Fashion
AKIN – a new editorial story
22.03.25
Music
Superflat: the festival that combines postmodern culture and local roots
words: Tatiana Tardio
12.08
In an era in which large metropolises seem to dominate the cultural scene, musical and cultural events in provincial realities take on a fundamental value for the growth and enrichment of local communities. The Superflat Festival, which takes place in the Po Valley, represents an illuminating example of how an artistic project can transform itself into a catalyst for change, not only for the city that hosts it, Parma, but for the entire surrounding region.
Organizing a festival like Superflat in a city like Parma is an ambitious challenge, but also a unique opportunity. In a provincial context, events of this type not only enrich the cultural offering, but help create a sense of community, bringing people together to celebrate music, art and culture in an intimate and inclusive environment. Superflat is not just a festival, but a collective project that reflects the passion and dedication of a group of people working together to create a unique experience.
The Superflat Festival aims to demonstrate that even the province can be a place of great cultural ferment, capable of hosting high quality events without having to compete directly with big cities. It is a project that bets on the future, aiming to involve not only the local community, but also a wider audience, attracted by the originality and intimacy of an event that enhances the roots of the territory and connects them with the most innovative trends of the international musical panorama.
We talked about it with the collective that organizes the festival, and from their words a clear vision emerges: Superflat is not just an event, but a collective experience and a declaration of intent, aimed at creating a lasting bond between culture, territory and community.
Where did the name Superflat come from? What's the idea behind this name?
The birth of this name has two roots: a cultural root that refers to the postmodern Japanese movement founded by Takashi Murakami and all the graphic derivation that has followed over the years and a geographical one that derives from the conformation of the area where we operate: the Po Valley.
Within its visual identity, superflat makes use of color as its main stylistic feature, aiming to create its own world in which different shapes can coexist. Last year's visual identity was the result of a creative rush lasting just two weeks in which we managed to give shape and color to our thoughts even before we finished imagining it. This year's, however, takes a more complex and precise direction, becoming almost schematic. Communication is therefore ordered and guided by the use of these marks that pervade the line-up, almost as if fixing it within a new and unknown map.
Regarding geography, the landscape in which Superflat takes place is undoubtedly extremely flat, the towns and cities of the Emilian plain all have a history and quite peculiar characteristics, we liked to refer to our origins and to the place that hosts the festival and the The word Superflat exacerbates this “flatland” that has given birth to many of us and that some of us have chosen as home.
What does Superflat represent for you and how is it reflected in the festival programming?
Superflat is a horizon, a goal, an ambition, a project, a dream come true, a bet on the future. Being a choral, collective work, each of us has different feelings for this event. What can unite everyone is to consider it a project aimed at leaving its mark, a mark in those who will experience it, in those who will watch it from the outside, in the artists who will cross our stages. It will be the expression of a group of people who are working together without ego-references for the sole pleasure of creating something harmonious and unforgettable for those who decide to be part of it. This desire is reflected in a linear programming, which focuses entirely on the artists' research that is not to be taken for granted, in a measured but impactful scenography, in real sustainability and not just narrated. A project that is still small but already very solid.
What does it mean for you to organize a festival of this kind in a city like Parma?
It is certainly a challenge, we believe there is a need to send a certain type of message to the province, on the other hand PWCC, the cultural center that hosts the festival and of which the SF collective is the backbone, in a small way carries forward this type of work with continuity even during the winter. SUPERFLAT is not intended to be an isolated effort but the maximum expression of constant work. Parma in general has opened its ears to many different musical proposals over the last 10 years, without ever making a particular genre its own. We are certainly aware of the growing sensitivity of this city but we remain aware of its dimension, in fact we do not look only at the city but at the entire Italian territory.
What were the main difficulties you encountered in organizing the festival? What are the strengths and resources that the area offered you for the realization of this event?
It is clear to everyone that the number of festivals in Italy has increased dramatically so we can imagine what it is like to organize one when the offer is so rich and vast: complex! From our point of view, however, we think that Parma (and in particular PWCC) can play a central role in creating a community that understands the importance of handmade events. The idea that a festival created with our own hands without big sponsors and big names can exist fascinates us and guides us during these organizational phases. Being a project in its infancy, the difficulties are certainly more evident than the advantages, first of all your catchment area is smaller and less prepared than a metropolis, and moving people from larger centers remains complex. The extreme proximity to cities like Milan and Bologna is often a double-edged sword because it allows you to reach a much larger catchment area but at the same time, it often puts you in competition, indirectly, with events in the aforementioned cities. For us it is important to be able to have an impact on both residents and an external public, there is a desire to create something new for both. The advantages to date lie in the location that hosts us which remains equally young but which is doing an incessant work of rooting. The answer in short is that we want to demonstrate that the province may not be provincial and that more than a question of advantages or disadvantages, we make our geographical provinciality a raison d'être and a bet on the future.
