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.
THE RESEARCH
Identifying female, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, trans, agender (FLINTA+) 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, also because very little of it is documented and understood.NightFlows aims to make 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 will identify conflictual nodes: tensions present in the field that deserve to be named and discussed. We expect to talk about 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.NightFlows will also map 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 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 report, October 2026.
- Open dataset under CC BY licence.What about? We intend to gather current needs, tensions to be discussed and relations of those building care.The research is independent. The findings will be published openly.
CARE TO JOIN?
If you provide care, we want to witness what you have built.
Participating means:
- One conversation of approx 60 minutes.
- Conducted in English or Italian. French, German, and Spanish available on request.
- Anonymisation available.
- Open to community-based collectives and organisations only.
We will be active between July and August 2026.
For questions: [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 ⇩