Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.11.2018, Qupperneq 34

The R
eykjavík G
rapevine
Iceland A
irw
aves Special 20
18
34
Airwaves and gender equality
Words: Noemi Ehrat Photos: Ronald Rose
Recently, Iceland A ir waves
made headlines in the New York
Times for becoming the first
music festival to completely
close the gender gap between
male and female performers.
We wanted to know more about
this achievement and talked to
Anna Ásthildur Þórsteinns-
son—the festival’s online man-
ager—about intersectionality,
artist support and grassroot
movements.
Keychange, an umbrella or-
ganisation advocating for gen-
der equality at music festivals,
wants to achieve gender balance
by 2022 for participating music
festivals. It’s supported by the
British PRS for music founda-
tion, which aims at developing
new talents.
“Iceland Airwaves is actu-
ally a founding member of the
Keychange movement,” says
Anna. “We’ve been part of this
from the very beginning.” The
movement is further support-
ed by the Creative Europe pro-
gramme of the European Union
and other music festivals such
as the Reeperbahn festival and
Liverpool Sound City.
At the intersection
As a member of Keychange, Ice-
land Airwaves selected a few fe-
male artists and music industry
professionals to support.
“The way it works is that
these artists are booked by
the other Keychange founding
members’ festivals, and vice
versa,” she explains. The artists
chosen by Airwaves are dj. flug-
vél og geimskip, Kría, Hildur,
and Milkywhale. For industry
professionals, there are panels,
seminars, workshops and dis-
cussions held to further their
capabilities. For Anna, the 50:50
gender balance is part of a wider
ongoing conversation for the fu-
ture of festivals, where “the key
is intersectionality.”
“The goal is really to create a
network of people and strength-
en the ties of the movement,”
says Anna. “Airwaves is, of
course, lucky because there is
a seemingly endless supply of
amazingly talented women in
the indie and pop genre.”
Change comes
Anna thinks it can be more
difficult in genres such as met-
al, electronic music and jazz.
“Starting a conversation on this
topic is just really important,”
she continues. “If festivals say
that they don’t want to engage
in the equality pledge conver-
sation, it’s kinda revealing. Not
all festivals are the same; a mul-
ti-genre showcase festival is
very different from, say, a hard
rock festival. But it’s great that
everyone has an opinion on this,
and if they’re not ready to pledge,
they’re at least alerted to the
change going on around them.”
On negative responses to
the movement, Anna responds
that there are always naysayers.
“We’ve had a great, positive re-
action so far,” she says. “You’re
always afraid of a backlash if
you’re the first and only one to do
something like this.” For Anna,
it’s hard to hear that festivals
are afraid of not selling enough
tickets with a female dominated
lineup. “I just came back from
Way Out West in Gothenburg,
and I didn’t even think about it,”
she says.
Girls rock
Meanwhile, Iceland Airwaves
can not only boast about achiev-
ing an equal lineup—even the
staff behind the scenes is com-
prised of precisely 50% women
and 50% men. But the efforts of
Airwaves are only one facet of
the culture of supporting female
musicians in Iceland.
“There’s the grassroot move-
ment ‘Stelpur Rokkar,’ or ‘Girls
Rock,’ which encourages girls to
take up the guitar or drums and
let their creativity flow,” Anna
explains. “Björk is also a great
role model as a female visionary
and pioneer for girls and wom-
en,” she adds. Anna thinks Ice-
land is on a good path on this is-
sue, as there’s an ever-increasing
amount of female artists coming
from Iceland. “In the end, it's all
about positivity and empower-
ing great artists in finding their
potential,” she finishes. “I hope
we can inspire other places to
follow suit and to facilitate pos-
itive change.”
AIRWAVES CONFERENCE
See a panel on gender and music on
Nov 9th at Centerhotel Plaza at 13:00
Po
sit
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ty
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