This year, as part of the 2025 festival edition, Le Guess Who? presents the first edition of Sound & Culture Summit: a program that embodies the festival’s mission to celebrate boundary-crossing music and culture by exploring diverse perspectives. It’s a space that encourages deep listening, critical thinking and meaningful exchange.
The Sound & Culture Summit takes place on Friday, 7 November, at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, and is freely accessible to everyone.
Several U? Community Curators are participating in this year's program. They are taking part in talks or presenting keynote speeches or workshops themselves.
Community Organising in (Queer) Diasporic Contexts
What sensitivities do we need to keep in mind when organising in diasporic contexts? Community organiser, designer, DJ and co-founder of Nusaqueer Diaspora, Insan Larasati, shares their experience with organising within a queer diasporic context for the Indonesian and Southeast Asian community in the Netherlands and Germany.
In this workshop, Larasati engages in conversation with the audience about community organising in a diasporic context and conducts an exercise in “Mindful community organising”, in which the audience will use mappings to become aware of their own privileges and disadvantages and explore what they mean for a collaboration.
Pre-register here to secure your spot.
12:00 - 13:45 | Escher, Stadsschouwburg
Artistic Freedom Under Threat: Mobility, Censorship & the Right to Create
Artistic freedom is too often reduced to “freedom of expression”, but for artists and independent cultural organisations, the ground is much more complex. It’s not only what someone can say, but where someone can go, how someone can live, who someone can reach, and whether someone can sustain the work without fear. Artistic freedom must be defended not as a subset of free speech, but as a fundamental condition for art to exist and flourish.
The panel features a.o. Al-Shaheen Falcon.
15:00 - 16:30 | Blauwe Zaal, Stadsschouwburg
How to Make Noise: Tactics of Resistance Around the World
From sit-ins and disruptive street actions to social media campaigns: we are living in an era of mass protest. As we reclaim our rights, demand justice and catalyse change, all actions are aimed at one purpose: to be heard.
For the first half of this talk we listen to the experiences of several collectives about how they have “made noise” in order to challenge oppressive systems and resist corrupt politics. For the second half, we sit around the table with all the collectives and we invite you to join us as we discuss, share experiences and dive into tactics and tools of protest.
The panel features a.o. Al-Shaheen Falcon.
16:00 - 18:30 | Hekman, Stadsschouwburg
Black Sonic Technologies: A Future Haunting
Raziyah Heath's work aims to uncover the cross pollinations of Afro-diasporic (sub)cultures and sonic threads, focusing on the variations, range and intersectionality of the experiences that result from this. In this hybrid DJ/live set, which also serves as a sonic lecture, they connect hauntology, speculative futures, and Black sonic technologies. The work asks: How do we envision a future where our presence is uncertain, denied, erased? What might it feel like, if revenge were to become a practice within that future? Can the haunting carry our rage, our despair, our ancestral weight, and our spiritual practices?
Drawing on Black nihilism and Indigenous approaches to sound, the performance approaches sound as a technology: a tool for memory, mourning, justice, and healing.
17:00 - 18:00 | Blauwe Zaal, Stadsschouwburg
Listening to the Nervous System: Embracing Healthy Nightlife
Experiencing nightlife and music events can be exhilarating, but also demanding on both body and mind. Loud environments, long nights and substance use can all intensify stimulation, with our brains releasing a rush of chemicals that heighten the moment.
Recovery and wellbeing after a music gig is not just about hangovers, substances or late nights out. Our level of dopamine cannot possibly maintain the peak level we just experienced, so it’s perfectly normal to feel emotionally flat while our nervous system needs time to rest and rebalance.
Although this is widely known nowadays, it’s rarely discussed: it’s important to raise awareness and provide information about how to take care of our mind and body during, but also after, such a thrilling experience.
The panel features a.o. Luna van der Laan.
17:45 - 18:45 | Zindering, Stadsschouwburg
An overview of the full program for Sound & Culture Summit 2025 can be found via leguesswho.com/lineup.
