In 2002 «we felt it was time to create a network. We had the idea to map the city through its clubs. We imagined Turin as a dance floor: with a single ticket you were able to move from club to club»
Club 2 Club, the avant-pop cultural Festival in Torino
There’s a moment when Turin, Italy, each year reclaims its position as one of Europe’s influential cities for culture. It becomes a platform for the arts. It happens between the end of October and the beginning of November. It’s when Artissima, Italy’s first contemporary art fair, takes place. It’s also when Club 2 Club (C2C) – the self-defined avant-pop cultural festival – happens.
This year C2C will take place from the 2nd to the 5th November in a series of locations across the city, including Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR) and Lingotto. The 2023 festival edition will be dedicated to the theme ‘The World’.
From Xplosiva Club Night to C2C – An experimental festival was born in Turin in the early 2000s
There was a time when Turin was one of Italy’s main labs for cultural experiments. As in the Nineties the automotive industry collapsed, the city was looking for ways to reinvent itself and change its paradigm. It was then that club culture started bursting. In clubs people experimented with cross-media productions. Music, performances, visual shows, and contemporary art.
«To be fair, it wasn’t just Turin. Let’s think about Bologna’s old Link, or English warehouses», says Sergio Ricciardone, one of C2C’s founders and artistic directors. «We were free. Bureaucracy wasn’t so heavy. I lived in London but decided to come back to Turin because I felt it was easier to experiment here».
In 1997 cultural association Xplosiva Club Night was founded, with Ricciardone as its president. In 2002 «we felt it was time to create a network. We had the idea to map the city through its clubs. We imagined Turin as a dance floor: with a single ticket you were able to move from club to club». This marks the birth of festival C2C.
«It was time to extremize our artistic production and to radicalize the format»: from Turin’s baroque locations to Cheek to Cheek
After hosting the Winter Olympics in 2006, Turin faced a new decline. The festival was reshaped in a more experimental event, meant to explore the city’s different souls: «It was in 2007 that C2C entered a second stage in its life: City to City. We started bringing our project to Milan. Not the festival itself but its mindset. We built a relationship with another city. Those were also the years when we started working in Berlin, Rotterdam, Bruxelles and Barcelona. Then we went to Istanbul, for the first time in 2010».
In Turin C2C «left the clubs and dug into baroque locations: Teatro Carignano, Reggia di Venaria, Mole Antonelliana».
Another change occurred in 2014, when C2C hosted songwriter and singer Franco Battiato: «There was a turning point in how we imagined the festival. It was time to extremize our artistic production and to radicalize the format we built. We stressed the relationship with the locations we worked with. We created a deeper connection with Turin».
In 2017 C2C meant Cheek to Cheek. The intent was to highlight the social aspect of dancing. The public wasn’t seen as a multitude of individuals in the same place, but as people gathering together to become an entity.
C20 and the rebirth of Club2Club festival after the pandemic: a space for independent artists
Just three years later, the pandemic came to prohibit what C2C pursued with Cheek to Cheek: «We realized that the path we took was at the finish line. We already intended to change our parameters». Thus, C2C became C0C – The Festival as a Performance. In 2020 the experience was completely digitized. Then, in 2021, they welcomed people back: «It was a rush. We found out that the public could come to the shows just three weeks before the first event». It was slightly more conceptual, with the festival’s traditional aesthetic and musical research as the main element.
In the meantime, C2C continued to work on multiple fronts. Stone Island Sound, for example, a curatorial project in partnership with Stone Island to promote and support independent artists and labels with a set of playlists and live events. While never abandoning its motherland, C2C kept going places. In press releases and official documents, the festival has been locating itself in Turin, Europe: «We’re part of a European cultural network of associations. It’s something we really want to underline».
In 2022 C2C entered a new phase: «Hyper-productions came back. We did have headliners, but in the past we had names that were maybe stealing the spotlight from other artists. In 2022 everything blended». The festival’s organization changed from the previous editions. It became more reminiscent of open-air festivals, even if it was indoors: «Lingotto’s gates opened sooner than usual, there was the possibility to eat food inside. It was a different experience. Moreover, tickets allowed the public to visit Lingotto’s Pinacoteca Agnelli and Pista 500, to involve more local realities».
An avant-garde-pop tradition: Club2Club program
The concept of ‘avant-pop’ is a tagline for C2C and it differentiates it from other electronic music festivals: «Avant-gardes that can shape what pop music will sound like in the future. Mainstream pop artists that were once innovators».
