Lunchmeat Festival 2023: We found a way back home

Last year the festival theme had a strong artificial intelligence motif: a custom created non-binary AI called Molly, who guided the attendants through the whole festival. We wanted to know what’s new. “With this year’s edition, we mainly wanted to return to ourselves,” says Anna-Marie. “We feel that there has been a large amount of digitalisation recently and AI is already everywhere. This year we wanted to become more human, return home, that is, to the local scene and to local artists.”

They also dealt a lot with the sustainability of the festival. “There is a lot of pressure – not only on us, but also on other entities in the scene – for constant progress, constant growth, and we said to ourselves that our current format, in terms of size or duration, suits us and we don’t want to grow further. We rather want to take care of and improve what we have set up and focus on supporting the local scene and connecting it through commissions,” she adds.

Sustainability and degrowth are topics they have been focusing on for some time, continues Jiří: “Because of course we also book quite big names. After last year’s huge headliner booking we actually pulled back a bit, because Squarepusher, which was our long-standing wish, was a project that actually took many many years of planning and work, and cost us a lot of energy. For me and Kuba [Pešek] it was a goal we wanted to achieve in terms of programming, promotion and technical production. After we achieved it we said to ourselves ‘OK, we did it, we managed to make this happen flawlessly, but we don’t want to continue down this difficult / unsustainable path’. Furthermore, of course, we have been exploring local scenes since forever. What has changed this year is that our motto transformed to ‘We unstick from the status quo: our acts stand equal on the podium, no headliners, no support.‘”

There are several world premieres on this year’s lineup, and the best thing about it is that they are mostly local projects or involve artists with Czech roots. “One of our main goals is to motivate Czech projects and give them a chance to be seen, not only through the media we have long-term cooperation with, thanks to which we are able to present the artists abroad,” says Jiří. “We also bring foreign bookers and agencies to the festival to expose them to local artists with high quality AV projects and commissions, in hope of multiplying their chances of presenting their projects further, beyond the gig at Lunchmeat festival. We also joined forces with Slovak agency SPFM some time ago, adding some names we think have a greater potential to their existing roster.”

A shared taste and an unrelenting zest for audiovisual art across the whole team is key to Lunchmeat’s artist selection. “The booking has been up to me and Kuba for many many years,” Jiří explains. “We really do it 50/50, in the sense that if one of us clearly does not resonate with something that’s on the table, we brush it off and move on. Fortunately, we have a shortlist of projects for many years ahead,” Jiří laughs. “Artists often approach us on their own, and we also cooperate with festivals. Our only problem is the deadline, which is at the end of the summer, i.e. after all the big events. It is sometimes a challenge to hit the deadline with a fresh and interesting lineup with artists who haven’t played all over Europe in previous months.”

Anna-Marie joins in: “I would also like to add that we have wish lists and a lot of names already came true for each of us. We often listen to the artists together in the studio and there is definitely a collective opinion on where the festival can go.” “Well, and of course, there has to be an awful lot of AV, because that’s what we enjoy the most and what we’re obsessed with!” rejoices Jiří, “Plus it’s also the main thing that fundamentally differentiates us from the rest of the scene.”

Specifically, regarding Wednesday 27.9. in Ankali, they decided to completely turn the programming around and put the club in charge. “Despite the fact that we discussed the lineup and it changed significantly over time, it has anchored in such a beautifully progressive form, when bela from Berlin and Sarkawt Hamad from Amsterdam will play their exquisite DJ sets, but the majority of the lineup are live acts and DJs based here,” recounts Jiří.

Egyptian Prague-based audio-visual artist Omar El-Sadek aka Qow will play a live world premiere of his new album ElMosameh Sherine (out on Cairo label Írsh) there and the Prague-Brno based duo Gnäw (IR/FIN) will also play their hypnotic live set.

The festival starts on Monday the 25th, but one special event took place already on the 21st of September on the occasion of Prague’s National Gallery Opening. “Michele Rizzo and his performance HIGHER xtn. is another thing that was a bit of a longer run,” the team describes. “We wanted to present the piece at the festival right away when it was created for the Stedelijk Museum, but despite Michele’s great sympathy for us he didn’t want the performance to take place outside of a gallery space. Therefore, we were waiting for an opportunity to combine our programme with the one of the National Gallery.

Thanks to our ever-deepening positive relationship it finally came to fruition this year. Everything has its time.” Tasya jumps in: “Yes, it’s exactly what we always say to ourselves – that everything was great, but that we lack exactly this type of performance art project. So we are very happy about it, and it is also great that the performance will take place free of charge in the hall of the Trade Fair Palace.”