EL CARTEL x Bonfim dal 4 dicembre Tutte le dateEL CARTEL x Bonfim from 4 December All dates
EL CARTEL x Bonfim dal 4 dicembre Tutte le dateEL CARTEL x Bonfim from 4 December All dates
Events and music in Genoa
What is left when the music stops?
OBD started in Genoa from a group of people, a house and the music. It has taken many forms since, and it is still changing.
Based
Genoa, Italy
Started in
A living room on Via Oberdan
Live now
El Cartel · Mabon Festival
What it is
A cultural container
Born in a living room
Music, people, places
Not necessarily bigger. More relevant.
Born in a living room
Music, people, places
Not necessarily bigger. More relevant.
OBD was a project before it knew it was one.
Before the productions, the festivals and the structures there were a living room, friends, music and the wish to meet. Everything started there.
The forms it has taken
Three chapters, one container.
01
Live
El Cartel
Techno, open spaces, freedom.
This is where it started: the wish to meet and dance again, grown into a musical project with its own standard. Quality techno, recognisable places, little hype and a lot of room to dance.
Enter the project
02
Live
Mabon
A festival, but not only.
Three days at Lago delle Lame where music, art, land and community share the same space. Today it is the fullest expression of OBD — and it is looking for a form that can live beyond the festival.
Enter the project
03
Closed chapter
Quelli del Muretto
A living room by the sea.
At Scalo Torre in Pieve Ligure we moved the feeling of Casa Oberdan into a small kiosk facing the water. It was short. It was not marginal: for the first time the culture had to live inside a place every single day.
Read the chapter
We are not only interested in filling a space. We are interested in giving it meaning.
A mountain, an open field, a kiosk on the water, a lake in the woods. The form changed many times. The principle much less.
How we do things
No manifesto. A few things that got clearer.
One word stays above the others: respect. For people, for nature, for whoever works and whoever takes part. Freedom, yes — shared freedom.
01
Quality, not sterile perfection.
02
Freedom, when it is lived alongside others.
03
Music as a cultural language, not only entertainment.
04
Places, and the responsibility of respecting them.
05
A party can be light without being empty.
Where we are going
Not necessarily bigger. More relevant.
Not an endless run of events that work, fill a space and are forgotten the next day. Recognisable projects, music released, artists given room, relationships with other cultural realities, places in Genoa lived in new ways.
We look at what happens outside Italy, then bring our own Mediterranean character into it: conviviality, imperfection, warmth.
We do not know how long OBD will last. But if one day it ends, we want to be able to say its passage left something behind: a place lived differently, a relationship, an artist discovered, a night that was more than a night.
Things can be done well.
Artists, venues, cultural projects, collaborations we cannot imagine yet. Write to us.