Art Practices in the Migration Society: Transcultural Strategies in Action at Brunnenpassage in Vienna [2nd, revised and expanded edition] 9783839456200

Table of contents :
Content
Brunnenpassage— Introduction
Thinking in Practice— Contextualizing Vienna’s Brunnenpassage
Transformative Practice— Brunnenpassage’s Artistic Concept
Navigating Change – Strategic Partnerships and Impulses for Cultural Policy
Promising Practices – A Concrete Guide to Action
Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects.
JUMP!STAR Simmering
Not a Single Story
Zeit.Geschichten
DJing at Brunnenpassage
State of Emergency: Being Human
StrassenKunstFest – Street Arts Festival
Singing Projects at Brunnenpassage
Piknik
Between Neighbours
Cinemarkt
Manifesto on Artists' Rights
Short biographies
Colophon

Citation preview

Art Practices in the Migration Society Transcultural Strategies in Action at Brunnenpassage in Vienna 2nd, revised and expanded edition Ivana Pilić / Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard (eds.)

Content 5



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Brunnenpassage—Introduction Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Thinking in Practice—Contextualizing Vienna’s Brunnenpassage Zuzana Ernst, Ivana Pilić

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Transformative Practice—Brunnenpassage’s Artistic Concept



Zuzana Ernst, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard



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Navigating Change—Strategic Partnerships and Impulses for Cultural Policy



Zuzana Ernst, Natalia Hecht, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard



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Promising Practices—A Concrete Guide to Action

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Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects.—Exhibition



Elisabeth Bernroitner

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JUMP!STAR Simmering—Virtual Art Project



Zuzana Ernst

102

Not a Single Story—Collective Diary



Zuzana Ernst, Natalia Hecht

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Zeit.Geschichten—Storywalks at Brunnenmarkt



Tilman Fromelt

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DJing at Brunnenpassage



Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

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State of Emergency: Being Human—Theater Production



Elisabeth Bernroitner

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StrassenKunstFest—Street Arts Festival



Gordana Crnko

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Singing Projects at Brunnenpassage



Gordana Crnko

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Piknik—Having breakfast together



Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

220

Between Neighbors—Photography Exhibition



Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

226

Cinemarkt—Cinema at Brunnenpassage



Zuzana Ernst

236

Manifesto on Artists



Tania Bruguera



240

Short Bios

243 Colophon

Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Brunnenpassage— Introduction

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Since its founding in 2007, Brunnenpassage in Vienna has been a laboratory for transcultural and participatory art production. More than 400 events take place every year in this former market hall in Vienna’s Brunnenmarkt, an outdoor market in Ottakring, the city’s sixteenth district. The contemporary, transdisciplinary, curated program ranges from theater, performance, and dance to music formats through to fine art and films. The hall is used in equal measure for practices, workshops, performances, and ­discussions. Roughly 32,000 visitors come to the site annually. In-house and co-productions are realized, which are implemented at Brunnenpassage as open-air events, and also in major cultural institutions in the city center.

THE SITE Brunnenpassage is located in Vienna’s sixteenth district at the Brunnenmarkt, one of the longest permanent street markets in Europe, known for being heavily frequented. The Brunnenpassage building, originally built as a market hall, is located in the midst of a large, car-free market square. The complex consists of a 230-square-meter hall with two adjoining office spaces. Through the architecture of the event space, with its level accesses and barrier-free restrooms, the building is also wheelchair accessible. The structural transparency and low threshold have an inviting effect and are likewise used as part of the program. Passersby also discover and visit Brunnenpassage spontaneously. The location at the market, the noticeable, multi­ lingually designed glass façade, and the poster stands in front of the building heighten this open impression. A diverse population structure can be experienced in the migration-influenced, working-class neighborhood, especially around Vienna’s Brunnenmarkt. A steady promotion of citizen participation in upgrading the area was launched in 1997. Structural measures as well as the influx of new population groups with greater purchasing power also had negative consequences, as rising rents, for example, led to the displacement of lower-income indivi­duals and families. This makes it all the more important that Brunnenpassage remains non-commercial, and promotes the direct participation of its diverse neighbors.

ARTISTIC PROFILE Brunnenpassage’s artistic concept springs from the hetero­geneity of the population. The focus is on the question of how to establish contemporary art productions that are relevant for as large a share of Vienna’s urban society as possible. By experimenting with innovative formats and transdisciplinary methods, new aesthetic experiences and expressions are created. The artistic approach is multilingual, transcultural, intergenerational, and free of financial barriers according to the pay-as-you-can principle. Productions and participative formats develop in collaborations between local and international artists, and also civil society. People from different biographical contexts become protagonists in the artistic program. Brunnenpassage works on reducing barriers, mainly for those who are affected by mechanisms of exclusion. Previously underrepresented population groups and 6

their multipliers are actively sought throughout ­Vienna, with the goal of long-term cooperation. The art processes that are carried out at the event space enable connections to arise between individuals who perhaps have little contact in everyday life. New collective spaces form with the hetero­geneous participants and audience. This enables a togetherness that is self-determined, that exists beyond classical allocations, and reinforces social cohesion. The power of these processes is worked out aesthetically and flows into art productions dedicated to a recognition of heterogeneous urban society.

GOAL Social transformation processes increasingly trigger social confrontations. Two contrary forces work simultaneously: a politics of isolation that strives for a return to supposedly pure origins of culture and community, and in conjunction with that, a clearly defined and strictly exclusionary concept of who “we” is. This view opposes the recognition of heterogeneous societies—and therewith, the search for a dynamic and more inclusive practice that does justice to social diversity. Brunnenpassage’s self-conception is that of an open art space, for some Viennese residents certainly also an entry into partaking in the city’s cultural life, which forms a first instance of participation, of sorts. Brunnenpassage hereby refers to Article 27 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Artistic quality is tied to social and political-cultural goals. Just like society, the artistic field is one of social power relations, which are inscribed just as much into cultural production and reception as they are reproduced in the promotion of culture. Brunnenpassage is concerned with the issue of how to establish practices through artistic production that confront the hierarchical power relations of society and initiate understanding, negotiation, and communication among social groups. In doing so, it seems to us conceptually indispensable not only to reduce these issues to working with an audience, but to consider them also in the selection of personnel at all levels of the hierarchy, in the selection of artists, in the programming, selection of ­material, in the development and realization of new artistic formats, and further development of participatory forms. This practical handbook provides actors, such as artists, cultural­ workers, and cultural politicians, with experiences from our daily practice. The handbook is composed of three parts: in the chapter Thinking in Practice, our aim is to place Brunnen­ passage within a theoretical context and discuss it more fundamentally. Transformative Practice delves more concretely into the working methods and foundations for curating Brunnenpassage. In the third chapter, Navigating Change, we illustrate the conception and realization of concrete projects, and show selected examples from our artistic practice. It shows room to maneuver as well as challenges.

