Imagine this: It’s been a couple of days since Roadburn 2025. You are now back home and as you scroll through your socials you cherish the joy and love you find in the testimonials shared by other attendees – some of who you now might call friends. Do you feel connected? Do you feel supported? What is that feeling about?

More than just re-living performances through photos and reviews, is it the shared love of heaviness that deepens the community? Is it the unique environment brewed by the Roadburn team that make it feel like “home”? Or… something completely different?

This year we want to try to better understand the connections and experiences that make Roadburn what it is. Initiated by a fellow Roadburner with knowledge and experience of participatory heritage research and community archiving.

Share your Roadburn history
As hosts of the Reinwardt Academy-project ‘Archiving Heaviness’, we invite all who relate to Roadburn –  in whatever way – to take part in building a living archive together – starting at Roadburn 2025.

Think about your first Roadburn. Think about your last Roadburn. Think about performances, relationships and experiences that stood out for you and consider why that was. Zoom out and think about what attending has meant for you and your friends. Zoom back in and find that one special moment.

Whilst much of the magic of Roadburn may exist in an intangible form, for this project we’d like to assemble a collection of tangible pieces that represent all that is so hard to put in to words about the Roadburn experience. Fabric, paper or otherwise. Have you kept mementos or trinkets that remind you of your Roadburn adventures?

For all four days of Roadburn 2025, we will have a dedicated space at the 013 to:

• Present your stories in a collective way
• Exhibit your Roadburn treasures in a participatory pop-up exhibition
• Collect more stories and objects as they emerge from the festival itself

Are you ready to share a story? Thinking about bringing an object to the pop-up exhibition? Fill in this Archiving Heaviness Intake Form. As the festival approaches, we will get back to you with an update and practical information. Rest assured each object will be handled with care, given a unique ID number, and stored securely whilst away from its owner.

Want to know more?
You might be reading all this and finding yourself wanting to know more about this project, its approach, the research behind it, or just want to satisfy your curiosity. Check out the project website page here

Project leader Jonathan Even-Zohar (Reinwardt Academy and long-term Roadburn-goer) is very happy to answer questions via jonathan.even-zohar@ahk.nl

Archiving Heaviness is a collaboration between Roadburn, the Reinwardt Academy and Podiumkunst.net