In the popular imagination, Wuppertal is the city of the suspended railway, an attraction that has been running above the Wupper River for more than a century, drawing visitors from all over. In practice, it is also a city with a cultural offering that deserves more attention than it usually receives. And I’m not just saying that. Wuppertal is home to the Wuppertaler Literatur Biennale, an event that uses literature as a starting point to address social issues through discussions and activities open to the public. It is also home to Open Ground, an electronic music club housed in a former bunker that has managed to establish itself in the international club culture conversation. Its architecture and sound have caught the attention of publications such as 032c, and in 2026 it made DJ Mag’s ranking of the world’s 100 best clubs.
Before arriving at the festival, we stopped near the station for a Frikadelle and took advantage of the ride on the Schwebebahn to take a few photographs, look out over the terraces, and glide above the river. Express tourism. When we arrived, Stefanie Görtz was selecting an exquisite collection of country records. The audience listened, talked, and let themselves be carried away by the music. Singing, dancing from our seats, and raising a glass to the rhythm of the songs felt inevitable. A rather pleasant introduction to what the afternoon had in store for us. Sitting beside me were two great friends. My queer companions.
Later, Gunda Gottschalk introduced us to an accordion trio formed by Eva Zöllner, Katharina König, and Ute Völker. Three performers who took the instrument into territory far removed from the familiar melodies many of us associate with it. The performance moved between tension, nostalgia, and a kind of sonic trance in which the sounds seemed to linger long after they had disappeared.
There is something deeply physical about the accordion: it breathes, expands, contracts. In the hands of the three performers, that movement became a sonic conversation that did not need to follow a conventional structure to hold the audience’s attention. They scraped, struck, and embraced the instrument, exploring its possibilities beyond traditional performance. Who decides how an instrument should sound, what sounds it can produce, and which ones fall outside our expectations of it? It was a question hard to ignore as the accordion moved away from its familiar image to reveal other forms of expression. An exploration born out of curiosity and the desire to take the instrument one step beyond the familiar.
As the afternoon progressed, it was time for Les Reines Prochaines, the feminist art collective founded in Basel in 1987 that has spent decades combining music, performance, and visual arts. Their work brings together punk, folk, tango, and satire, addressing questions of the body, identity, and social conventions with little interest in being accommodating.
Provocative, funny, and unapologetically honest, its members turn humour into a critical tool without giving up the pleasure of entertaining. There is something liberating about a performance that can make you laugh and, a few seconds later, force you to reconsider what you were laughing at. The show moved between these states without needing to announce when it was time to shift from one to the next.
The performance also invited the audience to take part. People of all ages (yes, entire families, even with babies in their arms) got up from their seats to join the chorus, answer the artists’ questions, and follow their spontaneous antics. Colourful clothing, sometimes velvet, exaggerated expressions, and oversized props took over the stage. And, of course, I couldn’t leave without taking home a piece of their merchandise: a pair of lace underwear that is now waiting for its place in the living room of my apartment. A small contribution to the universe of Les Reines Prochaines. Who knows, perhaps one day I’ll become a Reine Prochaine myself.
Later, Els Vandeweyer and Lucía Martínez brought our visit to the festival to a close with a vibraphone and drums performance. Vandeweyer, a vibraphonist and percussionist, and Martínez, a drummer, percussionist, and composer, built a dialogue between delicate resonances and energetic rhythms. The music moved without any particularly obvious destination, alternating between almost hypnotic moments and others in which the rhythm seemed to demand everyone’s attention.
The organisers had described the encounter as poetic and groovy, a fairly accurate combination. The vibraphone left its resonances suspended in the air while the drums intervened, interrupted, and opened up new directions. Improvisation turned each moment into a possibility, without needing to resolve everything into a recognisable melody. An open exploration of sound that brought the afternoon to a close with enough energy to remind us that sometimes, two instruments and a desire to experiment are all it takes.
Who shapes the musical and cultural landscape we inhabit every day? Who decides what we listen to, what we see, and which expressions gain greater visibility? At a time when algorithms connect us with realities on the other side of the world, getting closer to the scenes shaping our own surroundings is not always so straightforward. There are artists and spaces that have spent years developing interesting work without necessarily reaching much beyond their own circles.
Festivals like Future Now matter precisely because they offer the opportunity to encounter realities and artistic expressions that are not always part of our everyday lives. Sharing a space, listening to other voices, and discovering different ways of understanding art take on a particular meaning at a time when so many of our connections happen through a screen. Some encounters depend on being present, on exchange, and on the possibility of inhabiting the same place.
Perhaps the question now is when the next edition will take place, and where to find the other spaces that, like Future Now, connect us, challenge us, and bring us closer to other ways of thinking about and making art. Places where, even if only for a few days, it is possible to meet on common ground and share a common sound.
Thank you to Stefanie and the Future Now team for the invitation and for making us part of such a meaningful encounter. Until next time!