Thank you to all of you for helping us make it this far. Few would have imagined that we would have survived this long in a city like London.
It hasn’t been easy. Cafe OTO receives no core funding and no sponsorship. We exist as part of a small and fragile international network of spaces dedicated to this music.
The trajectory of venues like ours can feel inevitable and we can all think of important spaces that the city has eventually swallowed up. We see this happen time and time again, not just in London but globally.
As this process continues and venues become scarcer, our work feels more vital than ever. We become small pockets of resistance to a broader process of cultural homogenisation that squeezes out independent art and thought. Now more than ever we need spaces for communities to gather and make work that challenges dominant cultural norms and can nurture art outside of the world of commercial and institutional production.
Memberships now form a core role in keeping us afloat. Put simply, we wouldn’t still be here without our Members. But we need more.
Not only is Membership income essential to our survival, the autonomy and independence that comes with being a Members funded organisation feels essential in the current political and cultural climate. We want to be answerable not to external bodies but to our own community; musicians, audiences and Members.
Thank you as always.
Cafe OTO