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MAIN WORKING METHODS

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Transdisciplinary curating at Brunnenpassage Brunnenpassage’s declared goal is to create new aesthetic experiences in art that correspond to a diverse society. This aesthetic is transdisciplinary, multilingual, integrates artists from different genres as well as experts without training in the arts, and contains multiple perspectives in terms of content through the most diverse biographical experiences. Participation The program is conceptually developed with a focus on various forms of accessibility, and ranges from open workshops to closed formats through to performances and series of events. Also, arts that enable a collective creation process are increasingly practiced rather than those relying on individual means of expression. Multilingualism Brunnenpassage works and constantly experiments with multi­ lingualism in art, in its aesthetic expression, production processes, and also marketing and team composition. Furthermore, participation is possible through events that take place quasi without spoken language (for example, in the areas of dance and music). Collaborations Brunnenpassage’s core competency is collaboration. A dual ­approach to collaboration is key here, including both local networking as well as cooperation with major cultural institutions from Vienna’s city center. New Audiences Brunnenpassage’s program is trans-genre, intergenerational, and transcultural. This facilitates reaching various dialogue groups. The bulk of our available resources for advertising are used to reach people who have not previously made use of ­cultural ­institutions. Consultation and Discourse The expertise we have gained through experience in the area of diversity and arts has recently captured the attention of several art and culture institutions, urban planning departments, and foundations. Brunnenpassage has become a fixed dialogue partner, both nationally and internationally. Knowledge This handbook shows how participation is possible, and specifically how art projects can be organized that correspond to the diversity of the Viennese population. Our expertise begins from the realizations that have been gained from our artistic and insti­tutional practice since our founding in 2007. Brunnenpassage considers itself an adaptive learning space, which through the people relating to one another around Brunnenmarkt, develops models and reflects on its own art formats, with a view to quality and possibilities for participation. People meet at Brunnen­ passage on a daily basis to rehearse together with artists, to produce, to stand on stage, and experiment with new artistic

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formats. ­Visitors and participants express the many experiences they have had in daily practice, which the team reflects on and processes in learning sessions. The knowledge contained in the visitors’ and users’ diverse perspectives is the basis of the dynamic laboratory. Listening and feedback as well as a constructive culture of error are the foundations of our work. An essential factor in Brunnenpassage’s success is the diversity of our team. Manifold backgrounds and experiences enable different perspectives and a learning process for the overall organization, which through this, is constantly evolving at all levels. For that reason, more space is devoted to the Brunnenpassage team in this current, expanded new edition. Team members and those who accompany us are the authors here. Along with updates in terms of current debate and new literature, also further developments at Brunnenpassage are included—such as strate­ gic partnerships and new productions. Improvements have also been applied to the structure of the book; for example, this time distinct German and English editions have been published separately. And last but not least, several new images from our daily work on site have been added for inspiration. We hope you will find the handbook inspiring and informative! Editors Ivana Pilić and Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

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Zuzana Ernst, Ivana Pilić

Thinking in Practice— Contextualizing Vienna’s Brunnenpassage

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Brunnenpassage in Vienna is an art space that develops and explores transdisciplinary formats, thus bringing manifold perspectives to light. Special focus is on artistic productions that promote the participation1 of actors marginalized in the culture industry, and productions that address broad population groups with a non-discriminatory approach. In this, particular attention is given to multilingualism in order to dismantle race-based exclusions and barriers. In order to enable collaborative creative processes with different actors, methods from outreach dialogue work are used, and synergies found with multipliers. Brunnenpassage’s decentral location is hereby used for intense collaboration with the local population. Brunnenpassage’s artistic profile focusses on participatory formats with a (post)migrant2 orientation and content arising from multiple perspectives, characterized by the diverse realities of the lives of the participating actors. In what follows, references to cultural theory and aes­thetic, artis­tic issues are thematized, institutional contexts within which the art space Brunnenpassage is active, illustrated; and existing mechanisms of exclusion in the art and culture industry revealed. Focusing on the historical references of “art for all,” first, select fields of tension in cultural politics are discussed that make visible the current lack of recognition and representation in the cultural industry of a heterogeneous population. Questions related to the orientation of the process or product are then looked at historically, in order to point to transformative currents that counter elitist concepts of art, and which have furthered the establishment of a socially engaged art practice. Subsequently, structural exclusions in the art and culture industry are ­illuminated with a view to race- and class-based discrimination. Discussed in this context are the art practices, mediation approaches, and institutional framework conditions within which (post)migrant and underrepresented art creators currently move, while also setting new standards in the culture industry.

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The term “participate” refers to the possibilities of the individual to identify as part of shared social life, and to have a part in shaping it. The concept of cultural participation thus also includes both the participation in culture as well as one’s own cultural production (Akbaba et al. 2009, Terkessidis 2012, Sharifi 2011, Zobl 2019).

2 The term “postmigrant” was taken up and shaped by the Berlin theater director Shermin Langhoff. Understood as “postmigrant cultural work” are all practices that recognize and promote diversity as part of society (Foroutan et al. 2015; Gouma/Neuhold/Valchars 2010). The authors of this volume deliberately place the “post” in “postmigrant” in parentheses, since the term “postmigrant” could suggest a distancing from migrant. Here, we join Paul Mecheril (2014), who focuses on the question of which groups, how, and with what interests, can allow their version of the reality of a migrant society to be hegemonial. The focus is thus on the political and cultural occupation of the descriptive term “migrant,” not the overcoming of it.

