2 to 4 1998, Stocktown together with alternative film festival Popcorn organized Blaxplo as a tribute to classical Blaxploitation movies 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 United States by organizing a well attended seminar and discussion on the contemporary prison-industrial complex in the United States and resistance to it with scholar of comparative religion Mattias Gardell. [25]

As the film festival Popcorn developed into a music film festival in 2002, Stocktown was chosen to curate the films about hip hop and reggae. [26]

Related Research Articles

<i>Style Wars</i> 1983 American film

Style Wars is an American 1983 documentary film on hip hop culture, directed by Tony Silver and produced in collaboration with Henry Chalfant. The film has an emphasis on graffiti, although bboying and rapping are covered to a lesser extent. The film was originally aired on the television network PBS and was subsequently shown in several film festivals to much acclaim, including the Vancouver Film Festival. It also won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

<i>Wild Style</i> 1982 American hip hop film

Wild Style is a 1983 American hip hop film directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn. Regarded as the first hip hop motion picture, it includes appearances by seminal figures such as Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, The Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, Queen Lisa Lee of Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash and ZEPHYR.

New Zealand hip hop derives from the wider hip hop cultural movement originating amongst African Americans in the United States. Like the parent movement, New Zealand hip hop consists of four parts: rapping, DJing, graffiti art and breakdancing. The first element of hip hop to reach New Zealand was breakdancing, which gained notoriety after the release of the 1979 movie The Warriors. The first hip hop hit single, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang, became a hit in New Zealand when it was released there in 1980, a year after it was released in the United States. By the middle of the 1980s, breakdancing and graffiti art were established in urban areas like Wellington and Christchurch. By the early 1990s, hip hop became a part of mainstream New Zealand culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lavelle</span> Musical artist

James Lavelle is an English electronic musician, record label owner and curator. He founded the Mo'Wax record label in 1992, and has been the only constant member of UNKLE. He directed the 2014 edition of the Meltdown festival on London's South Bank, and curated the 2016 exhibition "Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick" at Somerset House. He is the subject of 2016 documentary film The Man from Mo'Wax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The House of Culture (Stockholm)</span> Culture center in central Stockholm, Sweden

House of Culture is a cultural center situated to the south of Sergels torg in central Stockholm, Sweden. The House of Culture has been described as a symbol for Stockholm as well as of the growth of modernism in Sweden.

Michael Thomas Holman is a New York-based artist, writer, filmmaker and musician. He is also an early 1980s downtown scene subculturalist and creator of the Hip Hop music program Graffiti Rock. Holman is a founding member, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat, of the experimental band Gray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Green</span> American documentary filmmaker

Sam Green is an American documentary filmmaker. His most recent projects are “live documentaries” in which he narrates a film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. His 2018 project A Thousand Thoughts features a live score by the Kronos Quartet, and his 2012 project The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller featured a live score by the band Yo La Tengo. Green's 2004 film The Weather Underground was nominated for an Academy Award, included in the Whitney Biennial, and broadcast nationally on PBS.

Avalon or Group Avalon was a band consisting of Djo Moupondo and his brother Mohombi Moupondo with Congolese and Swedish ancestry. A multilingual band, they performed songs in Swedish, French, English and Lingala. Mohombi has gone on to create a successful international solo career signing with RedOne. Djo is CEO of their label La Clique Music co founded with their longtime friend and Bruno Lopez with whom he also Co-manages Mohombi.

Zina Saro-Wiwa is a Brooklyn-based video artist and filmmaker. She makes video installations, documentaries, music videos and experimental films.

Graffiti in Iran consists of different styles. Some are slogans painted by governmental organizations, and some are works of art by regular citizens. During the last few years, Tehran Municipality has been drawing graffiti in order to beautify the city. Much governmental graffiti regards the Iranian Revolution, Islamic Republic of Iran policies and The Politics of Resistance. Pro-democracy activists are also continuing a political graffiti campaign in Tehran. Islamic graffiti can also be seen around the city. Graffiti has long served as a medium of expression through Iran's complicated political history.

Jens Assur is a Swedish photographer, director, scriptwriter, and film producer.

<i>The Creators</i> (film) 2012 South African film

The Creators: South Africa Through the Eyes of Its Artists is a 2012 South African documentary film produced and directed by Laura Gamse which interweaves the lives of diverse South African artists including Faith47, Cashril+, Warongx, Emile Jansen of Black Noise, Markus Wormstorm and Spoek Mathambo of Sweat.X, Blaq Pearl, and Mthetho Mapoyi.

The Rhythm Of My Life: Ismael Sankara is a short documentary film produced in Libreville, Gabon. It is written, directed and produced by Franck A. Onouviet and Marc A. Tchicot. The music is composed by Michael “Mike Mef” Mefane and Rodney “Hokube” Ndong-Eyogo. It focuses on musical moments between people sharing a strong passion for their craft and an in depth and personal interview of rapper Ismael Sankara. The documentary is presenting a new recording artist with a passion going further than the name he is carrying.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shai Dahan</span> American painter

Shai Dahan is an American contemporary painter and street artist who works with painting, drawing, illustrations and sculptures.

