Never Alone: 1997–2004 Raving in Europe Photobook Chronicles Techno-Punk Free Parties

Italian photographers Cheyenne Clementi and Valentina Morandi have published 'Never Alone: 1997–2004 Raving in Europe' through DRAGO Propaganda, a photobook documenting the nomadic techno-punk free-party scene across Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and beyond. The book collects analogue photographs taken over eight years, capturing both ecstatic warehouse parties and domestic scenes of communal on-the-road living. Clementi and Morandi met as teenagers at an arts-focused secondary school (liceo artistico) and later at a rave, embedding themselves in the 'teknival' scene during rave culture's European golden age. The free-party movement began spreading from the UK to mainland Europe in 1994 after raves were criminalized in Britain, with soundsystem collectives like Spiral Tribe and Desert Storm leading the move. Police crackdowns increased after the millennium, with the CzechTek teknival deemed illegal by summer 2004. A notable memory from summer 1999 involved police escorting a raver convoy to Lake Bolsena in Tuscany for a days-long party without clashes. The photographers initially did not plan a book, but later recognized the historical significance of their archive, deciding to share it as a record of a pre-social media era when counter-cultural communities thrived on the fringes.