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ART AND CULTURE FOR ALL In everyday language use, the term culture has many meanings and is subject to ambivalence, as it is so broad that it can describe the field of art, diverse ways of life, as well as designate various social groups. In the 1960s and 1970s, the long dominant concept of culture, which primarily meant “high culture”— that is, the music and art tastes of the elite, which are judged as “higher” than other styles (Drüecke/Klaus 2019)—was expanded to include social and political components (Allmanritter/­ Siebenhaar 2010). This expansion focused, among other issues, on democratization of the culture industry. The aim was to open established cultural institutions for population groups outside of elite structures, equal participation, and also new themes (ibid.). Experimental and future-oriented artists appealed for a merging of art and the everyday life of the population and questioned the artwork-centered context in galleries and exhibition houses. In the 1950s and 1960s, many artists in the U.S., Europe, and Japan devoted their work to issues that contributed to a distancing from exploitability in the art trade, but also a deconstruction of modernist art practices. Arguments, for example, of the Fluxus movement, such as questioning the established aesthetics of the art elite and mechanisms of the art market far removed from everyday life, were not fundamentally new, but rather, resurfaced and inspired further thinking of the concepts of the Futurists, Dadaists, und Surrealists from the first half of the twentieth century (Smith 1998). Public understanding of art was therewith expanded, so that alongside issues related to aesthetics (and handicrafts), the concept and the artistic process were viewed as more central (Higgins 2002). A work’s process thus gained greater importance than the finished product, and was no longer seen as a means to an end, but rather, the end in and of itself. In cultural politics, the social demand for democratization was reinforced in the motto “art for all,” which brought with it, a sociopolitically enlightened, emancipated understanding of sociocultural practices in the culture industry (Pilić 2019). Numerous social and cultural institutions were established, such as WUK (the Organization for the Creation of Open Culture and Workshop Houses) in Vienna, and in 1975, the Spittelberg cultural center in Amerlinghaus in Vienna. These institutions claimed, through self-reference, to point beyond artistic-aesthetic discourses and reflect on the active shaping of society and politics (Messner/Wrentschur 2011). However, the rapid spread of sociocultural institutions led already in the 1990s in the German-speaking world to internal critique by project actors and artists who attested to increasing depoliticization and a forfeiture of emancipatory goals (Wagner 2011). Also, right from the start, who the “all” is in the concept of “art for all,” and who “all” could be were not at the center of discussion (Fehrmann 2013). The exclusions resulting from this are still evident today in the culture industry and have an impact on marginalized ­cultural workers, artists, and content. The need to orient the culture industry in a way that coun­ters discrimination applies to established institutions as well as the 13

independent scene and sociocultural institutions, as these are just as permeated with racism and inequalities as the major institutions (Moser 2019). Nonetheless, especially since the 1990s, all of the cultural institutions and cultural workers that are committed to anti-racist and nondiscriminatory art practices are also found in independent cultural work. To name but a few: Pamoja, an organization of the young African Diaspora; MAIZ, an independent organization by and for migrant women in Linz, which does performance and educational work; and Initiative Minderheiten, which does theater work with and about Roma (Dimitrova et al. 2018). Since the 2000s, more and more voices can be heard that aim at viewing society from the perspective of migration (Doğramacı 2018). With PIMP MY INTEGRATION, for example, Aslı Kişlal initiated in 2012, together with daskunst and Garage X, a series of talks to reinforce the visibility of (post) migrant positions in the city and emphasize political demands.

ART AS SOCIAL PRACTICE Brunnenpassage defines itself as part of emancipatory practices and situates itself within the concept of “socially engaged art.”3 Its artistic profile is strongly linked with an aesthetic of social practice, which describes an art that is collaborative, often participatory, and includes people from civil society as producers and active participants (Helguera 2011). Its aim is to further social and/or political transformation through collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in artistic processes (Ibid.). In this, not only is the process of a work just as important as the finished product, but increasingly, focus is also on the dialogic principle of processes (Kester 2004). This summarizes the recent development in contemporary art and identifies social art practices that understand complicity, alliance-building, participation, and collaboration as aesthetic phenomena (Krenn 2016). The dialogue artists create with project participants and recipients thus becomes the point of departure of aesthetic interest. Actors in the artistic process rely on relationships with individuals, organizations, and institutions who cover many different areas of the community, to pose and also discuss social justice issues (Kester 2004). Experimentation and the creative process are central elements of social practice. New aesthetic experiences arise that break from the established, academic art canon, with a focus on process, co-creation, and experience rather than on product and viewing (Jackson 2011). Although aesthetics and methodology seem to have contradictory interests, it is important for socially engaged art to unite the two. Methodology involves civil society and ­creates space for collaborative processes. Aesthetics, for its 3 Socially engaged art shakes up the foundations of the art discourse and shares methods and intentions with areas that go far beyond art. In contrast to its avant-garde precursors, such as Constructivism, Futurism, and Dadaism, it is not an art movement. Instead, these cultural practices point to new ways of living that emphasize participation, challenge power, and include disciplines ranging from urban planning and community work through to theater and the fine arts (Thompson 2011).

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part, plays a major role in what effect a work unfurls, and how it is interpreted. In the end, both categories can work together and mutually enrich one another: the aesthetic value of an ­artistic approach can increase its social function, while the methodology can heighten the aesthetic experience through public commitment and strategies for involvement (Finkelpearl 2012). “Art is more than an expression of the present; it can also be a c­ atalyst for a different and better future. For that reason, we not only have the right to enjoy art, but also the right to make it.” (Bruguera 2012)

Brunnenpassage defines itself as an art space that goes beyond the artistic practices of majority society hitherto dominant and situates itself within society to ultimately design social processes in a shared development and reshape them in terms of content. In collaborative and process-oriented productions, content is worked out and fine-tuned through dialogue. ­People from various biographical contexts become protagonists in ­artistic productions—with the self-awareness of being definers, rather than the defined. The aim is to facilitate a space for thinking and acting for a heterogeneous collective of actors and recipients, where it is possible to try out and realize new forms of expression and aesthetics beyond the established art canon and beyond commercial usability. A firm goal in this is to create new aesthetic experiences corresponding to the diversity of society. Art is a way to develop one’s own thinking and acting, to get to know oneself better and at the same time, also “others,” beyond social norms and ascriptions (ibid.). In the arts, people have the possibility to express themselves not only via language, but also through aesthetic forms. An artwork thereby becomes an accumulation of actors and actions, which connects not only various types of participation, but also many individuals with one an­ other, and enables new collective encounters (Knobloch 2013).

