Niki Matita

Niki Matita is a Berlin-based artist and cultural worker. She studied European ethnology, cultural studies, gender studies and philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany and received a diploma in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, Germany. As a DJ, she tours Europe, appearing at a range of venues from small bars and clubs to festivals. Since January 2020, she has been doing the radio show La Passante Ecoutante in which she explores different places, urban spaces and landscapes by walking and listening.

 Her radio show SubCult – Sounds Beyond Mainstream together with Gary Flanell, was broadcast twice a month from 2008–2020 on Free Radios in Berlin and international community and art radio stations. Previously, she was artistic director of Zentrale Randlage, a club and platform for experimental music, art, and performance. In 2016, she won the Berlin Radio Play Prize for Lux. In 2020, she debuted as a solo performer with her composition cycle Kundschafter, which was released on CD in Kaunas/Lithuania. In 2021, the sound piece Crumbling premiered, which was commissioned by Soundart Radio in Devon/UK.

In 2019, her full-length radio play performance Auf der Suche nach dem Klang des Schranks von Ramon Haze premiered with Christian Gierden at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach/Germany. Since 2019, her traveling micro-radio studio KOFFERradio combines ethnography and networking. She has been part of the Berlin curatorial and organizational team of Datscha Radio, the world’s only garden radio art festival, broadcasting from an allotment garden, since 2016. In 2020, its motto was Radiophonien des Alls // Listening to the Universe and during the Perseids shower it broadcast live for 48 hours, its program ranging from concerts under the starry sky, radio signals from meteorites or satellites to contributions about science fiction and cosmic music.

As an activist and board member of AMARC Europe, she is committed to free and community radio and addresses feminist issues in the music industry, e.g. as a member of the international electronic music network female:pressure.

Niki Matita is fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude from November 2021 until March 2022 within the framework of Under Utopia, a collaborative project with Akademie Schloss Solitude and the artist duo Maren Geers und Thomas Drescher. The fellowship is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden Wuerttemberg.