Club Highlight
Hanna Wildow
Apart from one year in New York, Hanna Wildow has spent the last 13 of her 31 years on the planet in Stockholm. An artist, writer and scholar, she currently lives in Gröndal with Judith, her “daughter” – an ex-Romanian street dog – and rarely leaves Hägersten. Already equipped with a bachelor degree in gender studies, she is currently finishing her masters in fine arts at Konstfack.
Away from the books, she’s also the executive director of c.off – a discursive platform for choreographic practices founded by Swedish-Italian choreographer Cristina Caprioli in 2006. Despite considering herself a tant who prefers to stay home and read books, she has spent years shaping Stockholm’s nightlife, producing queer-feminist dance parties, club nights, events, film festivals, performance evenings and more under the name Idyll. In 2009 she co-founded the amazing Swedish headquarters for contemporary queer and feminist art, known as Högkvarteret – a gallery, performance space and a bar in Södermalm where they “manically enough” presented six evenings a week. After two exhausting and fantastic years, they closed in 2011 and all involved chose to retire.
What are your thoughts on the nightlife in Stockholm?
I spend pretty much all my nighttime within a queer and feminist community. This brings that I have many thoughts on that specific scene, and none about the rest of it. I simply don’t care about what goes on outside of it.
If there was a new and hip place, I would know nothing about it. If there’s a weirdo party with a bunch of queers, I will most likely be found there. And as for now, I love that specific scene and community. It feels very alive, very creative, very political, and very fun.
When we closed Högkvarteret everything felt worn out, boring, dull. We were all really exhausted and couldn’t see beyond our own walls, which made me feel like everything that was happening within our scene happened at our space. It made Stockholm feel very small, and when we had finally closed it was hard to find new paths in the city. because we had walked down that same one every day and every night for so long.
I left Stockholm for a year in New York, and when I returned it was as if I re-fell in love with Stockholm. All these new initiatives of these really cool and progressive girls were taking place in different parts of the city. And since then, things have just progressed even more.
Today I often feel like the week is so crammed with interesting events that there is no way I could attend even a third of them – and ten years ago when, I came out as queer, we were thrilled if there was more than one thing per month to attend.
Do you ever feel like doing parties again?
Every summer I have this urge to do a separatist pool party. I would rent Liljeholmsbadet, because it’s in Hornstull with all its queer history, and because it has such a special, kind of naughty, vibe to it with all those booths. It’s never gonna happen though, so anyone can steal that idea. I am really so over producing club events. So much work, so little pleasure. And also, the truth is that nowadays I rather just go there during daytime and swim naked with the old ladies during the only women’s hours.
What are your plans this winter?
My plan is to work. I work a lot and I love working and I love my work. A dear person recently told me ‘you know that thing about that you shouldn’t fall in love with your work?’ and I was like ‘No.’ I really am in love with my work, I have so much fun with it and it is so important to me. I split my time between Telefonplan where Konstfack is, Gröndal where my home and my writing desk is, and Roslagstull where the space of c.off and ccap is. With c.off, I am currently working on a project called Kroppsfunktion – an artistic and pedagogical research project presented in collaboration with ccap, Utopia, Vida, and the schools RGRH, Lindeparkens Särskola and SAGA Gymnasium. We are investigating how to open up issues of disability and crip theory within a larger cultural political context and agenda, and specifically within the choreographic field.
For about a year we have been examining how conceptions regarding the body, function and movement are generated, reproduced and challenged, and we hope to be able to put some smart stuff out in the world.
What’s your favourite nightspot?
I want to answer my writing desk, but I don’t think I am allowed to. Last Saturday I went to Siri Hjortron Wagner and Iki Gonzalez Magnusson’s Kaffe, Kaka och Karaoke (Coffee, cookie and karaoke) and I had so much fun, screaming myself away in a corner. I have very double feelings for that hipster place Laika though, but the party was amazing.
Fave restaurants?
I love food, I love eating, I eat out way more than my wallet allows for because it’s just so much fun. My all.time favourite restaurant is Chong Qing in Liljeholmen. Xiuli who runs it is the raddest lady and the food is the best Chinese food I have ever had. I also have a crush on Soldaten Svejk, a Czechoslovakian place where I always eat the same fried cheese.
Bars?
I also really love beer, all kinds of beer, lots of beer, and I drink way to much beer for what can possibly be good for a body. I really like Rost, a very un-pretentious place in Zinkensdamm that looks and feels kind of like Högkvarteret did. During the summer I spend a lot of time at Babylon, the people that work there are always really chilled and nice despite the fact that it is always crammed. And they love dogs, which is rare in Stockholm. And Thursday evenings at Sidetrack, a gay basement bar at Mariatorget where a few friends started a lesbian Thursday thing a few months ago. On the same street there is this tiny bar called Loch Ness. It is worn down and sometimes smells like poop but it has a very unique local feeling to it, it feels completely untouched by the hipster invasion of Södermalm.
What do you think we will see more of in the music scene in 2014?
Silvana Imam and Min Stora Sorg. They are already onto something really big, but they will explode in 2015. They are so rad and so smart and so cute.
How can Stockholm’s night life get better?
We need more bars that allow dogs and forbid men.