EXCLUSION IN THE CULTURE SECTOR Although the cultural-political mission of culture institutions in Vienna is to address the entire population, until today, people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds and those affec­ted by racism are frequently excluded from participation in art and cultural offers, as are people due to their handicaps or gender identity (Pilić 2020). Since these exclusions concur, people who are, for example, economically disadvantaged and also exposed to racism, are an especially underrepresented group in the culture industry. In order to take a closer look at exclusions, it is thus important to take into account, in addition to racial discrimination, also other forms of discrimination (Ahyoud et al. 2018). In this handbook, we will likewise work in a reductionist way with the category migrant when speaking in the practice section of an underrepresentation of migrants. A view that assumes migrants to be a homogeneous group, is naturally flawed. The largest group by far of foreign citizens in Austria are 200,000 Germans followed by people with Romanian, Serbian, and ­Turkish nationality (Klimont et al. 2020). However, when a ­migration background is taken into account, then more than a 15

half million people with roots in the new countries of the former Yugoslavia form the largest group. They represent a quarter of all people with a migration background in Austria, followed by nearly 300,000 people with a Turkish background.4 In ­Vienna, the roughly 80,000 Serbian citizens form the largest group of people who do not have an Austrian passport living in the nation’s capital, followed by German and Turkish citizens. ­Broken down according to origins, around 170,000 people with a migration background from Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia Herzegovina live in Vienna, followed by roughly 75,000 people with roots in Turkey, and around 60,000 of German origin (Boztepe 2019). Key indicators in these statistics are that the average age of people with foreign citizenship throughout Austria is clearly below that of those with Austrian citizenship (Klimont et al. 2020). In addition, two-thirds of the children in primary school in Vienna do not speak German as their first language.5 However, the category “migrant” does not comprehensively ­capture structural discrimination and experiences of racism. A Muslim woman who is from Germany, for example, would be more strongly affected by discrimination in Austria than a majoritarian German—who is perceived as white and belonging, even though both have German passports. A migration background therefore does not clearly say whether people are exposed to structural discrimination. Ever larger groups—without an (apparent) migration background—are also subject to racist ressentiment in Austria and are discriminated against on the basis of their skin color, religious affiliation, or external appearance (Ahyoud 2018). Beyond that, the designation “migrant” is used in the cultural industry mainly at the audience level, where non-participation becomes a topic, and the aim is to reach people who do not have access to art. Here, migration is not the issue; instead, the question of underrepresentation of migrants in the culture industry mixes with a discussion of educational issues. Studies on the use of culture—broken down by gender, age, edu­ cation, and migration background—show that the most essen­tial influencing factor for participation in the Austrian culture industry is the highest completed level of education. The ­issue of whether one’s parents have enjoyed a tertiary education, marks the decisive difference for participation in cultural life, whereby the differential with regard to attending the opera and theater is especially high (Schönherr/Oberhuber 2015). ­German studies, which are broken down according to social class (defined by degree of education) show similar findings, and also that 76 percent of the population that participates in cultural activities, are academics, or at least have a higher education degree ­(Allmanritter 4 Migrantinnen und Migranten in Wien. Daten und Fakten (2019) Link: https://www.wien.gv.at/menschen/integration/pdf/daten-fakten-migrantinnen.pdf [accessed: September 14, 2020] http://www.statistik.at/ web_de/statistiken/menschen_und_gesellschaft/bevoelkerung/bevoelkerungsstruktur/bevoelkerung_nach_migrationshintergrund/033240.html 5 Agenda Austria (2018): Wo Deutsch die Fremdsprache ist (Where German is the foreign language). Diagrams: https://www.agenda-austria.at/grafiken/wo-deutsch-die-fremdsprache-ist/ [accessed: September 14, 2020]

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2009). These cultural activities are theater, ­museum, and opera visits, which are commonly considered “high culture.” When combining this knowledge about the use of culture with the degree of education of the different groups of origin, exclusion becomes visible. In the school year 2017/18, the share of children with a Turkish background in special-education schools was double that of those in primary schools. In upper secondary schools, their share was only half as high in comparison to primary schools. For children with Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian backgrounds, the trends, albeit significantly less distinct, point in the same direction (Radinger/Sommer-Binder 2019). From a somewhat older survey, in Austria, only 5 percent of those of Turkish origin and only 6 percent of the migrants from the new countries of the former Yugoslavia, have a university degree. Only 6 percent of those of Turkish origin and 13 percent of those from the new countries of the former Yugoslavia graduated with a “Matura,” the secondary school leaving exam for entrance to university (Radinger/Sommer-Binder 2013). Even when the category of migration background is ignored, simply for reasons of their social structure and degree of education, at least 80 percent in these groups are not predestined to participate in the city’s public, cultural life as it has been until now. A specific marginalization in cultural use based on racist exclusion, on top of socio-economic exclusion, is not even taken into account in this data. Quite apart from the fact that the social composition of these groups, which deviates from the norm, and the high share of children with a migration background in special-needs schools, per se, reveal social components of structural discrimination, other issues to consider include access to artistic training and education, public cultural support, and positions in management of cultural institutions, juries, and advisory boards. Brunnenpassage relies on a broad understanding of diversity, in order to work in a solidarity-based artistic practice with all of those who, based on various exclusions, are not considered as belonging to majority society. The inclusion of population groups that have been excluded until now, is also pursued aesthetically—with the goal of creating a contemporary reflection of the present in art production. This approach is illustrated particularly well in the project Not a Single Story, which is discussed in the section on practice.

ON DICHOTOMOUS THOUGHT Concepts such as “integration” and “intercultural dialogue” are often the points of departure of practical guides for the programmatic opening of cultural institutions (Moser 2019). With this, dialogue should be set in motion, which through reflection on one’s own position, leads to a mutual understanding arising between what in the approach are seen as different cultures (Welsch 2009). Overemphasis on this difference generates the perception of a supposed “own” and an imagined “foreign.” Cultural diversity thus becomes a juxtaposition of imagined cultures seen as homogeneous within themselves, thus ignoring differences predominant in these intended groups. In this 17

