MOMO Festival 2022

A home for the next generation of headliners

An energising full-scale edition of MOMO Festival just concluded and the playground finally got new life with visitors from all over the Netherlands and Europe. During the 20^th edition of the festival, Rotterdam’s stages became a home for artists to meet, experiment, grow together.

Motel Mozaique welcomed more than 100 artists who are some of the finest representatives of contemporary pop culture, merging music, performance, art, guided tours and fashion design. International and national artists have filled the venues, not only with their performances, but also attending each other’s shows, visiting galleries and MOMO Playground, the heart of the festival with free program on Schouwburgplein. STIKSTOF, Christian Löffler & Detect Ensemble, Sylvie Kreusch, Jean-Michel Blais, Katy J Pearson, Voetvolk, Jockstrap, Sad Night Dynamite, Weval (Live), Mysie are among the artists who took part at MOMO Festival.

Young artists who performed at MOMO Festival have a strong connection to social issues through culture. This is a generation of artists who stands for gender equality, sustainability, mental health and points towards a new humanism. These themes were voiced by Meskerem Mees, Mysie, Fantoompijn, Ariah Lester, Benjamin Kahn and many more.

First of all MOMO Festival was in movement, it was vibrant, fun. Artists like Balimaya Project, SHERELLE, MC Yallah & Debmaster, Snapped Ankles, De Schuurman set fire to our dancefloors, sharing the power of social cohesion. The audience’s response made it a celebration of collectivity.

The artist in residence, the London formation caroline, brought to the festival their homage to slow life. During their residency, the band played during three special performances at the Arminius church, at Theater Rotterdam and in the garden of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, where they shared the stage with the duo Able Noise.

“HOSPITALITY AT MOTEL MOZAÏQUE WAS AMAZING! DURING OUR RESIDENCY AT MOMO WE WERE FREE TO PLAY THREE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOWS IN BEAUTIFUL LOCATIONS. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO MEET A NEW AUDIENCE, GROW AND EXPERIMENT!” ALEX MCKENZIE – CAROLINE

MOMO Festival 2022 has been an occasion to showcase the third and fourth generation of Moluccans artists who are enhancing their Moluccan roots, re-claiming their culture. Within this line of the program we want to highlight the artists LEKRANTY, Gino-Cochise, Mirjam Manusama, RUA and JONES presents: Berakar. A connection through the different generations was created especially by LEKRANTY, a collective of dancers and musicians (including singer Julya Lo’ko, her son Gino-Cochise and other members of their family) who brought a spectacular performance to Arminius re-adapting traditional Moluccan songs through their contemporary taste.

In 2020 and 2021 MOMO Festival couldn’t welcome visitors in Rotterdam, and decided to reinvent themselves and to focus on creative processes. This led Motel Mozaique to form MOMO Create: working closely with artists, in order to cultivate, support their creations and get stimulated by their beliefs. The artists inspire Motel Mozaique to strengthen the community and invigorate the connection with the city. Some of the artists involved showcased their new projects during MOMO Festival, as for instance the virtuous collaboration between Amenti Theatre Company and Manusama Nuance, or the residency by Beau Zwart at BlueCity.

MOMO Playground was one of Motel Mozaique’s richest and most participated free programs in years: festival visitors and Rotterdammers enjoyed concerts, lectures and workshops. In this area of the festival the focus was on sustainability, something central to everything MOMO does, promoting green initiatives together with local entrepreneurs and organisations. MOMO Playground is a multicultural meeting place that also hosted a low-waste vegetarian iftar together with Het Wijkpaleis.

MOMO Fabrique 2022

In the first weekend of September, Motel Mozaïque paid tribute to all makers based in the M4H area with the MOMO Fabrique 2022 festival. For the organizations that have breathed life into the adventurous Rotterdam city port area in recent years.

After two innovative corona-proof editions, MOMO Fabrique was finally able to grow again this year into a three-day festival with music, performance, art, urban development and food as pillars. The festival took place at and in collaboration with BIT, Brutus, Keilecafé, Keilepand, De Voedingtuin and Weelde. MOMO Fabrique was all about celebrating this special part of the city and its current residents, and MOMO Fabrique wants to continue to do that in the coming years as the festival of M4H. It was the first time that a festival in M4H took place on this scale and was experienced by the program makers as a very successful experiment that provided a lot of inspiration for future editions.

Highlights

To kick off the MOMO Fabrique 2022 festival, Motel Mozaïque organized a festive 3-course dinner with (hyper) local food and surprising performances on September 2, in the middle of the Rotterdam Food Garden. The dishes were prepared by Chef Gilbert Kolff of FOND Rotterdam and served by the Motel Mozaïque team. The dinner was completely sold out and the proceeds will be donated to the Food Bank and the Food Garden.

On September 3, there were dozens of performances in no fewer than 14 places in the M4H area, on the stages but also in the middle of the Wild Summer of Art Part II expo in Brutus and in unexpected places. The trendsetters included Animistic Beliefs (photo below), Asa Moto, De Schuurman, Nana Adjoa, Pink Oculus and Unruly Phoenix.

In collaboration with Parfum de BoemBoem and program agency M4H, MOMO Fabrique took visitors on sold-out routes through the area full of creative and innovative makers. Along the way, the participants were treated to performances by storyteller Elten Kiene and musician Shishani in the most raw and inspiring places.

Together with N8W8 R’dam, MOMO Fabrique dived into the night with a ‘walk & dance’ route through M4H. The opening act of this tour consisted of a fashion show by The Queens of the Night, a sequel to the iconic fashion show by former sex workers from the Keileweg from 2001.