To understand what ‘avant-pop’ means for C2C it’s also useful to look at the names of some of the biggest headliners in the festival’s history. Not just Battiato, but also Thom Yorke, James Blake, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, Nicolas Jaar.
Another distinctive trait in C2C’s musical selection is that it doesn’t refer to a specific genre. It’s always been a mixture of sounds, from electro to pop, and from jazz to rap.
A rebranding for C2C’s 20th anniversary – Bodies as digital consumers
In 2022, for its twentieth birthday, C2C unveiled a new graphic symbol: a sort of winged figure. Designed by Studio Grand Hotel, a Turin-based graphic studio, it reflects the beginning of a new era for the festival: «It’s not marketing and it’s not a logo, it’s our new name».
The inspiration comes from artists that played with symbols in the past, such as Prince, Einstürzende Neubauten: «It also resembles Arca’s aesthetic and her concept of mutation. It’s a symbol of a festival that wants to bring attention to live experiences. And to the body. We should remember to give our body the right to express itself. The pandemic first and the war in Ukraine later taught us that we should feel free. Then there’s the threat that comes from the metaverse. Many contemporary philosophers – Preciado, for example – are talking about how our neo-liberal society is designing a future for people and their bodies as digital consumers. We want people and their bodies to be the center of things».
C2C Festival, the 2023 edition: performance art, noise, queer life, identities, and evolution
Continuing on its avant-garde path, C2C 2023 will feature avant pop, r&b, electronic, rock, experimental, rap, jazz, and post-punk music. This year’s program will include thirty-six artists from twenty different countries and thirty-one shows. Fifteen will be the Italian exclusives and ten the debuts. One of the new additions is project Slauson Malone 1 by artist and musician Jasper Marsalis, which will explore the potential intersections between popular music and performance art.
The grand opening of the festival will take place in the post-industrial setting of OGR, with a show by Caroline Polachek. On the eve of the show there will be a national preview at the Lingotto, where the artist will perform a DJ set moving between styles, genres, and references. She will be joined by the quartet Model/Actriz, and guitarist and composer Rachika Nayar. The former combines dance-punk, noise and industrial, while the latter synthesizes different genres to reflecting on a queer life moving between identities, discourses, and spaces in evolution.
Returns and debuts at C2C Festival 2023: an interdisciplinary approach
The festival will feature both artists from previous editions, such as British duo Two Shell and producer Evian Christ, and new performances, such as Avalon Emerson & The Charm, inspired by DJ and techno producer Avalon Emerson’s album of Balearic dream pop.
At his first appearance in Italy is London-based producer of Armenian origin Hagop Tchaparian, who combines techno, field recordings, and traditional instruments. An interdisciplinary approach is also embraced by label PAN, which will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary at the festival. PAN’s show will feature Chinese artist of Malaysian origin Tzusing, Canadian DJ Bambii, project Honour, reggaetón trio Sangre Nueva, and musician and designer Bill Kouligas (who is also the label’s founder).
Californian heavyweight Flying Lotus will return to Europe for the first time in five years. His new audiovisual show is influenced by the protagonist’s excursions in body horror. New material will also be performed by King Krule, singer-songwriter who delivers real-life stories over a blend of post-punk and jazz. Another return to the scene is that of globetrotter Yves Tumor, with his new record Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds).
Folklore, contemporary languages and futuristic narrative at C2C 2023
At his first time at C2C is precursor of techno and house music Moodymann, who will join Welsh duo Overmono. Another cooperation will be seen in Marina Herlop’s performance. The Catalan composer, singer and pianist will perform live from her 2022 album Pripyat alongside two choristers and a percussionist.
Lucrecia Dalt will present her last album ¡Ay!, which follows the rediscovery of her family ancestors. Here she merges Colombian folklore with contemporary languages through a futuristic science fiction narrative of an alien creature’s terrestrial journey. Also from Colombia is Nick León, recognized as part of the Miami mestizo school.
The C2C Festival lineup will also feature the return of Manchester-based duo Space Afrika as well as other artists.
C2C Turin
C2C Festival was born in the early 2000’s in Turin. Its main challenge is to work with other subjects that share the same vision, inspired by avant-garde and pop-culture, aiming to bring projects to life.
The 2023 edition of the festival will take place from the 2nd to the 5th November in various locations across the city, including the Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR), the Lingotto and Teatro Regio, which will host project C2C Talks. This year theme will be ‘The World’, with multidisciplinary artists from all over the world.