logic, every involvement deteriorates to a dialogue between those who are set as the norm, and the “Others” (Said 1978). Constructed “us-them” constellations generate rigid concepts in which, for example, character traits are culturally designated. Crucial for overcoming this division and halting the reinforcement of stereotypes is reflection on and deconstruction of such overly simplistic oppositions. After all, the situation arose that for many years, through well-intentioned initiatives and their thematization of “migrants” or socially disadvantaged people, new instrumentalization of these very groups occurred, and thereby a reinforcement rather than questioning of their “outsider status” (Sharifi 2011). For an art practice that takes the heterogeneity of the population as the benchmark for its own work, focusing solely on “­cultural­ ­origins” is not enough. Much more important, it seems, is to recog­nize the multi-dimensionality of social inequality and the ways that people are differently affected by sexist, classicist, racist, and bodyist relations (Ganz/Hausotter 2019). The design of diversity must accordingly create a framework for the individual in which classical stereotypical categorizations are reversed, to ensure free opportunities for development. At Brunnenpassage, recourse is taken mainly to transcultural concepts that further an overcoming of “us-them” constellations and conceptually promote the transgression of borders (Hoffmann/Benjamin 2015). Brunnenpassage uses the term transculturality in the tradition of Cultural Studies and postcolonial theory (Castro Varela/Dhawan 2015). Focus is thereby on relations of power, exploitation, hierarchies, and in- and exclusions (Ha 2016). For this reason, Brunnenpassage’s self-conception can be characterized as one of a political institution that has an obligation to repressed subjectivities. In order to do justice to this claim, required is critical reflection on relations of power and (re-)produced relations of dominance in society, and also in the internal artistic practice. Only through the overcoming of “(not-)us-attributions” (Mecheril 2016) and a critical questioning of power and dependence (Pilić 2017) can fluid, not clearly locatable identities be authorized within one’s own artistic practice.

TRANSFORMATION/S OF THE CULTURE INDUSTRY New concepts for opening up cultural facilities are necessary to overcome the curbed participation of broad parts of the population. A basic condition for change is to move past models that concentrate solely on audience development and work with the audience. Various concepts and ideas for this can be found ­under the concept of art mediation (Ostertag 2012). Currently, distinction is made between four discourses of art mediation: affirmative, reproductive, deconstructive, and transformative (Mörsch 2009). While these mediation concepts do, indeed, alternate with one another, until now, predominantly affirmative and reproductive mediation practices have been ­applied. In the course of this, clear, predefined goals are ­followed, and socalled “high culture” is mediated and reproduced. These models are of only limited use for an approach that aims at participation and thematic opening and expansion. In deconstructive and 18

transformative approaches, on the contrary, a self-reflective component is introduced through which the cultural institution itself is questioned. In order to enable change, relations of ­power are recognized and named. The aim of supporting critical faculties can be found already in the deconstructive approach. In the transformative model, beyond that, also a transformation of the institution is aspired to (Mörsch 2009).

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Here, the idea is to familiarize the institution with its (urban) environ­ment and pull it out of its elitist isolation rather than introduce particular groups to the institution. Reflecting on one’s own mechanisms of exclusion through institutional critique emerges as a fundamental condition for the reorientation of cultural institutions (Zobl 2019). Only in this way, is it possible to learn from those who are affected by barriers to access and discrimination, and who were previously not present or only precariously present in the culture industry (Aikins/Gyamerah 2016). Yet not only access to art, but also the enabling of the production of art and culture present a basic right in democratic societies (Zobl 2019). While the culture industry links with a “cosmopolitan” artist society via the international festival industry, locally available diversity in terms of producers, is rarely noticed (Aikins/Gyamerah 2016). In this way, in the standard operations of the art industry, little interaction with (post)migrant artists takes place, which leads to a lack of (re)presentation of their work on the stages of established cultural institutions (Sharifi 2011). Artists and cultural workers affected by discrimination often work outside the networks and beyond the awareness of institutions, whereby crucial perspectives present in the city remain underrepresented within the framework of established spaces. This structural exclusion can be countered only through an opening of the culture institutions and the dedicated and sustained support of hitherto marginalized artists and cultural workers, as well as their initiatives and institutions. For this reason, Brunnenpassage works at all institutional levels—­team, program, and audience—with the greatest possible diversity of people. Alliances between socially engaged art producers with the local surroundings, but also with established cultural institutions can offer a further mutual benefit for all actors. For this reason, since its start, Brunnenpassage has been involved in partnerships and collaborations with the city’s major institutes and festivals, in an endeavor to build bridges connecting both sides, and encourage structural, diversity-­ sensitive changes in the established institutions. This aspect will be explained in detail in the chapter Navigating Change.

CONCLUSION Art and cultural work create added value for societies and individuals. The challenge for the publicly financed and highly subsidized art and culture industries is to create access to art and culture and ensure the population’s broad participation. The need for rethinking in the art and culture industries is obvious, as the potential of the art practices of heterogeneous society has not yet been fully recognized by the art and culture sector. Special attention must be given to critical analysis and 19

­ ismantling of discriminatory structures, in all of their complexd ity. Relations of power and (re)produced inequalities in society, as well as in personal artistic practices, must be recognized and structurally counteracted. Focusing on work with the audience seems to fall short here, as questioning one’s own practice with regard to production, team diversity, and new approaches and themes in programming are essential elements of opening in a way that counters discrimination. Alongside the new orientation of established cultural institutions, also necessary are cultural policy measures that push for art practices that transform elitist meaning production through decentral and collaborative works. Practices of socially engaged art need long-term fixed sites, where encounters between equals are possible, and in which those who are “marginalized” are not positioned as “Others.” Only in this way will an egalitarian and solidarity-based cooperation become possible, for working together on new aesthetic experiences. In the context of art as social practice and the associated process-oriented thinking, the perspectives and learning processes of actors in a diverse society shift to the center. These considerations all serve the fundamental idea of moving away from producing within self-referential art spaces that ­appeal to and are mainly used by only a small segment of society. The reflections offered here are fundamental tools for critically analyzing accessibility, activating people’s curbed potential, and facilitating art spaces that are made productive as sites of confrontation and sociopolitical spaces of negotiation.

