Connexxa: Research and practice on women and queer people in the night-time.
The night belongs to everyone
Care practices - Mobility - Nightlife culture - Public space
WHAT'S CONNEXXA?
Connexxa is an independent lab on the nighttime.
Where research meets practice.
Community knowledge is the starting point.
We operate as femme and queer people experiencing nightlife firsthand.
Connexxa exists to contribute to night spaces, services and policies
that work for women-identifying and queer people too.
Our experience after dark is not an individual issue.
It's collective, systemic, and designable.
THESE ARE NOT EXCEPTIONAL STORIES
"I have never gone out alone at night - never thought I could. I only go where my friends are."
Sara, 20yo
"Every time I go to a night event, I bring loose clothes to wear when I walk in the street, a powerbank so my phone never dies, and I try to walk where the streets are lit."
Jo, 27yo
"I always share my location with a friend and text when I get home. We all do it for each other, because every day we have news about violence in the street against someone who could be any of us."
Cécile, 36yo
ON GOING PROJECTS
NIGHTFLOWS
A research project on femme and queer experience in the nighttime.
Phase 1AN INDEPENDENT MAPPING OF COMMUNITY-BASED CARE PRACTICES IN THE EUROPEAN MUSIC SCENE.
A project by Connexxa, with the Nighttime Foundation as knowledge partner.
26 interviews · 8 European countries · 4 months of fieldwork · Outputs by end of 2026.
THE RESEARCH
Identifying female, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, trans, agender (FLINTA+) and queer at night means navigating spaces that typically are not designed by and for us.
Moving through the night and participating in events: the hostility is continuous.Communities have not waited for institutions.Within the electronic music scene, they have built care and wellbeing as a prerequisite: practices oriented toward full presence, safety, belonging, and the right to enjoy the night without compromise.
NightFlows maps these practices.
What are they? Who built them? Do they extend beyond the event, into transport and public space?
This work is too often underfunded and unrecognised,in part because very little of it is documented and recognised as knowledge. NightFlows makes this work visible as knowledge, produced by collectives and organisations with a direct stake in the night and in the communities that inhabit it, doing serious design work under structural conditions of hostility.The research has identified tensions in the field that deserve to be named and discussed: the depoliticisation of care; the risk that making this knowledge visible means extracting it; the question of how knowledge can circulate in ways that serve the communities it came from, not just the institutions that study them.The research has also mapped the current needs of those building care, because a research project that only takes and never asks what people need is not research built with communities. It is research built on them.
THE APPROACH
NightFlows operates on practice-as-knowledge: the people doing care are the expert knowers of their own work. The research documents, structures, and gives back the knowledge they have built. Every interview was returned to its author as a document of their own, independently of its analytical use in the research.The method is direct conversation: 26 one-to-one interviews of 60 to 120 minutes with care practitioners, awareness collectives, and event organisers across Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Germany, and beyond.
THE PARTNER
The Nighttime Foundation supports NightFlows as knowledge partner.
Their expertise and global network ground this research, validating the approach and amplifying it across the nighttime sector.
THE OUTPUTS
(first phase, by end of 2026)• Research report
• Open-access dataset
• A systematic European mapping of care practitioners' knowledge
• Companion materials returned to each participantAll outputs are open-access, with persistent identifiers (DOI), under Creative Commons licence, following FAIR principles.
WHAT COMES NEXT
While the care practice mapping will proceed and grow (I phase), a second phase of research will investigate whether community care logics can inform the design of the broader night-time continuum: transport, transit, urban night-time services.
If you provide care, we want to witness what you have built.
MEET US AT ADE 2026
NightFlows will be at the Weeztix Hub from 22 to 23 October, during Amsterdam Dance Event. Two community conversations in the city on 22 and 23 October, hosted at De Sering and Lola Lieven.
For questions, collaborations: [email protected]
MANIFESTO
A manifesto for a participated night
How do we move through the night?
What do we face and doing what?
These are not logistical questions.
They are questions of rights, of justice, and of design.
WE WORK TOWARD A NIGHT THAT IS SAFER, MORE ACCESSIBLE AND JUST FOR EVERYONE.
| We affirm that access to the night is a fundamental right: to culture, to the city, to sociality, to self-determination. We stand by the knowledge that women and queer people navigating the night carry. | We believe that care practices developed within nightlife communities deserve to be documentedand recognised as the knowledge they already are. We believe in building with, not for. |
The following have signed the manifesto (2024)
WHO IS IN THE BACKSTAGE
Mariaelena Busani
Independent researcher, educator, and designer for social justice.The journey started in 2022 and every choice since was deliberate: research, education, teaching, consulting, field practice, and European project work, each building experiences Connexxa needs.Trained as an architect for sustainability, she/they specialized in digital technologies for the public good, community engagement, and shared transportation research. Educator as a form of activism for the social responsibility of organizations.
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
Connexxa writes about the night
research, field notes, reflections, OUTCOMES.
GET IN TOUCH
We are looking for:
funding opportunitiespolicy bodiesresearchersmusic events organisers and care practice providers
Woman and/or queer person willing to share their nighttime stories
NightFlows is OPEN FOR COLLABORATION with those working on nightlife&nighttime, data feminism, and feminist urban research.
Schedule a conversation here
or write to us ⇩