Can the ruins of industry become a stage for utopia?

"Enter After Ruin, a programming block at Whole 2025's Ambient Stage incorporating music with live readings. Organized by London-based P. Eldridge and London-via-LA-based environmentalist Russell Howell Reed, the project investigated the festival's ambition of queer utopia through retelling and reinterpreting the development of Ferropolis. Once a center of brown coal mining in East Germany, After Ruin tracked the site from its origins to its present, and from present to future-detailing what was and dreaming of what could be."

"The program opened with a reading by Reed followed by three consecutive DJ sets by music producer NM DJ, New York powerhouses Sterling Juan Diaz and Sekucci, and Berlin-based St. Mozelle, which were recently released. The idea of Whole Festival, and its window into a story of queer identity and human impact, became a journey from ideation to action between last year's festival to this year's edition. The conversations themselves mirrored the chaos of getting to (and recovering from) Whole: finding a way from Berlin to Ferropolis, stolen moments with friends, and the inevitable emotional comedown following."

Whole Festival stages electronic music within Ferropolis's reclaimed industrial terrain while explicitly aiming to serve a growing yet splintering queer community. After Ruin, curated by P. Eldridge and Russell Howell Reed, blended live readings and DJ sets to trace and reimagine Ferropolis from brown coal mining origins through present reinvention toward speculative futures. The program opened with a reading by Reed and continued with consecutive sets by NM DJ, Sterling Juan Diaz, Sekucci, and St. Mozelle. Russell Reed reflected before, during, and after the event on queer environmentalism, confronting attendees with ideological questions and celebrating the creative spirit that shapes inclusive world-building.

Read at Documentjournal