Literature: Agenda Austria (2018): “Wo Deutsch die Fremdsprache ist,” Grafiken. Link: https://www.agenda-austria.at/grafiken/wo-deutsch-die-fremdspracheist/ [accessed: November 21, 2020] Aikins, Joshua Kwesi/Gyamerah Daniel (2016): “Expertise: Handlungsoptionen zur Diversifizierung des Berliner Kultursektors,” in Eine Expertise von Citizens For Europe, Berlin ed. Project: Vielfalt entscheidet – Diversity in Leadership. Link: https://vielfaltentscheidet.de/handlungsoptionen-zur-diversifizierung-des-berliner-kultursektors/ [accessed: November 17, 2020] Akbaba, Ülkü/Bratic, Ljubomir/Galehr, Sarah/Görg, Andreas/Pfeiffer, Gabriele C. (2015): “Kunst, Kultur und Theater für Alle! Impulse für eine transkulturelle Theateroffensive. Studie zu Perspektiven der Kunst- und Kulturpolitik Wien 2010 – 2015 mit besonderem Fokus auf Migrationsrealität. A project by IODO – Kunst, Kultur, Bildung und Wissenschaft.” Link: https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/librarydoc/kunst-kulturund-theater-fur-alle-impulse-fur-eine-transkulturelle-theateroffensive-studie-zu-perspektiven-der-kunst--und-kulturpolitik-wien-2010-2015-mit-besonderem-fokus-auf-migrationsrealitat [accessed November 21, 2020] Allmanritter, Vera (2009): “Migranten als Publikum in öffentlichen deutschen Kulturinstitutionen – Der aktuelle Status Quo aus Sicht der Angebotsseite,” ed. Freie Universität Berlin. Link: https://www.geisteswissenschaften. fu-berlin.de/v/zad/media/zad_migranten_als_publika_angebotsseite.pdf [accessed November 21, 2020] Allmanritter, Vera/Siebenhaar, Klaus (2010): Kultur mit allen! Wie öffentliche deutsche Kultureinrichtungen Migranten als Publikum gewinnen, Berlin: B & S Siebenhaar Verlag.

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auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland, 2nd unrevised edition, Münster: UNRAST-Verlag, pp. 31–40. Helguera, Pablo (2011): Education for Socially Engaged Art, New York: Jorge Pinto Books. Higgins, Hanna (2002): Fluxus Experience, Berkley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press Ltd. Hoffmann, Anna R./Walter, Benjamin (2015): “Inter- und Transkulturalität in Drama und Theater,” in Dawidoswski, Christian/Hoffmann, Anna R./ Walter, Benjamin (eds.), Interkulturalität und Transkulturalität in Drama, Theater und Film. Literaturwissenschaftliche und -didaktische Perspektiven, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH, pp. 43–75. DOI: https://doi. org/10.3726/978-3653-04180-4 Jackson, Shannon (2011): Social works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, New York: Routledge. Kester, Grant H. (2004): Conversation pieces: Community and Communi­ cation in Modern Art, University of California Press: Berkeley. Knobloch, Andrea (2013): “Warum partizipieren, wenns ums Ganze geht? Ideologien der Kompensation,” Common – Journal für Kunst und Öffentlichkeit, 1. Link: http://commonthejournal.com/journal/ideologien-der-kompensation-no-1/warum-partizipieren-wenns-ums-ganzegeht/2 Theorieteil_Endfassung_02102020_ZE.docx [accessed: July 27, 2020] Krenn, Martin (2016): “Das Politische in sozialer Kunst. Intervenieren in soziale Verhältnisse,” in p/art/icipate – Kultur aktiv gestalten, 7. Link: https:// www.p-art-icipate.net/das-politische-in-sozialer-kunst/ [accessed: September 10, 2020] Mecheril, Paul (2016): “Besehen, beschrieben, besprochen. Die blasse Uneigenheitlichkeit rassifizierter Anderer,” in Ha, Kien Nghi; Lauré al-Samarai, Nicola; Mysorekar, Sheila (eds.), re/visionen. Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland, 2nd unrevised edition. Münster: UNRAST-Verlag, pp. 219–229. Mecheril, Paul (2014): “Was ist das X im Postmigrantischen?,” sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung, 2(3), pp. 107–112. Messner, Bettina/Wrentschur, Michael (2011): “Annährungen über Soziokultur,” in Messner, Bettina/Wrentschur, Michael (eds.), Initiative Soziokultur. Diskurse. Konzepte. Praxis, Vienna: LIT Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. pp. 3–16. Mörsch, Carmen (2009): “Am Kreuzpunkt von vier Diskursen: Die documenta 12. Vermittlung zwischen Affirmation, Reproduktion, Dekonstruktion und Transformation,” in diaphanes. Link: https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/ am-kreuzungspunkt-von-vier-diskursen-594 [accessed: July 23, 2020] Moser, Anita (2019): “Kulturarbeit in der ‘Migrationsgesellschaft’: Ungleichheiten im Kulturbetrieb und Ansatzpunkte für eine kritische Neuausrichtung,” in Zobl, Elke/Klaus, Elisabeth/Moser, Anita/Baumgartinger, Persson Perry (eds.), Kultur produzieren. Künstlerischer Praktiken und kritische kulturelle Produktion, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. pp. 117–134. DOI: https:// doi.org/10. 14361/9783839447376 Ostertag, Sara (2012): “In (Re)Aktion – Vermitteln. Eine Untersuchung kritischer Praxen der Kunstvermittlung als Inspiration zum Nachdenken über und Schaffen von Vermittlungsbegriffen,” in gift 04/2012. Link: https://freietheater.at/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/gift042012.pdf [accessed: July 23, 2020] Pilić, Ivana (2020): “Die Kunst der ‘Anderen’ – Untersuchung diskriminierungskritischer Kunstpraxen,” ZDfm – Zeitschrift für Diversitätsforschung und -management, 1-2020, pp. 35–47. https://doi.org/10.3224/zdfm.v5i1.04 Pilić, Ivana (2019): “Methoden und Formate in der transkulturellen (Flüchtling-)Arbeit,” in Blumenreich, Ulrike/Kröger, Franz/Pfeiffer, Lotte/ Sievers,

