Sonduke

Founded in Kuwait in 2021 by Hamad Al Mujeem and Malak Al Suwaihel, Sonduke is an independent magazine and digital platform covering experimental art, sound and culture out of the Gulf and the wider SWANA region. The reason it matters is custody. Gulf experimental music has spent two decades being described by people flying in for a biennial, and Sonduke is the version where the documentation is done by people who live inside the scene and will still be there when the fair leaves town. Sound is treated as a primary subject rather than a lifestyle column, which is rare in art publishing anywhere. Low heat outside its region is the whole opportunity: this is the reference the next wave of Gulf writing gets built on top of, and almost nobody outside has opened it yet.