Sara Sergola: Down the Rabbit Hole

3 Jun

Written By Ellen Stone

June 3rd, 2024

By Briá Purdy @briapurdyox

There is a place in Milan where all the club kids flock. It is here that they go to escape, to dance, to dream and to be seen. Milan: the shifty metropolis littered with the same word on doorways, on lampposts, on every stretch of clear wall. DIE SEKTE. Its innocuous lettering leads us down the rabbit hole and into an industrial area of the city. Gone is the sleek image of luxury fashion and neoclassicism. Down we go, along the graffiti-lined railroad, past the construction sites and blocked-off arches, to this, our destination.

It is here that Sara Sergola spends her nights, documenting the young people who come to shake off the constraints of the day and become creatures of the underground. With her camera, Sara captures the heart of this alternative, thriving scene and presents it to the world as a new model of how to exist authentically in the city she calls her own.

Briá Purdy: First of all, can you tell the readers who you are, and what your work is about?

Sara Sergola: Hello everyone, my name is Sara. What do I like to do? To catch stories in analogue film. During the day, I capture moments that I would like to remain eternal with my camera; during the night I’m shooting a VHS documentary for a techno collective called DSKT (Die Sekte).

BP: What do you aim to capture in your videos?

SS: The stories, the music, the freedom.

*Sara Sergola, with Carnale Room and DSKT at the Silicone Club, Milan, July 2023*

BP: Can you tell me about your recent DSKT work?

SS: At the end of last year DSKT was hosting techno events that I often went to. I went there, not necessarily as an artist, but as a club-goer - I went to dance and to have fun. It was a place where I felt I could be myself without judgment.

Now, DSKT is like a family to me. In September I was given the opportunity to work with the collective and I was let loose with a VHS tape in my hand. I remember what Franz, the founder of DSKT, told me: ‘This is yours, have fun and record it.’

“My involvement with DSKT as an outlet of artistic freedom that perhaps I have always wanted but that I had never been able to find until now.”

He trusted me completely and gave me total artistic freedom. Here I was, coming almost out of nowhere, and he gave me such scope to create. For me, this was so special. I have always loved film and photography. I work as a producer and so it is the essence of what I do.

However, the possibility that I could also express myself through a documentary form surprised me. More than just a job, I would define my involvement with DSKT as an outlet of artistic freedom that perhaps I have always wanted but that I had never been able to find until now.

BP: DSKT is distinctly inspired by Berlin's nightlife and underground culture. How do you think this import of urban German style affects the way young people in Milan are expressing themselves, and how do you translate this on film?

SS: DSKT wants to bring the aspects of dystopian and urban punk that are so characteristic of Berlin techno. Milan is a city that puts you in a box, it wants to assign labels and masks to make you conform to its ideal, but after a while, this box becomes too restrictive, too claustrophobic. DSKT is a place of escape, a night in which you can be yourself without judgement, with compassion and respect towards others. My videos act as a mouthpiece for the young people that I shoot.

“My videos act as a mouthpiece for the young people that I shoot. “

BP: As a medium, photography (and videography) has historically struggled with the power imbalance between the artist and the subject. Your work relies on working with other people and capturing their self-expression on camera. How do you navigate working with the public in such an intuitive and protective space?

SS: These people, the audience and the subjects, are a fundamental part of the format. Before recording, I always explain to them what the video is about and why I am making it. I think people appreciate the transparency, and it becomes an opportunity for them to express themselves in their own words, through their own image.

BP: It’s so refreshing to hear that it can be an equalising and symbiotic process. Do you think that the underground club scene in Milan could influence a wider mainstream culture and art in Italy, and even further, in Europe?

SS: Underground culture has always had a history of movement and of change. The term itself describes the origins of the thing, everything is born from the base: a need to express.

From my point of view, I believe that Milan has succeeded in building its very own underground culture. It is a diving board of opportunity, of messages, of trends. Milan brings together young dreamers and artists from all over the world. It is a carrier of trends, a city that teaches you how to take flight, but also the difficult art of falling.

BP: Do you see any truth in the idea that young artists are seeking refuge from conventional art spaces and instead finding safety in expression in nightlife?

SS: I don’t think that this is a new phenomenon. People have always had a need to express themselves and escape conventional spaces in order to find the reality that exists in the margins and on the fringes of society. In the 70s there was the hippy movement. In the 80s there was the revolution of punk. Today, we have techno.

BP: Thank you, Sara, for talking to me about your process and your project with DSKT.

*“The Bouncers”, Milan, 2024.*
Photography by Giorgia Dal Molin, Production Sara Sergola and Franz Bush for DSKT, Model Miu, Styling and Image Consultancy by Giovanny Bulanzuoli, Set design by Machi Pea, Editing and Colour by Marco Lo Presti.

Sara’s documentary with DSKT will be released in September 2024.

About Sara Sergola

Sara Sergola is a photographer, videographer and producer based in Milan. Currently she is working to produce a documentary all about the DSKT collective and the people who make it. She is also the founder of Urban Surf Crew, a community surfskate project in the city.

@s.supertramp