Maciej Korsan

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Projekt New Hope

co-founded a Białystok DJ collective: a manifesto, showcases in Białystok and Gdynia, ambient afternoons at Galeria Arsenał

  • DJ,
  • collective
Projekt New Hope DJ school: a young man pulls a record from a crate, with turntables, a Traktor mixer and a laptop showing the New Hope logo in front of him

Projekt New Hope grew out of the DJ workshops at FOMO, the Białystok club where I’d been playing regularly since summer 2021. Hubert Marcinkiewicz (MIFI77) ran the workshops, Dtekk came up with the name, and in September 2022 the students and teachers turned into a collective. I was one of the people who started it. I took the photo at the top of this page in March 2023, during a class at the collective’s DJ school.

The manifesto

We started with a manifesto. It was written out of worry about Białystok’s “falling interest in independent culture” and promised an “accessible and friendly space” where artists could grow and show their work – starting with electronic music, but not stopping there.

On 28 September 2022, Hubert Marcinkiewicz, Adam Sworowski and I talked it through with Andrzej Bajguz on his show “!pod powierzchnią!” on Polskie Radio Białystok. Two days later came the collective’s first event, FOMO_SPECTRAL: NEW HOPE SHOWCASE X ŁOWCY, billed with 24 DJs who had come through the workshops.

Three men standing in front of a Polskie Radio Białystok backdrop
Adam Sworowski, me and Hubert Marcinkiewicz at Polskie Radio Białystok, September 2022. Photo: Andrzej Bajguz / Polskie Radio Białystok

Playing out

In muno.pl’s Munoludy awards, a public vote named Projekt New Hope Initiative of the Year 2022. In February 2023 I recorded a set for the collective’s show on Radio Kapitał. On 29 April we took a showcase to Drugi DOM in Gdynia – I played back to back with Ania Łaskarzewska, alongside MIFI77 b2b Kosmalski and Siberialist.

Poster: a collage of a mug-shaped figure next to a hand-lettered line-up and “New Hope 29.04 Drugi Dom”
Poster for the Projekt New Hope showcase at Drugi DOM, Gdynia, 29 April 2023. Source: Resident Advisor

On 27 May 2023 Projekt New Hope and Up To Date Festival kicked off a partnership with a joint night at Fama in Białystok. I played alongside Dtekk, Hoax, DJ Czarek, MIFI77 and RAWMANCE.

That summer the collective played Galeria Arsenał. During the exhibition “Duby smalone”, deckchairs went out on the square in front of the old power station every other Sunday and we played ambient. My turn came on 20 August, when I played POGWAR live.

Sources