Brooklyn’s annual Afropunk festival was created in 2005 to celebrate the creativity that existed outside of the mainstream, predominantly white music industry, taking its name and inspiration from the cult classic documentary about black punks in the U.S. by James Spooner and produced by Matthew Morgan.
Festival attendees, however, will be the first to tell you that Afropunk is not just a festival, a documentary, or even a musical genre, but instead, a nurturing community.
As described on their website, the movement is driven by an “open-minded, non-conforming and an unconventional community.”
The festival (which has expanded to also include locations in Atlanta and Paris) celebrates self-love with a strong social change bent; for example, the festival includes a village of booths appropriately called, “Activism Row” and each stage bears signs that list, “no sexism, no racism, no ableism, no ageism, no homophobia, no fatophobia, no transphobia, no hatefulness.”
Here, TIME rounded up portraits of festival attendees from over the weekend posted on Instagram.
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