Alexandra Karamoutsiou, Post-doc researcher, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Research Center for the Humanities (RCH)

"They'll take our scene and turn it into an Airbnb": the DIY music studios of Thessaloniki as precarious living archives

keywords: DIY music practices, Living archives, Sustainability, Touristification

The DIY music studios of Thessaloniki have functioned as non-institutional musical pathways (Finnegan 2007) that have nourished the musical life of both Thessaloniki and the rest of the country for the past 40 years, from the post-Junta period to the present (Karamoutsiou 2023). The musicking (Small 1999) that takes place in their spaces, such as the processes of informal learning and collective creation, has triggered the emergence of diverse and multi-layered networked urban musical circuits, such as the organisation of concerts, album releases, zines, independent record labels and pirate radio stations (Karamoutsiou 2023), which make urban music communities both creative and sustainable. The networks of DIY music studios have strengthened the concentration of real resources in terms of acquiring a permanent network of shared contacts and recognition and have cultivated a sense of belonging and community engagement among musicians in Thessaloniki. Therefore, it could be argued that DIY music studios have embodied the key concepts of social sustainability, social capital (Shirazi and Keivani 2019) and social cohesion (Raman 2010). That they have managed to resist the internal forces of decline while maintaining the reproduction of the social, cultural conditions necessary for healthy democratic relations to flourish namely, social and political sustainability as Bahler defines it (2007). But what are these forces of decline, and until when will DIY music studios be able to resist them? How could we as historians record precarious DIY urban music practices? This presentation will focus on the stories of dispossession and displacement that have unfolded over the last three years, as DIY music studios have closed one by one under the policies of intense touristification of the city of Thessaloniki.

03 Alexandra Karamoutsiou.mp4

References

• Bahler, Karen. 2007. “Social sustainability: New Zealand solutions for Tocqueville’s problem”. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 31: 22–40. https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj31/31-social-sustainability-new-zealand-solution-for-tocquevilles-pages22-40.html
• Finnegan, Ruth H. 2007. The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press
• Karamoutsiou, Alexandra. 2023. “Urban music histories: the story of Thessaloniki’s D.I.Y. music studios.” PhD diss., Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
• Raman, Shibu.2010. “Designing a liveable compact city: physical forms of city and social life in urban neighbourhoods.” Built Environment 36: 63-80.
• Shirazi, M, Reza, & Ramin Keivani. 2019. “Social Sustainability Discourse: A critical revisit”. In Urban Social Sustainability: Theory, Policy and Practice edited by Reza M Shirazi, Keivani Ramin. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315115740
• Small, Christopher. 1999. “Musicking — the Meanings of Performing and Listening. A Lecture.” Music Education Research 1, no. 1: 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461380990010102.

About

Photo credit: Alexandra Karamoutsiou

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Alexandra Karamoutsiou received her PhD from the Department of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She continues her research as a postdoctoral researcher and works as an adjunct lecturer in the same department. At the same time she participates as a researcher in two funded research projects. Furthermore, for the year 2024 she is an academic associate of the Research Centre for the Humanities. Her research field starts from urban music studies and specializes in the study of D.I.Y music practices, network communities and spaces with a particular focus on the DIY music studios of Thessaloniki. She has presented parts of her research in dozens of international conferences since 2017 (IASPM, KISMIF, PNS, PMGIRC) and has published articles in approved journals such as Forum Historiae and Mousikos Logos. She is a founding member of the research group "Critical Music Histories" and an active member of the group "Popular Music in Greece International Research Collective".