How did you select the artists and performances for this edition of Superflat?
The selection of the artists occurred in a very natural way and in an unusual way. Superflat is a choral work. There are clearly those responsible for the various areas of development of the event who have vertical skills but the ultimate expression of everything occurs through a synthesis of the various ideas of each person within the collective. There are no personalities within Superflat but a group that wants to express itself together. It seems like science fiction these days but it's a great thing to try, with all the difficulties involved, to be a group instead of a collection of individuals. Our team is made up of people of different ages, sometimes with differences of up to 10 years between each other. This played a fundamental role in the selection of artists because it allows us to significantly broaden the musical spectrum in which to fish. Clearly we didn't always immediately agree on all the names that came out from the first moment but there was always a lot of mutual trust and above all respect. We are very satisfied with the SF24 Line up, it represents us impeccably and there will be a way to continue exploring sound worlds in the future. There is an excellent mix of established artists and newcomers, a good balance between Italian and foreign artists, complementary and functional sounds for the various phases of the day. Superflat is a long sonic journey rather than a succession of unrelated performances, for this reason there are never simultaneous sets and the movements between stages are kept to a minimum.
What criteria did you use to create the festival's artistic program?
We all agreed on the fact of working on the sounds of Techno and this consequently meant being able to also approach the basin of Ambient music or the basin of primordial tribal and percussive music for example, because, as we know, they are worlds that have always been completely connected. From this direct connection, for example, the names of all the live performances we selected for Superflat were born (Agnese Menguzzato, Samuel Organ and Tammur). On the DJ side, we instead preferred to maintain a connection between Italian and non-Italian excellence in the entire Techno field, from Dub to Downtempo to a slightly more broken one: see the natural transition between artists such as Dj Plead, Vladimir Ivkovic, GNMR, Marco Shuttle and BASHKKA, there is harmony in the sound crescendo.
Is there a common thread or a specific theme that links the various performances and works present at the festival?
Not this year, in the future who knows. Today Superflat perfectly describes the choral work that we try to express every day within PWCC, it is the expression of a collective that cares about the passion, care and beauty that lie behind the cultural work linked to the world of music where the word quality is the order of the day for us. In SF there is great coherence in every aspect, leaving aside the discussions on the most obvious sustainability choices (if in 2024 you give straws, disposable cups and plastic bottles you are a bit of an asshole) PWCC for example has a small garden so on the menu there will certainly be things grown just a few meters away, it is a former farm and the social fabric here has always had a strong sense of community. We would like everyone to feel at home during the festival, including artists and we hope everyone can have a comfortable experience, the value of a festival lies 50% in the musical performances and the other 50% in the climate that can be felt at of audience we will take extreme care of both aspects. The second watchword is intimacy, SF wants to be an intimate experience and wants to have an intimate, individual impact. Communities are made up of individuals, any change must pass from that sphere first.
What impact do you hope Superflat will have on the community?
Positive! We hope to educate people to listen and pay attention to music, trying to bring to Parma names that we consider interesting and extremely contemporary, to try to involve an audience that perhaps has never tried the experience of coming together for 48 hours on a musical journey and live together as a community. The activation of the campsite will help us create this magic.
Is there a particular message you want to convey through Superflat?
It certainly has a lot to do with the message that PWCC brings. We tend to raise awareness among the public to experience the festival spaces as their own, to feel at home and not feel any pressure of any kind, with maximum freedom and respect for the freedoms of others. Our goal is to create an annual event in which the public wants to participate not only for the artistic proposal but also and above all for the atmosphere of union and harmony that can be felt.
What is the main thing you want the audience to take away with them after attending the festival?
We would like the participating public to miss the sensations of well-being, harmony and freedom experienced in the two days, that they come back richer with respect to the knowledge of new artists, that they bring with them the peace that we will try to create between people for the entire duration of the event living in community with education and mutual respect. We would like you to feel at home and want to return one day.
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