Sound of Stockholm
Konstmusiksystrar is one of the member organisations of the annual experimental music festival Sound of Stockholm. This means that Konstmusiksystar are part of the programming group and that members of the board work alongside other member organisations to curate the festival.
In November 2017, Konstmusiksystrar arranged a concert with electroacoustic music at Scenkonstmuseet (The Museum of Performing Arts) in Stockholm. The concert featured performances and pieces by Konstmusiksystrar members Simone Wingfors, Kristin Warfvinge, Juni Andrea Ek, Jana Sleep, Kristine Boussard, Fanny Gruvstad and Klara Andersson. Marta Forsberg and Kajsa Lindgren from Konstmusiksystrar also took part in a panel discussion about music and gender equality together with the composers Stine Janvin and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir. The panel was moderated by the art critic and producer Frida Sandström.
Before the panel, Konstmusiksystrar recieved an email from Jenny Sunesson, Assistant Professor of Sonic Practice at the Stockholm University of the Arts. In her email, Sunesson raised questions about what determines an underrepresented group in the music scene today and was critical of the fact that only younger women were allowed to be part of Konstmusiksystrar. In her email, Sunesson highlighted that the last year's Governmental funding for gender equality in music focused primarily on younger artists. This sole emphasis on the ‘new’ and ‘young’ for Sunesson, reinforced capitalism’s never ending craving for newer and younger artists, and had changed the direction of the representation to the point that she was “no longer sure that young women were an underrepresented group in the field of electronic music”.
Sunesson’s feedback motivated the Konstmusiksystrar board to examine the perimeters of its inclusivity and reflect on its new-won position of power in the music industry. This incident was one of the events that inspired Konstmusiksystrar to organise the project I slumpens tjänst (In the Service of Chance), which, among other things, mapped the power relationships in the new music scene and discussed the topic of nepotism.
