Hip hop film workshop by Rafiki Art Initiatives at TrAP

Cypher Nord is a youth-led participatory film project exploring what Hip Hop means to Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth in Norway.

Through filmmaking workshops in Oslo, Tromsø, and Bergen, young people will develop their own short films while learning about research,
storytelling, filming, scripting, and editing. The project brings together youth, filmmakers, musicians, artists, researchers,
and community organizers—creating a “cypher” where experiences, ideas, and creative expression can meet.

The resulting films will offer a powerful collective portrait of Hip Hop in Norway—not only as music,
but as a culture shaped by self-expression, community, politics, activism, dance, fashion, film, and visCypher Nord: Youth Participatory Film Project held at TrAP

What role does Hip Hop play in the lives of Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth in Norway?

This project aims to explore Hip Hop culture through the perspectives and lived experiences of Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth in Norway,
in the form of a

participatory film-making project. Youth will be guided through several workshops to develop a short film about Hip Hop in Norway.
This addresses both the increase of migration in Norway that has led to a larger demographic of youth diaspora as well as the multidisciplinary,
political foundations of Hip Hop.

Hip Hop “cyphers” are informal gatherings of rappers, beatboxers, dancers, and musicians coming together to jam and create an improvisational music experience.
We are calling this film project a cypher to indicate the gathering of a network of youth, filmmakers, musicians, researchers, and community organizers to create a film experience about Hip Hop culture in Norway. Workshops will take participants ages 13-16 through the filmmaking process to develop their own short film on Hip Hop, and they will be a part of a larger film project that captures the process to make visible a potent and expressive image of what Hip Hop means to youth in Norway by bringing together the collection of short films created by youth. Additionally, we hope to connect with Hip Hop artists that the youth will be able to engage with and learn from.

The following comprise the 6 workshops:

1. Inspiration Activities

2. Mapping

3. Researching and Filming

4. Scripting

5. Editing Sessions

6. Creating a narrative

Youth will lead the project and facilitate the workshops, with support from the organizers. The workshops will be held:

About Rafiki Art Initiatives:

Founded in 2014 by interdisciplinary artist Rafiki, RAI is an Oslo-based not-for-profit hybrid platform and community that centers on the experiences and needs of BIPOC+ art practitioners in Norway and the Nordics. Since 2014, RAI has acted as curator, collective, art mediator, and producer, often focusing on youth-centered projects and always challenging colonial frameworks within the Norwegian arts sphere. With particular focus on Black/African/African diasporic communities, RAI understands that while existing arts spaces can be transformed into safer spaces for marginalized and excluded peoples, this project requires clear, genuine welcome. RAI endeavours to create the accessible from the inaccessible, without reckoning with the barrier of negotiating with inhospitable environments. To listen well and continuously to the shifting needs of the BIPOC arts community means acknowledging the liminal, and embracing the fluid. In collaboration, RAI looks for arts professionals, institutions, and organizations that understand centering marginalized artistic voices means centering response rather than reaction, and that the impulse for curiosity, collaboration, and healing must come as naturally and needfully as breath. In centering the thriving of BIPOC+ in the Norwegian and Nordic visual arts space, RAI is here to adapt and transform as necessary, always training our gaze on the liminal, leaning in to the flow of things, and creating the space for alternate narratives to emerge through art.