Meet Club Are: the London event blurring club, gallery, and runway

What does it look like when we think of the dancefloor as an artistic incubator? Writer Megan Wallace speaks to management team Mika Kailes, Abdula Jama, and Nhung Le to find out. 

From ballroom to the works of Leigh Bowery, the meeting of fashion, music, and subculture in nightlife, particularly queer nightlife, has bred some of our most distinctive artistic movements and figures. 

And yet there remains a cognitive dissonance between what clubs have produced culturally, and the value that’s placed upon them socially. Too often, nightlife spaces are seen as self-indulgent, ephemeral, and lacking in substance, and therefore not worthy of structural support. 

What if the solution could be found by shifting how we view clubbing: not just as producing art, but as an artform in its own right? 

This perspective is fundamental to Club Are, which was founded in 2023 by Mika Kailes and Abdula Jama, later joined by Nhung Le. The London event fuses music, fashion, and fine arts in a way which blurs the conventional boundaries of nightlife. Part of the excitement swirling around Club Are is that it’s legitimately eclectic: avoiding repeat formats to deliver something new every time. “We aim to reimagine each edition,” Kailes and Jama say. “No two nights are designed in the same way, while keeping the core energy cohesive.”

Radically redesigning the club and festival space through the work of various featured artists, Club Are fashions the dancefloor as something of an art gallery. Previous iterations have seen partygoers dance under gossamer canopies and translucent latex tubes, or get lost in the crowd surrounded by foraged floral installations. Traditional artistic spaces and institutions can feel rigid or inaccessible, particularly to those without a particular training or background. The dancefloor, however, is all about experimentation: inviting partygoers to play and move freely.

Part of Club Are’s expansive, creative energy is its work with different practitioners in a non-hierarchical tangle of inspiration. There’s a “growing network of artists, designers, DJs, technicians, and creatives who become part of the process,” Kailes and Jama say. “Each event develops through the people involved and the collaborations that emerge.”

Nightlife is so powerful because of its collectivism; how it can bring all manner of people together in one place. Club Are takes this a step further by creating opportunities for interdisciplinary inspiration and exploring new ways that different creative practices can interact with one another. The lights, art, music and throng of bodies—many dressed in subversive club kid fashion—come together in a sort of free-flowing euphoria. 

There’s room for spontaneity and serendipity on the night, but the team works hard to foster a spirit of collaboration and experimentation that begins behind the scenes. “We try to create opportunities for artists working in different fields to collaborate in ways they might not otherwise have the chance to,” the founders tell me. “We want Club Are to be a place where people feel comfortable experimenting, taking risks, and making new work together. Over time, that’s naturally grown into a community. 

“Everyone contributes their own perspective, so the event develops collectively instead of following a predetermined format. Sometimes an installation changes how the space is used, sometimes a performance shifts the rhythm of the night, and sometimes collaborations continue long after the event has finished.” The team rejects a prescriptive approach. Instead, each edition of Club Are exists to create a wholly new experience that’s intimately shaped by the creatives and how they interact with each other, partygoers, and the space. 

The music programming is also designed to foster experimentation. “Alongside established artists, we’re committed to giving a platform to emerging DJs, particularly queer, trans, FLINTA and POC artists whose work we genuinely believe in,” Kailes and Jama explain. “We’re interested in lineups that feel cohesive while introducing people to new artists and different perspectives.”

A typical night might include DJ sets, performance art, spoken word, and an audiovisual exhibition; all with carefully designed light and soundscapes. “We’ve always aimed to build a recognisable sound,” the duo say. “It sits somewhere between progressive house, tech house, and hard house, with an emphasis on uplifting, driving, and empowering music. When we started, we felt there was room in London nightlife for more of that energy.”

Three years in, the team are perhaps proudest of the energy that emanates from the dancefloor. It’s a true community, in a time when that term is often overused. Fostering an inclusive environment, fundraising for trans+ charity Not A Phase, and allowing unexpected friendships to flourish, Club Are continues to connect people long after the lights come up. 

“We’ve seen people meet at Club Are and go on to collaborate professionally, start projects together, and become close friends,” Kailes and Jama explain. “Watching those relationships continue long after the event has finished has become one of the most meaningful parts of what we do.” 

The next Club Are is on September 19th in Hackney. Find out more via their website Photos by Dani d’Ingeo