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Norbert/Wingert, Christine: Neue Methoden und Formate der soziokulturellen Projektarbeit, Institut für Kulturpolitik der Kulturpolitischen Gesellschaft e.V., Bonn. pp. 43–47. Pilić, Ivana (2017): “Kunst für alle? Über Teilhabemöglichkeiten von unterrepräsentierten Gruppen im Kulturbetrieb,” in Geisen, Thomas/Riegel, Christine/Yildiz, Erol (eds.), Migration und Urbanität, Wiesbaden: VS – Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/Springer. pp. 363–379. DOI: 10.1007/978-3658-13779-3 Radinger, Regina/ Sommer-Binder, Guido (2019): “Bildung in Zahlen 2017/2018. Schlüssindikatoren und Analysen,” Statistik Austria. Link: https://www.za1.at/media/1_-_Bildung_in_Zahlen_201718.pdf [accessed: September 12, 2020] Radinger, Regina/Sommer-Binder, Guido (2013): “Bildung in Zahlen 2011/2012. Schlüssindikatoren und Analysen,” Statistik Austria. Link: http:// www.armutskonferenz.at/files/bildung_in_zahlen_20112012_schluesselindikatoren_und_analysen.pdf [accessed: September 11, 2020] Said, Edward (1978): Orientalism, London: Vintage. Schönherr, Daniel/Oberhuber, Florian (2015): “Kulturelle Beteiligung – Studie über die Nutzung kultureller Angebote der Stadt Wien.” Link: https:// www.wien.gv.at/kultur/abteilung/pdf/studie-kulturelle-beteiligung.pdf [accessed: September 13, 2020] Sharifi, Azadeh (2011): “Theater für Alle? Partizipation von Postmigranten am Beispiel der Bühnen der Stadt Köln,” in Schneider, Wolfgang (ed.): Studien zur Kulturpolitik, vol 13. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. Smith, Owen F. (1998): Fluxus. The History of an Attitude, San Diego CA: San Diego State University Press. Klimont, Jeannette/Kytir, Josef/ Langer, Veronika/Marik-Lebeck, Stephan/ Wisbauer, Alexander/Biff, Gudrun (2020): “Statistisches Jahrbuch – Zahlen Daten Indikatoren (2020): Migration & Integration,” Statistik Austria. Link: https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/service/publikationen-aus-dem-bundeskanzleramt/publikationen-zu-integration/integrationsberichte.html, p. 30 [accessed: September 14, 2020] Terkessidis, Mark (2012): Interkultur, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag. Thompson, Nato (2011): Living as Form. Socially Engaged Art from 1991– 2011, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Wagner, Bernd (2011): “Sozio-, Sub- und Mainstreamkultur. Programmatik, AkteurInnen und Aktivitäten der Soziokultur in Deutschland,” in Messner, Bettina/Wrentschur, Michael (eds.), Initative Soziokultur. Diskurse. Konzepte. Praxis, Vienna: LIT Verlag. pp. 23–33. Welsch, Wolfgang (2009): “Was ist eigentlich Transkulturalität?” in Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Link: http://www2.uni-jena.de/welsch/ onlinetext.php [accessed: April 1, 2019] Zobl, Elke (2019): “Kritische kulturelle Teilhabe: Theoretische Ansätze und aktuelle Fragen.” in Zobl, Elke/ Klaus, Elisabeth/Moser, Anita/ Baumgartinger, Perrson Perry (eds.), Kultur produzieren. Künstlerischer Praktiken und kritische kulturelle Produktion, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. pp. 47–60. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839447376

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Zuzana Ernst, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Transformative Practice— Brunnenpassage’s Artistic Concept

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Brunnenpassage Trailer Scan code to watch video

Creating new aesthetic experiences in art that reflect a diverse society is the core focus of Brunnenpassage. Its aesthetic is shaped by transdisciplinarity, multilingualism, and participation. In order to generate multiperspectivity by working on diverse bio­ graphical experiences, artists as well as experts without artistic training are involved conceptually. Brunnenpassage’s program is transcultural and encompasses all genres. This facilitates reaching various dialogue groups and creates broader opportunities for cooperation. The basic principles of Brunnenpassage’s artistic method are explained in what follows.

NON-DISCRIMINATORY CURATING AT BRUNNENPASSAGE The content at Brunnenpassage takes up current debates and frequently includes themes related to migration society, such as discrimination and societal exclusions. With this, we promote a recognition of heterogeneity, which might also entail making classical material multilingual and thereby more widely accessible. Often, the art productions are organized in a way that includes people of all ages and are realized with the involvement of various generations. Increasingly, digital media are employed, and new formats developed and tried out.

Every curatorial process is preceded by more fundamental ­pivotal issues: Who is speaking? Whose story is being told and from whose perspective? Who manages the art production? What are the production conditions? What time frame is planned for research, for entering into a relationship with residents and gathering and creating stories? How can people with a wide variety of perspectives and biographical experiences be involved? In the context of the events, we avoid judging people’s attributes; every individual is welcome as visitor or contributor. Despite a clear social and politico-cultural positioning, obviously provocative approaches are avoided, for the most part, in order to reach people with differing stances. Brunnenpassage is important to me personally because it is a place where people can meet each other in a way that they don't really meet otherwise.

Ruth Schöffl, Head of Public Relations at UNHCR Austria and our cooperation partner at UNHCR Long Day of Flight

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TRANSDISCIPLINARITY Brunnenpassage offers a program that includes various disciplines, from theater and dance to music through to exhibitions and films. Borders between the individual genres are not clearly drawn; rather, we try to create new connections and synergies between artistic disciplines. The common differentiation ­between artistic production and mediation is set aside at Brunnen­passage, thus allowing accessibility to emerge as a ba-

sic ­attitude also in the curatorial process. The collaboration with local people, with other institutions, and beyond the border of the art industry and art discourse is indispensable for Brunnen­ passage as a contemporary art space, to meet the demands of an art production that does justice to society’s hetero­geneity. Brunnen­passage understands transdisciplinarity as exchange and cooperation between art and society, but also between theory and practice—as an approach to negotiating knowledge and sociopolitical content with actors both within and outside the academic context. In Brunnenpassage, work between various art genres as well as the collaboration of the arts with common, practical contexts is promoted.

PARTICIPATION The program is conceptually structured for various forms of access­ibility and ranges from open workshops to closed formats through to performances and event series. Likewise, arts that enable a collective creative process are practiced more often than relying on individual, solo means of expression. Process-­

oriented work is crucial for all formats and productions. Basi­cally, Brunnenpassage thrives from a process of art production in which artists work (collaboratively) at divergent intensities with people who in many cases had previously never actively dealt with art. In many of the Brunnenpassage programs, participants become actors through active discovery and practice of an ­artistic practice rather than being assigned the role of audience. Participatory art productions as well as workshops are thus a substantial component of the program.

Brunnenpassage should be ideally located in every district in ten years' time.

Ula Schneider, artistic director of the festival SOHO in Ottakring, neighbor and cooperation partner

Actually, Brunnenpassage is in Vienna, but I think it's in the middle of the world.

Johnny Mhanna, actor

I very much hope that Brunnen­passage will multiply in Vienna.

Michael Häupl, former Mayor of Vienna

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...a very special place to come together over highly professional art and culture.

Werner Binnenstein-Bachstein, director of Community Arts Lab, initiator and companion of Brunnenpassage.

...It is a place of desire, a place of hope for all.

