suinner + trabelsi

suinner+trabelsi takes you on a journey—across the African continent and beyond. Travel through with the sounds of afro tech & house with elements of amapiano, all things hiphop and r&b, UK and SWANA sounds, island gyal drumlines & known and own remixes of all classics. Their sets fuse genres that move the body and soul. We dance, we sway, we close our eyes, and we surrender to the music—each track is a personal experience that connects us all. Whether it’s a smooth groove or a high-energy drop, suinner+trabelsi blends remixes of classic hits with fresh underground sounds.

As a DJ duo, suinner+trabelsi has played at Finland’s top venues like Ääniwalli, Nokia Areena, Tavastia, Kuudes Linja and graced major festivals such as Flow Festival, Ruisrock, Helsinki Festival and Kesärauha. Also outside of Finland, they have been swimming into peoples hearts in rooftops, corner pubs, villages and forests at festivals like Biennale Venezia, Norberg Festival and Urkult. Whether it’s gallery openings, underground raves, or high-profile events, they create an exciting, fresh and warm atmosphere for all crowds.

Collective has been in tight conversation with european free art scene and 24 they've opened several exhibitions and shows for artists like Pauline Curnier Jardin and Tyler Michell and have spun for commercial and private events with clients like Netflix, Zalando, Lyko, Kone Foundation, and Tise. They’ve been seen touring with their project Club U-Haul and supporting artists like Yeboyah. The duo has hosted, spoken and mc'd in international and local, online and public, events and platforms for a decade now.

oroko radio

JOSEYSRADIOS

hit different

is a session, a playlist with commentary.

It is a performative gesture to share personal experiences of/with/through music. It aims to create a space where you can submerge to the same intimate feeling of experience of privacy as well as the collectivity of listening to a song.

hit different is a request for revolutionary loitering. Suggestion of a sweet stimuli and sensory experience as active effort and act of care.

Dance, cry, sing, sleep - if you want to.

Ongoing exploration of compassion

Ongoing exploration of compassion is in the center of this project moving onwards. It aiming to serve a space for critical engagement with the themes of compassion and performativity. This iteration specifically focuses on the often-overlooked emotional and intellectual labor involved in navigating acts of "compassion" rooted in performativity rather than genuine empathy. With this work, we invite participants to engage in a critical examination of their own experiences with compassion, both as recipients and as givers, within and across different cultural contexts.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
performance, poem, listening session

DURATION:
20:00 min

LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH

CONTENT NOTES

manifesto, loitering

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Assistance of set up
at Difts - festival:
Ari Asp

EXHIBITED

Drifts - festival / September 2023

Night of Sience / January 2024

Private fundraising dinner for Palestine / February 2025

KISKA

KISKA is all about bringing people together around good food. We've been serving meals and creating food art for our community for a few years now. KISKA has grown from our home kitchen into a pop-up project that builds community through shared meals and experiences.

We truly believe that simple things—like sharing a song, eating a meal together, or just chatting can create strong connections and a sense of belonging, Setting the table in our spaces is a key part of how we do things.

We believe that sharing a snack is a vital act of connection.

We are committed to making our meals and experiences accessible. KISKA events are always free to attend. We keep prices as low as possible and ensure that no one is turned away if they cannot pay. Eating together connects us to each other and, critically, to our own bodies. We focus on emphasizing the joy of cooking and eating pressure free and savoring the moment to help you stay present and in tune with yourself. We are dedicated to preserving cultural heritage through food while embracing creativity to continually reimagine the way we cook and eat.

Sometimes KISKA is a dinner, sometimes a picnic, but always a coffee shop.

From our free-to-attend "munch & bounce" sessions to curated dinners
KISKA is a taste of something intimate and collective all at once.
We always have good music.

You can swing by our pop-up to buy tasty treats to enjoy right there or take home.

Unhad conversations are the experiences and stories about loss of intimacy, belonging, connection to physical spaces and community. We are here to remember and to unpack the loss of the revolutionary dancefloors where we used to write stories with movement, queer spaces where we felt seen as equals and long dinners where we shared about the pressing issues of our lives. The project is here to help the participants to unpack some lived experiences into text, audio and picture.

Marginalized people have experienced great losses.
Pandemic, wars and the rise of the right wing.

Sometimes during this time we have leaned on to utopistic pictures of the future to survive, sometimes we have tracked data trying to solve our way out of it and sometimes we have paused our lives to follow forced self-care routines. We have taken on hobbies, started new meal plans and attended non-parties at Zoom. We want to have the unhad conversations and document the effects and survival mechanisms that marginalized people have faced in this era.

