This article was originally published by i-D Italy.

I don’t know if the attention to clothing and overall image is linked solely to the desire to feel like you’re a part of a community — in Italian society, it’s good that “the habit does make the monk” — but there must be something more that’s helped hardcore resist and stay proud since the 90s. It’s never shown signs of failure. So it makes perfect sense that the artist and photographer Boris Postma had the idea to capture Gabber’s lives between Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan, and to illustrate its many facets, which often (and willingly) appear, to the external eye, to be true contradictions. After all, hardcore is as tough and heavy as it is inclusive, and its rhythms —160 BPM and more — have outsiders around the world moving in unison. Postma’s work, which comes from years of eating, sleeping, and dancing with Gabber enthusiasts from various countries, results in Planet Core, a photographic exposition that — thanks to a lengthy research phase — presents not only the most extreme and sensational sides of the hardcore aesthetic, but also illustrates the everyday, more toned down looks of the subculture.

The Planet Core exhibition will be open to the public from 18 to 22 October at the Melkweg Expo in Amsterdam.