Tina Marie shared music as a Tumblr blogger in Canada before moving to Zurich six years ago. Charline Giebel portrays the DJ and record collector to find out more about her approach to music.

„You don't have to choose“ was one of the sentences that came up several times during the first conversation between Zurich-based DJ Tina Marie and me. This sentence is the answer to the question of whether and how one should choose a particular genre of music when DJing. You don't have to choose, Tina explains. Music is more of a feeling, a vibe that you want to transmit and to communicate.

[...] I also wanted to offer music for people who want to enjoy the feeling of listening to good music and not having to consume all the time. – Tina Marie

Tina Marie started her music career with playlists. At the time, she had a fairly well-known music blog on Tumblr in Canada. It was so successful that she needed two more people to run it.

Tina has now been living in Switzerland for six years. Her activities reflect her versatility. She studied landscape architecture, is a designer, DJ and has other projects called ‘Planting Solidarity’ and ‘Remember to Rest’.

The Zurich-based DJ has travelled a lot through her projects. She has realized that music is a way of overcoming language barriers. However, music is not only a means of communication when travelling, but also on the dance floor: „(...) We talked about how nightlife can be so enabling, so empowering, especially in the DJ world. And it also got me thinking about my role as a DJ, like how do I mistakenly or intentionally enable people to consume because I play music that sounds like: ‘Yeah, drink more!’ So, I also wanted to offer music for people who want to enjoy the feeling of listening to good music and not having to consume all the time.“

During our exchange, Tina told me many nice and interesting things about Kasheme (Listening Bar/Club) in Zurich, where she is a resident DJ.

Tina's current Top 3 records:

Imaging by Oli Schmocker from studio canapé, video and words by Charline Giebel. She's the initiator and producer of "near mint" – a portrait series about Swiss vinyl culture – and also DJ as honeydip, art director and designer.

"near mint" is a series of portraits dedicated to the Swiss vinyl scene, highlighting the values that unite this small but special community beyond music: mindfulness, community, sharing and conscious listening.

For additional behind-the-scenes insights into the vinyl collections of the portrayed persons follow @nearmint.stories on Instagram.

This project originated as a bachelor thesis in the "Trends & Identity" programme at the Zurich University of the Arts.