interview: pos 3 yrs with anne
throughout these 3 yrs, pos has been a space for experimentation for anyone open to it. anne is one of the many voices that have been there, shaping, breaking and making the space since the very beginning. in preparation for our 3rd anniversary, she shared reflections on her experiences and learnings. read along to get a glimpse on her perspective and what is behind the programme for the celebration pos 3 yrs, taking place this upcoming weekend.
- could you share how you first got involved with pos and describe your experience organising events over the years?
my first interactios with pos was three and a half years ago, on new year's eve 2022–2023. i played my first ever dj set at a diy party at motorkade, around the time pos started throwing parties. during the summer, exactly three years ago, i moved to amsterdam and started interacting more with pos right after the very first event in june and opening the space in the centrale markthal. i also played there, maybe my second dj set ever that I will be forever grateful for. this first weekend of june, the three-year anniversary, celebrating growth of the ever-dynamic crew & community.
to think about this question gives me a mad feeling! so much has happened and changed. for that reason also the first thing that comes to mind is that it's been one big, constant learning process and an iteration of lessons. doing things in a diy way means making very quick decisions with few resources. instead of a profit model, the space runs on love and voluntary hours. for this reason, as organisers/promoters, anyone who interacts can get so much value back in ways other than money. most of the value exists in feeling things that are usually hard to feel in this country, personal learnings and growth. sometimes the space is confrontational and not the easiest one to be in, but it is this exactly this contrast that creates the true beauty. i've grown so much as a person here and honestly, I never felt so good in my life. it all started with a simple concept: a creative living room.
a constant thought is; what else is needed in this city? in a small country with limited room, the need for a new space to, yes, use music as a connective factor and dance together, but also to simply be, to land, to feel at home, to learn together. what is borrowed from club culture is that feeling when you walk into a good club or event, and you really exhale. you're like, "oh, thank god i'm here." that's what pos tries to recreate in its own way: small, intimate, music at the heart, a place where people can come in, exhale from their lives, and feel the things that want to be felt.
when we started things, we quickly became very enthusiastic. more rooms, larger projects, outside areas, external diy illegal raves, and made them happen. but we quickly learned that pulling all of that off comes at a cost: exhaustion and losing sight of what we actually had. so midway through, we made a conscious decision to focus on what we already have—the pos studio—. because if we want to do this long-term (and we do), it's the slow and intentional work that will eventually lead us to those bigger dreams, on our own terms. That's where we are now. We focus on our own space in a DIY, community-driven way — an open structure with room for everyone. we invite people to jump in, learn, create, find their most creative self, and make things happen that are difficult within the regular systems of the world. music is always the foundation: the connective thread rooted in rave, club, and soundsystem culture. and around it, a whole web of possibilities — creative practice, interaction, play, and shared social values.
- what was the creative process behind the energy of pos 3 years? what did you want to bring out for the audience to experience?
everything we've built over the last three years fed into the three-year anniversary.
at the start of the year, we worked on the pos vision, and what kept coming back was this living room, homey feeling on one side, and rave, club, soundsystem, and electronic music culture on the other. the pos vision is a combiation of ‘a perception of home’ and the concept ‘sonic dominance’ (as coined by author Julian Henriques of Sonic Bodies).
‘There is no escape, not even thinking about it, just being there alive to, in and as the excess of sound. Trouser legs flap to the base line and internal organs resonate to the finely tuned frequencies, as the vibrations of the music excite every cell in your body.’
The “homey” feeling one feels when they are home is actually a result of the sonic dominance of the soundscape of the home.
it's about vibrations that can heal you and music that has power. it doesn't just mean low frequencies; a voice or an instrument can be sonically dominant too. it's about what levels the room, what takes over the room, and what moves something in you.
what we really wanted with this anniversary was to land at home. to bring together older projects, all the people, and all the things that have grown and arisen somewhere together.
the process didn't start with "this is our project and we program it the way we want to." the first thing we did was open it up to the community and the people who have worked on projects with us. we invited their ideas and visions and gave people ownership.
that's what makes it special: different voices, cultures, visions,projects, all coexisting and co-creating in one space.
beyond the core community, we also put out an open call for people in the city to join the support team and crew. within a few weeks, people we had just met, or didn't even know yet, were reaching out with ideas. we built an infrastructure that allows us to integrate these ideas which opens up new layers of human made magic.
for me, when you bring it all together, what I often see is the simple beauty of human beings creating together. its just so cute, fun, real, and incredibly powerful. it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, where you come from, what your skin colour is, or what your gender is — we can all connect. we can all become one. you see it happen sometimes in clubs and on dancefloors, these moments where everything else falls away. I fell in love with that feeling completely, and I haven't stopped building more of it since. and what I've seen is that the more people and ideas that jump in, the crazier, more magical, and more special it becomes. nothing extra needed — just what's already inside all of us. and honestly? I can't wait to see where it goes. i can imagine it though and its quite wild… ;)
- can you give us a sneak peek of what people can expect next weekend?
what I can say about the program is that it is very carefully curated for this time & place and that the two days have a strong connection. we hold your hand & hope that you can trust us with that. what I also can say is that we are expanding our areas beautifully.
on saturday, we bring a lot of beautiful people from all over europe together and really sit with the things that are important and happening right now in the world. but we do this in a warm and caring way. and of course, we will shake some things off.
on sunday, we move up, we open up, and we have a lot of fun. there's a lot of beauty & life in the programme, and i just want people to trust our vision. i have really good faith that it will be beautiful and that we will have multiple connection moments. it's definitely curated for you to come for one day, but it's also very specially curated for you to come for the full weekend. sunday grows out of saturday, and what you experience on saturday, you can really work with on sunday.
we are expanding our spatial areas. we have the pos studio, the outside terrace area, and we're using the whole market hall for concerts, performances, and talks. we're also adding something new and typically pos: a diy listening room built from scratch in the empty box next to our space.
it's there throughout the whole weekend for you to come, chill, lay down, draw, read, listen, play. maybe you don't like a part of the program, maybe you need a break. maybe youre someone else that weekend & you need a space to land for a little while. there's always a place for you to check in with yourself.
we will announce the program this week but I can promise you, we got you!