For its first Paris edition, Reference Festival lands in the city during Art Basel Paris with a week of panels, performances, installations and long club nights. FKA twigs, Gabriel Moses and Pol Taburet join a programme that stretches from Dover Street Market to the banks of the Seine.
Mumi Haïati founded Reference Festival in 2019 in a Neukölln parking lot, and this year’s edition opened in Berlin during Berlin Art Week. FREIE KUNST now travels to Paris from 22 to 25 October, with satellite events starting earlier in the week. The title borrows the German term for fine art, meaning work made beyond any functional purpose, and the festival reads it loosely, as an invitation to test how creative work gets made and how ideas travel across people and disciplines. For Haïati, freedom remains an open question and a daily imperative.
The festival’s centre of gravity is FVTVR, the new club founded by Arnaud Frisch at the Cité de la Mode et du Design. Talks and fireside conversations take place at the Reference Showroom and at the Reference Studios salon in the 7th arrondissement, a short walk across the river from the Grand Palais. Frisch’s Silencio and Dover Street Market Paris host further events. Haïati sums up the format as an encounter: a neuroscientist beside a choreographer, a techno pioneer beside a philosopher, gathered in one room at the right hour.
Friday sets the pace. The afternoon brings panels at the Showroom on psychedelics, architecture and the future of art institutions. At night FVTVR opens with Eartheater live and a performance by choreographer Josh Johnson, both co-presented with Bettina Milz of the forthcoming Pina Bausch Centre, before Blackhaine and Bobby Beethoven carry the club through to morning. Saturday belongs to Richie Hawtin, who curates a 24-hour experience with artist John Gerrard and then closes with a twelve-hour party. Installations by Donna Huanca, Dozie Kanu and Gabriel Moses fill FVTVR across the weekend, with works by Pol Taburet and Wombat at other locations.
Panelists across the week include Klaus Biesenbach, Chris Dercon, Isamaya Ffrench, Tara Swart and Tariq Krim, with a curatorial committee formed by Marc Spiegler, Victoria Camblin and Nicholas Korody. On Sunday, FKA twigs and director Jordan Hemingway close the festival with a film screening and conversation produced with Arte.
PROGRAMME
Monday 19 October
Dover Street Market Paris
DSMP Open House with a DJ set by Emma DJ, 7.30–9.30pm
Tuesday 20 October
Silencio
Club Kid film after-party, from 11pm (open RSVP)
Thursday 22 October
Reference Salon
Intimate conversation with Flora Weill, Director of Emerging Technology at P.INC (RSVP and invitation only)
Dover Street Market Paris, Rose Bakery
Munky (KoЯn) meet-and-greet and merchandise signing, with designs by Kolya Nemoi and Bjarne Melgaard, 8–10pm
Friday 23 October
Reference Showroom, 4–8pm
Design Panel with Will Perkins and Johannes Schön (Bocci)
Institution Panel with Bettina Milz, Klaus Biesenbach and Chris Dercon
House00 Panel with Chris Kulendran Thomas and Samir Bantal
Moderators: Mumi Haïati, Nicholas Korody and Victoria Camblin
FVTVR
Eartheater, live performance co-presented by Bettina Milz, 9–9.30pm
Josh Johnson + friends, live performance co-presented by Bettina Milz, 9.45–10.45pm
Club programme with Eartheater, Blackhaine, Bobby Beethoven and more TBC, 11pm–6am
Art installations, Friday and Saturday
Donna Huanca: FVTVR
Pol Taburet: location TBC
Wombat: Reference Showroom
Dozie Kanu: location TBC
Gabriel Moses: FVTVR
Kolya Nemoi & Bjarne Melgaard: FVTVR
Saturday 24 October
FVTVR
24 Hour Experience curated by John Gerrard and Richie Hawtin, 12pm–12am
Including a panel talk moderated by Marc Spiegler, 12–12.45pm
Minus +, a 12-hour party by Richie Hawtin, 12am–12pm
Reference Showroom, 2–5pm
Crossing Lanes, Lab Panel with Benjamin Paulin and Isamaya Ffrench
Panel (title TBC) with Arnaud Esquerre, possibly joined by Jack Self
Creativity & Tech Panel with Tariq Krim and Flora Weill
Panel (title TBC) with Monica Bonvicini and Emanuele Coccia
Moderators: Marc Spiegler and Victoria Camblin
Sunday 25 October
Location TBC
FKA twigs & Jordan Hemingway, film screening and panel talk, 7pm
Reference Festival: FREIE KUNST
22–25 October 2026, with satellite events from 19 October
FVTVR, Cité de la Mode et du Design; Reference Showroom; Silencio; Dover Street Market Paris
Paris
