Institute of Contemporary Arts

Hardcore Is More Than Music is a banner under which artists Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky (born Oxford, 1980, lives in London) and Nina Manandhar (born London, 1981, lives in London) have grouped a series of varied and hybrid collaborative activities since 2002. Founded whilst the pair were students at Chelsea College of Art and Design, the project began with the production of an eponymous fanzine and has developed into what Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky describe as a 'social enterprise'.

The initial self-publication of three fanzines sought parallels between a personalised experience of art and the sub-cultures of musical genres such as hardcore punk, techno and grime. HIMTM used interviews, treatise and photography to explicitly develop a 'fan's' response to the creative energy associated with the social spaces of both art and music.

The production of these zines enabled Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky to draw connections between established cultural practioners and groups of teenagers whose opinions and activities HIMTM tapped into. Simultaneous to these publications they toured a series of participatory projects around schools and youth groups in London, culminating in an set of workshops at Stowe Youth Centre in Westbourne Green (Best Body, 2004), in which influential musicians and producers including Graham Massey (808 State) Jon E Cash (Black Ops) and Alasdair Roberts (Rough Trade) shared expertise with groups of local teenagers.

The subsequent incarnations of HIMTM as an increasingly professional magazine (including a supplement produced for The Guardian, and a publication produced with several youth groups over a day-long workshop at Tate Britain) have highlighted a fusion of artistic concerns with the principles of social enterprise. The twin tools of marketing and fundraising have enabled Manandhar and Pinto-Duschinsky not only to pursue and promote their own interests, but also to engage in collaborative activities outside of a traditional cultural framework. The language of 'social exclusion' and urban demographics is at once the territory they manipulate and the site for a mode of creativity.

As part of Nought to Sixty, Hardcore is More Than Music is developing a relationship between the ICA and a new newspaper project based at Stowe Youth Centre. This project is focussed on providing training opportunities for unemployed and excluded young people in the Borough of Westminster, through the production of The Cut, a quarterly newspaper featuring the views and interests of this group. The first issue was launched in March at the ICA, and between May and November an issue of The Cut will be produced that focuses on the ICA and the community built around the Nought to Sixty programme.

Richard Birkett