The creatives will be chosen to be participants in Unhad Conversations by the project leaders and coordinators Meriam Trabelsi and Caroline Suinner aka The Soft Collective aka Pehmee kollektiivi. Unhad Conversations will follow strict guidelines of safer spaces policies and centers the marginalized experience and safety of these particular people.

The goal of the project is to create new possibilities, perspectives and a platform that provides a space to talk about the issues that are important to the creatives who are participating. We want to work with a step by step method that can be multiplied and used to amplify talent, care and processes of resistance also in the future.

OWN Your Pride & OWN club nights

OWN Your Pride

On the first day of Helsinki Pride month we owned it with radical joy. 1.6.2024 brought focus to our history, the question of ownership and the liberation of our people.

With a lineup of local and international artists as well as discussions and activities around knowing our history. We wanted to take back some ownership of the club spaces and club culture that queer people have always been at the forefront of creating. Especially a space for those individuals, who can’t find their space or representation from the mainstream queer spaces.

DJ line up included: BRAVA (ES), BANJEE (NO), THE CONNECT (SWE), As well as home base influense: Yeboyah, post êxistance, Kudelma, Lulu, Wekesa, trabelsi, suinner.

Performances, workshops and appearances included: Out of Sync, Crush[ing], Lina Jarallah, Lesbo Erotics, FRIENDS OF QUEER HISTORY, QSeduction 101, Quiz: WDYK 'BOUT QUEER S*IT, Queer Hiphop w/ Dj Shy Grl.

OWN your pride was born from the passion for club culture and from the need for an optional pride space: A pride space that works from and for the communities themselves.

OWN club nights

PART 1 // OWN - The Reception

OWN: The Reception was born and it was held as the official afterparty for the Love Ain’t Fair Kikiball by Kiia Mowalola and Angel Mowalola. The kiki was a celebration of tragedy in love, cause Love is Love, but Love Ain’t Fair and hence we wanted to create an evening for the esteemed wedding guests to come and continue their night.

A new, temporary community space with a bar and terrace had just opened. R4, in Teurastamo, gave us the opportunity to test how the space works for us and our community.

Night's lineup included familiar faces from the minifestival year prior, Yeboyah and Banjee as well as suinner + trabelsi and a historic club debut at OWN by ESPRNC. The vibe was celebratory and elated. People dressed in their best wedding attires and danced hardd on the tables, behind the DJ booth and on the floor.

PART 2 // OWN - Good Communication

The bodies want to talk and pride never ends, so we went for the second time to get that good communication going for our summer flings. R4 provided the space to let our bodies do the talking, whether you came alone or together with someone the dance floor was open for some consensual grinding and collective dancing. The theme called for some good communication, connecting with our desires and communicating through our bodies, minds and spirits.

Lineup included dj cute cumber, one of the most influential doers on the cultural field with magical performance skills known also as Kiia Beilinson or Peter Cunt’dre, alongside suinner + trabelsi.

To help people get better in touch with their needs, wants and boundaries and to help communicate them to each other, we came up with a question game that was available for everyone to use during the night with questions to talk in relation as well as to answer yourself. There was a doodle book for the ones who don’t want to talk and ribbons were provided to tell where you stand about being in relation to other people.

OWN: Good Communication was the first OWN that worked on pay what you can model, a factor we work on to keep as an option also in the future. The atmosphere was thicc from the hot summer night and sweaty bodies grinding close to each other, connecting, conversing, singing, swaying, communicating through movement. The dance floor was full all night.

Part 3 // OWN - The trouble

As all good things come in three (do they?)
We wanted to end the summer of OWN, with a third party. Closing up the summer fling and saying our goodbyes to R4 that had treated us so sweetly.

As a completion to the trilogy we wanted to give space for all the difficult feelings that come up during our relationships to yourself, to people around you and the surrounding world -, the trouble. How does it feel to sing so sick to your ex safely or stomp to your revenge song together, this night was a space for you to feel and connect - moving always with consent and respect.

Lineup included dj Craftybitch and dj Wekesa alongside yours truly. We also had the pleasure of having the sweet presence of our safer spaces host Genesis, helping and holding us with the possible overwhelm, for the night.

This time the dance floor felt intimate, regulars were dancing from the moment we opened the doors. We did a little singalong to Cheechynas Peggy and made space for screaming out our needs. We shared the date with a lot of parties around town, weddings, birthday parties, summer endings, but our community found their way to us regardless. Thankful of you and hopeful for so many stories!