Contemporary art in Egypt refers to visual art, including installations, videos, paintings, or sculptures, developed in the Egyptian art scene. While the contemporary art scene is mainly concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria, it is developing fast with the emergence of spaces for artists, and support from the public or from abroad. Many Egyptian artists use the Egyptian contemporary art scene as a ramp toward the international art scenes.

Shida is an Australian multidisciplinary artist best known for his large scale mural work. Shida's practice encompasses video, publishing, public works and murals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scrappers Film Group</span>

Scrappers Film Group was the prior name of Truth & Documentary, a documentary film production company in Chicago, Illinois. Founding partners Ben Kolak and Brian Ashby's inaugural film Scrappers won “Best Documentary Feature” and the “Audience Award” at the 2010 Chicago Underground Film Festival. Scrappers Film Group was chosen by NewCity Film in 2016 and 2018 to be among the "50 Chicago Screen Gems."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolina Falkholt</span>

Carolina Alexandra Falkholt, with the pseudonym Blue, born 4 March 1977 in Gothenburg, is a Swedish artist, graffiti writer and musician. Sometimes she uses her own coined term grafitta, to describe her art. It is a play with the two words graffiti and fitta, the latter means "pussy" in Swedish.

Mmakgabo Mmapula Mmangankato Helen Sebidi is a South African artist born in Marapyane (Skilpadfontein) near Hamanskraal, Pretoria who lives and works in Johannesburg. Sebidi's work has been represented in private and public collections, including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington and New York the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, New York, and the World Bank. Her work has been recognised internationally and locally. In 1989 she won the Standard Bank Young Artist award, becoming the first black woman to win the award. In 2004, President Thabo Mbeki awarded her the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver – which is the highest honor given to those considered a "national treasure". In 2011, she was awarded the Arts and Culture Trust (ACT) Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Art, whilst in 2015 she received the Mbokodo Award. In September 2018, Sebidi was honoured with one of the first solo presentations at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town – a retrospective entitled Batlhaping Ba Re.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lefifi Tladi</span> South African painter, poet, and musician

Lefifi Tladi is a South African painter, poet, sculptor and musician. As a member of the black consciousness movement he was exiled from South Africa in 1976. He lived in exile, primarily in Stockholm, Sweden, until the abolition of apartheid, and in 1997 returned to South Africa for the first time in over 20 years. In 2021 he was awarded the lifetime achievement award by the South African Literary Awards.

References

  1. ↑ "About section | Stocktown".
  2. ↑ Kulturhuset Programme
  3. ↑ Stocktown TV series: Kristianstadbladet 20021002
  4. ↑ Kool Keith: Kvällsposten, 20021107
  5. ↑ "STOCKTOWN - A Global Underground Journey - Free episodes on Vimeo". vimeo.com. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  6. ↑ Stocktown.com (2002), STOCKTOWN - A Global Underground Journey, Stocktown, retrieved 2018-09-06
  7. ↑ "The Pirate Bay - the galaxy's most resilient bittorrent site".
  8. ↑ "Stocktown X Africa". Stocktown X Africa. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  9. ↑ "Article in Cinemafrica programme sheet". Archived from the original on 2011-02-13. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
  10. ↑ "Give it Up to Stocktown X South Africa: They in the Hizouse | Another Africa". www.anotherafrica.net. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  11. ↑ "Stocktown x South Africa [VIDEO] – African Digital Art". Archived from the original on 2011-11-19. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  12. ↑ "AFROKLECTIC: stocktown X South Africa". afroklectic.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  13. ↑ "Iheart: Stocktown x South Africa, a short story of township street culture « Echoes of Concrete". Archived from the original on 2011-04-06. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  14. ↑ http://blog.thenewpop.com/2011/04/05/stocktown-x-south-africa-a-road-movie-trailer/
  15. ↑ "Se trailer för "Stocktown x South Africa"". Archived from the original on 2012-05-02. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  16. ↑ [CNN 2011 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/04/stocktown.south.africa.documentary/ Online CNN article]
  17. ↑ "V & A museum programme". Archived from the original on November 6, 2011.
  18. ↑ Stocktown X Sydafrika (in Swedish), retrieved 2018-09-06
  19. ↑ "TransIP - Reserved domain". www.africainthepicture.nl.
  20. ↑ "Aktienmühle | Stiftung Habitat".
  21. ↑ "Metro Mode – Mode, skönhet, hälsa och inredning".
  22. ↑ “Polisen vill sätta stopp för graffiti-utställningen”: Expressen 19980722
  23. ↑ Thungren, Stefan. "Sneakers är mycket mer än skor | SvD". SvD.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  24. ↑ "Stocktown 98". June 3, 2000. Archived from the original on 2000-06-03.
  25. ↑ "Blaxplo -98". Film.nu.
  26. ↑ "Popcorn är tillbaka!". NÖJESGUIDEN (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-09-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.