Amsterdam BANGS is NOT a free Fringe Festival. We are not the fringe of the fringe. We are BANGS. Something completely different!

Were we just a free festival, we would just be hyper-exploiting artists and ourselves to deliver a free product to an audience that likely just doesn’t have a lot of money to pay for art. That is one thing to do, but it’s not what we do.

BANGS is a political initiative. Not only do we come from and remain part of the leftist, autonomous movement but we are developing a counter-practice that does not rely on public or private financing of art.

Arts funding is problematic in itself: it prioritises incessant production over community building, and its value is dictated by bureaucrats. That means, publicly financed art needs to be explainable and valuable to those would rather invest in war than art. At the centre of publicly funded art is the public bureaucrat themselves, who will use you as an example of the value of arts funding. The product of arts funding is arts funding. Not art. It’s like how they keep renovating the city streets. They need to spend that money, in order not to lose it. But in today’s political climate, they lost it anyway.

With BANGS, we do not decide for you what is valuable.

Instead of relying on state support and thus state prohibitions, we have each other’s support. Help out by volunteering, offering space, or gifting a performance or a workshop.

All the shows are free but we welcome and encourage any donations. This year, the donations we collect go to mutual aid in Palestine and Kashmir, without relying on the NGO complex to send aid.

Both areas are victims of present-day colonisation. Palestine is a testing ground for weaponry that will be used worldwide, exemplified once more during the genocide against Gazans. Kashmir is the most highly militarised zone on the planet, under illegal occupation by India since 1947, stuck in a situation increasingly comparable to that of Palestine.

The fascism and racism faced by Palestinians and Kashmiris is intimately entangled with the rise of the right in Europe, where the calls for war are becoming louder, the weapons industry is growing daily, and Islamophobia has become an acceptable position.

The militarisation of the world does not only take place in occupied territories, but also around us in Amsterdam. NATO and FRONTEX are arming the European borders in the East and the South.

Asylum laws are being tightened and providing aid to immigrants declared illegal is being criminalised. Those who seek refuge in Europe are one of the most victimised groups in the new fascism. Along with trans people, Muslims, the Far Left, and BIPOC communities. BANGS stands in solidarity with, and is made by, those who are threatened by the new fascism.

We are here to say that

We’re still BANGING
But we are drumming to our own tunes,
and by no means
will you get us to marching
in your silly military parades!

FREE PALESTINE
FREE KASHMIR
FREE AFGHANISTAN
FREE AMAZONIA
FREE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
FREE CONGO
FREE MYANMAR
FREE SOMALIA
FREE SOUTH SUDAN
FREE SUDAN
FREE SYRIA
FREE UKRAINE
FREE VENEZUELA

& FREE EUROPE FROM ITSELF