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FAIR_PLAY is a network intended to promote the visibility of cis and trans women, in the fields of sound creation, experimental, alternative, electroacoustic music and associated arts and techniques. Diversity, experimentation, mutual aid, sharing of resources, exchange around sound and artistic programming, call for projects, information, sponsorship, laboratory of cultures and practices unheard of, ancestral, curious, wild and joyful.
FAIR PLAY responds to us collectively, it is direct and committed.
FAIR PLAY is a term created by Shakespeare to evoke tolerance of all ideas and respect for the word of others? How would you define the spirit of the members of this network?
Are you sure that Fair-Play is a term created by Shakespeare? Because historians who work on heritage have shown us in recent years that as soon as someone, often a man, takes credit for something, he often invisibilises a woman, or a group of women, who created it decades or even centuries before him. And they do this with great fanfare to ensure that they can take credit for it while silencing the women or group of women.
The mindset of the network members may be very different for each of us. But it is true that we have gone through the last few years together, which have been particularly shattering and fruitful for the feminist movements. We have learnt a lot by exchanging in continuous flow, by sharing unmixed moments, by noticing that our ways of speaking are changing and evolving, by working on matrimoine, etc. It is not only tolerance or respect for the other's word that moves us. It is also sometimes knowing how to take a step to the side and behind to let the other's, less privileged, voice be heard.
FAIR PLAY is a network of female composers, musicians and performers: is there a musical genre? Is there a "female" way of making music?
These are three questions in one, but all three are quite funny... We think of ourselves as working with experimental music, techniques and associated arts. There are almost as many musical genres as there are people who practice them. To sum up, we are interested in all genres that explore practices, listening, and commitment, and that are therefore far from the mainstream circuits of visibility and audibility. We are not trying to create a network of great female composers who would play elbows to exist when they are only programmed at 3% in the subsidised French networks and that is no longer acceptable. It is absolutely necessary for these networks to exist and we stand by them whenever we can. In Fair-Play, we include all those who have a practice at any level. It can even be a cis or trans woman who has only done one sound edit in her life, who is 18 and dreams of sound. It could be a cis or trans woman who has seen her career fade as the decades pass. It could be a woman who has seen many decades go by and is just starting out as a sound recordist etc. etc. ....
FAIR PLAY is also a wonderful space for reinventing the word: women, transgender, cis-gender, intersectionality, sisterhood, heritage. Is there also a redefinition of artistic categories in musical creation?
It's true that we spend a lot of time naming everything. And the very fact that we sometimes lack words or have extremely different definitions among ourselves tells us something very important: we have not yet used up the words that characterise us and we do not yet have enough room to use them. The question of sisterhood is absolutely central and fertile. It regularly surprises us.
There are no more redefinitions of artistic categories than there are of female or male, or cis, or trans music. There is for each one an artistic or technical commitment in her practice. If she wants to signify a duality, a plurality, a sorority, if she wants to question her heritage, that is her business as an artist. There is no obligation to do so. Once again, she can also make a big sound that breaks the eardrums and the speakers, or like everyone else, practice without having all these questions in mind. However, it is highly likely that the paths of cis and trans women who question the place of their privilege, who explore other ways of being together, of making things together, bring a lot to all of us.
Is FAIR PLAY a French network? And if so, what are your relations with networks in neighbouring countries? What are the challenges of these networks today?
Fair Play started in France and there was soon talk of creating a network in Belgium. The challenges are, and always will be, to work on the visibility and audibility of cis and trans women. We quickly realised, often with great difficulty, that we all needed places to speak out, and it is very likely that this is the case for all feminist networks, at a time when speaking out is also about violence, rape, harassment and incest. None of us has been spared. Not one of us.
We are very much looking for ways to thwart the failings of programmers so that the network is not the "feminist washing" alibi for an evening in a program that does not question itself. We also refuse to do the work of programmers for them. Instead, we propose that they work towards parity over the next few centuries, and if they want to work with us, it's a pleasure, but then they have to give us a part of their salary. In other words and in a very radical way: there are as many women as men in artistic training, there are as many women as men who wish to practice, and this at all levels. If this statistic is not reflected in the programming, there are three reasons: either there are bad trainers, or there are bad juries that award grants, or there are bad programmers. In short, if a program does not have parity today, it is because the programmer is bad.
And if we intertwine this with questions of intersectionality, we find only one thing: programmers are generally really bad. More seriously, there are many questions of domination and self-determination at stake in the visibility of artists. We've had more than enough of that for centuries.
FAIR PLAY has a community of more than 1,100 people who follow you on Facebook: what are your plans for 2021? How have you experienced this crisis of representation away from the public? Can the network provide collective solutions?
The projects continue with the current constraints and slowdown. Our lines of action and reflection are conceived collectively. We carry out projects in working groups (based on location, availability or common interest) and always think of the network as archipelagos of varying dimensions, always open to possibilities and changes.
Our big project at the moment is the redesign of the website thanks to webmistress Lea Tortay and four volunteers from the network. It will allow artists to officially join the network by signing our charter and to be listed by activity and location in a portal for programmers. Clara Levy, a musician based in Belgium, will be in charge of Community Management.
We are preparing a series of albums in partnership with the Tsuku Boshi label and the Musée du Luxembourg over the course of a year. This series will be launched by the INCLUSIVES project, which brings together thirty or so women composers from all walks of life, particularly those who are most invisible.
We create monthly shows for Tesla FM (Barcelona); Radio Station Essence (Bordeaux) and TT Node (DAB + in Mulhouse and Paris)
We are preparing round tables with experts on intersectionality within the network.
In the longer term, we are waiting for the end of the health restrictions to resume partnerships with event venues such as the Lieu Multiple (Poitiers) and the Station (Aubervilliers).
Interview by Sandrine Maricot Despretz
