Photo: Artist
On some days, Annika Henderson wakes up with one less N in her name. But she makes music that’s much more than just that: as Anika, she has already collaborated with the gloom-dubstep pioneer Shackleton and with Geoff Barrow on the project BEAK>, and has also released solo albums that defy all categories and find a common denominator somewhere between spoken word collage, post-punk, and dub. Most recently, with other musicians and a second N in her first name, she’s garnered attention under the moniker Exploded View. The fact that she still had time left for a Border Movement residency in Tehran, Iran in 2015 is even more surprising than the astute cultural and political observations with which the former journalist returned. She also brought back music in her luggage, and not just her own. In a short hybrid set between DJing and performance, Henderson will weave a soundscape that refers to the rich traditions she bore witness to in her two months in Tehran.
Anika on Facebook»Border Movement«
Pop culture thrives on cultural exchange, and Pop-Kultur has dedicated itself to that exchange. Every now and then, though, we still need a bit of help, and Border Movement is the ideal resource. The Berlin-based platform, supported by the Goethe Institut since 2012, sees itself as a »cultural catalyst« and, as such, values interactions—especially those between Germany and the South Asia region. At Club 23, on two different festival days, the activist and journalist Sarah Chawla (New Delhi, India) and the musician Mohammed Manal (Malé, Maldives) among others will represent the bandwidth of Border Movement’s work with concerts, DJ sets, and talks. The Berlin artists Anika, Andreas Spechtl, Dan Bodan, and most recently She's Drunk have all participated in the exchange programme, and now the Pakistani artist Natasha Humera Ejaz aka Stupid Happiness Theory will come to the German capital from Islamabad. We should and must mix things up!