I’m Alin Stan, and I’m the festival director at Kune. Kune is a festival that celebrates Scandinavian underground culture and it’s hosted on a tiny island in Copenhagen.
MUSIC DICTATES MY PATH
Music is a great social filter in my life, always leading me to new friends and collaborations. It dictates my path, which became obvious when I moved to Copenhagen. In the dorm where I lived, I met Gunnar who had a big record collection. He taught me to play vinyls. I also met Stefan who had a massive club setup in his room: Smoke machine, lasers and huge speakers. It was like he slept on the dance floor! We became friends and in the summer of 2014 we did a small listening session on the lawn outside our dorm. During the session a guy named Anders came by on his rollerblades. He heard the music and came by to see what was happening. He asked if he could bring his records, and we became friends instantly. Another guy, Adonis, also joined the hangout. He was a bar manager at the student bar, and soon we hosted a series of parties together there.
We were all passionate about music but had no connections to the music scene. We were outsiders, but I’ve always believed that if you manifest your creativity, things will happen. And so they did! We started organizing events every month - in forests, basements, a fortress, a community center, on a rooftop. We started getting noticed and being hosted by clubs, and now we have our own festival.
THERE IS POWER IN HUMANITY, IF WE COME TOGETHER
The name Kune comes from the Esperanto language. It’s a language that was made for everyone in the world to understand each other. Kune means “together” and it fits so well with what we believe in and what we are doing. Because we came together we became able to do these parties, and our mission is to bring together the cultural workers in the Nordic region together to create new collaborations.
Art and festivals are powerfull when it comes to cultural development. Festivals have been going on since the time of the hunter-gatherers. Tribes of people who would not communicate or coexist, came together once a year and shared knowledge. And they built structures that are as big and monumental as stonehenge. There is power in humanity if we come together, and we’re able to change the world.
WE CAN DEFINE THE RULES OF SOCIETY
I believe in two things: the power of the individual + the power of collective action. When individuals are empowered they can participate to the maximum extent of their abilities in collective action. I wish for the guests of KUNE that they feel and experience a connection to their community when they visit the festival. And that they feel a connection to the artists. I hope this connection will make them realize how important their own actions are as part of a community. We are born with the rules of society around us. But we have a lot of impact on defining those rules. I don’t think society is doing enough to empower individuals so they know that they can change things if they want to.
ACCEPT THE OTHERNESS IN THE WORLD
For me carrying kindness means accepting that there is no one singular truth in life. Conflict in general arises from only listening to our own truth, but everybody has their own story.
Pause and have a buffer between your understanding and your reaction. One thing is to have thoughts. Another is to act on a thought.
