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Music

Pete Keen Makes Festivals for People Who Are Sick of Festivals

The Sugar Mountain creative director talks about curating weirdness.
Photography: Chip Mooney

This article is presented by Vodafone Upsiders. We profiled a bunch of young Australians who are following their passions and perfecting their pursuits outside of their day jobs. You can watch the episode featuring Pete Keen and read our interview with him below.

Since 2011, Sugar Mountain has brought a summit of art and music to Melbourne each year; a day of bands, DJs, visuals, talks, performances, drinks, food, and unexpected weirdness.

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Creative director and co-founder Pete Keen describes the festival as "a Voltron-type scenario: a project that is greater than any one person."

Not only is he one of Sugar Mountain's head honchos, but he's also an artist, musician, illustrator, designer, podcaster, filmmaker, and curator. The list goes on.

We spoke to Keen about reworking the tired festival formula into something unforgettable, and navigating a range of roles to make it happen.

VICE: What makes Sugar Mountain different to other festivals?
Pete Keen: We're constantly changing. We try to shape a number of 'choose your own adventure' scenarios for people throughout the course of the day. As curators, we're constantly challenging ourselves to come up with new ways of reinventing the wheel. As arrogant as it might be to think that we could come up with something new, why would you not take a shot at it?

How many people does it take to make Sugar Mountain happen?
There are three of us who drive the business alongside two members from the illustrious Mushroom Group. Though, to deliver the project it takes far more than just five. There's an extended family consisting of an internal team from Mushroom, and then external groups, artists, volunteers, and so many more who give epic amounts of time, energy, and love to make Sugar Mountain possible each year.

It started out as a side gig and has now turned into your main job. How did you make the jump?
I don't really see a point in wasting time with half efforts when you fully love and believe in something. I felt that way about Sugar Mountain. We're no trust-fund babies, so it took working a few extra jobs on top of our regular jobs just to make it a possibility in the first few years—living poorly, eating poorly, and sometimes not eating at all. We were fully committed to making it our world. I slept on a yoga mat under the desk of our office for a good eight months.

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Tell us about some highlights over the past few years.
The lead-up to the festival is a journey in itself. It's a process that sees a lot of people come together: artists, musicians, production teams. Each year I seem to walk away with a whole bunch of new mates, be it volunteers, or artists from the lineup. I guess it's the coming together of people that gets me most buzzed. Performance-wise, there have been a critical few that linger in my mind: Kelsey Lu, The Avalanches with Spank Rock, Sun Araw with Ben Barretto, ESG, NO ZU featuring Sal P of Liquid Liquid, Kirin J Callinan, Le1f, Empress Of, Kelela, Brothers Hand Mirror, plus a DJ set by Yamantaka Eye from Boredoms way back in one of our first years at The Forum Theatre. I'm missing a lot from that shortlist, but those are just a few floating around my frontal lobe.

A rare moment out of the office

Have there been moments when you've thought the festival might not be able to continue? How do you push through?
Yes, of course! Though to dwell too heavily on doubt would just weaken the delivery. Looking forward is important to me, and I'm constantly, pleasantly bothered by the birth of new ideas for how we can warp our offering in years to come.

What's one thing you'll never do again at Sugar Mountain?
I don't believe in regrets. If you fuck up, learn from it! For better or for worse, I'm an epic perfectionist. So I always think the previous project sucks in comparison to the new idea. I'm constantly thinking, 'Gah, that's got nothing on this next trick!' It's a vicious cycle that will probably never see me satisfied, but I have a sick taste for that process.

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Pete Keen in his studio

In the studio. Photography: Sam Whiteside

What piece of equipment could you and the festival not function without?
Without WIFI do we cease to exist? Aside from the physical festival bump-in most of our work prior, and after, is done via our old pal the internet. I live between Melbourne, Sydney and, occasionally, New York. So if we were communicating through carrier pigeon, this shit wouldn't happen. Throughout the year I'm on my phone a lot, as expected, though, I could definitely do with 'accidentally' losing it during festival time.

Are there any other events you look to as inspiration? Who do you think's doing it right?
There aren't any that we look to for inspiration, but we admire quite a few for what they do. Personally, I love Nrmal in Mexico, Moogfest and FORM in the US, TodaysArt in the Netherlands and Japan, Sonar in Barcelona, Dark Mofo in Australia, and many more.

Your latest gig is virtual reality project called VIA. Can you tell us about it?
The project is driven by myself and Daniel Stricker, head of Siberia Records, producer and member of Sydney's Midnight Juggernauts. VIA is a series of multicultural collaborative projects inviting select artists and musicians to take part in cross-cultural artistic exchanges. We take the viewer on a journey across Australia and throughout the far reaches of the globe, to share unique stories, guided by forward-thinking creative talent. The first episode is based around two remarkable artists, from two vastly different black communities. We investigate, through artistic collaboration, the meeting points between those two individuals, their communities, and their own forms of storytelling. That's all I can really hint to at this point. An announcement is coming soon!

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