112 pages Edited by Signal Zero Text(s) by Lionel Pourtau Photograph(s) by Livia Saavedra 23 x 23 cm Language: French Hardback Publisher: Signal Zero Editions 2025
It is the lived story of an in-between within an in-between. If the Free Party of the 1990s conceived of itself as a desirable margin outside official dancefloors, it gave rise to its chimerical offspring of the 2000s, of which 50,000-strong teknivals are one of the faces. Between the edgy, arty stance of the English renegades who imported the format to France in 1992 and the gaudy amusement park of the following decade lies a suspended moment—the stretched-out present of the late 1990s. For thousands of Parisians and suburbanites, among them Livia Saavedra, the Free Party is also what happens beyond the dancefloor and far from the sound. These urbanites’ familiar terrains—business parks grafted onto dozens of small towns—become windows of sociability cherished by the asocial, the shy, the gently unhinged, and the downright shattered. By the late 1990s, the Free Party is already a practice for weekenders seeking a temporary release, and still an islet brimming with dreams of the alternative. These photographs, taken between 1998 and 2001, are the journal of an art student’s trajectory, capturing what lies around the speakers and the dancefloor: a rough-edged chill-out space to hang out and drift without watching the clock.