Hamayun Mohammed Eisa, actor and dialog group worker at Brunnenpassage

A place where you can open up instead of closing and locking.

Sven Hartberger, former artistic director of Klangforum Wien and cooperation partner in the project K ­ langforumpassage

In the conception of the workshops, distinction is made between two formats: Touch & Go and Grab & Grow. Touch & Go formats are workshops that do not require commitment or preregistration for participation. The workshops in the Touch & Go category deliberately do not build on each other, thus making it possible to join in at any time. Nonetheless, regular participation in this format allows for a more immersive confrontation and development on an individual basis. Grab & Grow projects are workshop series in which a group forms and works toward a goal over a longer time period. In most cases, the end product of these projects is a performance. Registration in the workshop and the high level of commitment to participation enable a binding, mutual group process and accumulative artistic quality. Included in this is, above all, the diversity of colloquial languages. The various formats offer different opportunities to become involved. While some people would rather try out an art form without making a commitment, others appreciate a binding framework and group collaboration to realize something new. Potential participants for the major in-house art productions are addressed at regular and open formats. The tight network and long-term contact with a wide range of participants are used for this. Classical selection processes for casting are largely avoided as they might present a barrier. For the most part, art forms that do not require major technical equipment are preferred. Complex set ups, costly equipment, and additional thresholds posed by necessary in-depth technical knowledge are to be avoided. Art forms are preferred that either find expression without language or allow multilingual works to emerge. On site at Vienna’s Brunnenmarkt, Brunnenpassage operates without a predetermined entrance fee, thus enabling participation and access for as much of the population as possible. In collaborations with major cultural institutions, ticket prices are set by these institutions, and when possible, adjusted to make them more affordable. As required, also quotas of free tickets can be negotiated.

MULTILINGUALISM Brunnenpassage should be one of the most important collaborative partners for strongholds of culture in the coming years.

Steven Engelsman, the former director of the Weltmuseum Vienna and our cooperation partner

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Events that take place without spoken language (for example, dance or voice workshops) facilitate participation; at the same time , working with multilingualism is a continuous part of the art and production process. On-stage experiments with multilingualism can occur: for example, performers use several ­languages but do not work with direct and simultaneous translation. The goal is to make tangible a multilingual space that allows gaps in understanding and welcomes new forms of ­expression. ­Additionally, many events are multilingual, with simultaneous translation or subtitles. At times, the common colloquial ­language is explained

at the start; Brunnenpassage also often finances live translation or multilingual hosting and multilingual advertising for guest events. The program includes readings, discussions, film screenings as well as theater pieces and festivals for cultural organizations in languages other than German; these are advertised in the relevant language. The language spoken or used is oriented on the languages most ­frequently spoken in the surroundings and on the composition of the ­participants in productions—all

constellations are imaginable. At times translated calls are used for the express purpose of inviting people who know specific languages. Knowledge of German is rarely required for participation, although Brunnenpassage is constantly referred to as a place where learning German also happens. Tandems for learning languages come together regularly within the volunteer team at Brunnenpassage. Mutual support through translations is part of the everyday situation. The diversity of languages spoken in the Brunnenpassage team and by the involved artists facilitates the personal invitation of participants and visitors. Represented in the Brunnenpassage team—employees, technical help, and volunteers—are the following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dari, English, Farsi, French, Georgian, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Kurdish, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovakian, Spanish, and Turkish.

...a cultural facility, an institution, a place, a pool of experience and expertise, a mindset.

Yvonne Gimpel, former deputy secretary general of the Austrian UNESCO Commission and our cooperation partner

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RELATIONSHIP AND ADVERTISING WORK

I believe that it is good for the city, the country and for the people when there are places like this where essential things are exchanged through culture.

Michael Landau, President of Caritas Austria

The great thing about Brunnenpassage is: it's a regional project at Yppenplatz, but it brings positive vibes to the entire city.

Jürgen Czernohorszky, Vienna City Councillor for Education, Integration, Youth and Human Resources

In promoting participatory projects and events, Brunnen­passage breaks new ground: available resources are used primarily to reach those people who have previously made little use of cultural institutions. Visitors with an affinity for culture are also welcome and contribute to the desired diversity; however, they usually actively gather information on their own. The monthly program is distributed primarily in locations in the immediate vicinity, among other places, hair salons, doctors’ offices, and bakeries. Emphasis is on directly addressing people and wordof-mouth, and often multipliers from particular communities are specifically invited. Flyers for individual events are produced in small numbers only. They serve as an invitation or reminder of a personal conversation rather than scattered en masse, as is common for cultural institutions. Photos are an important means of advertising to overcome language and knowledge barriers. Based on the principle of “what you see is what you get,” mainly motifs that depict an immediate impression of what awaits the participants at the events are chosen. Sometimes the visible diversity of the visitors in the event photos opens the door for particular people who feel directly addressed in this way. Advertising texts are often in German, time and again, printed matter and social media texts are also in English, Turkish, ­Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Farsi, Arabic, and other languages. In addition, multilingual graphic elements are found in all printed matter. Media partnerships have been formed with chosen ­media in various languages. All events at Brunnenpassage are, in principle, without a fixed entry fee. Flyers solicit a one-time or regular contribution to Brunnenpassage. The flyers also illustrate the theme of redistribution in the sense of the pay-as-you-can principle.

TEAM COMPOSITION The team members’ diversity and their equal cooperation, as greatly as possible, are significant factors in Brunnenpassage’s success. Through different biographical experiences, various positions flow into the knowledge of our adaptive organization. Diversity as a mirror of social reality always begins in the core team. At Brunnenpassage the staff’s diverse artistic and educational backgrounds and their extensive language skills and migration experience enable different perspectives on curatorial goals and ways of connecting to them, and also facilitate the reaching of various dialogue groups. While many of the team members are artists from the areas of acting or scenography, have musical, dance, fine arts, or graphic backgrounds, also ­social scientists, urban planners, and technicians work at ­Brunnenpassage. All 30

share an interest in transcultural art practice and/or the personal experience of (post)migrant life. In the selection of staff members, communication skills are highly valued as also for visitors, an openness to multilingualism and a welcoming attitude should become apparent in interactions with the staff. In addition to the high level of artistic quality of their work, artists working at Brunnenpassage must also have skills in the area of community work. In the selection of involved artists, attention is given to diversity, professionality, and popularity. Often, this makes it easier to reach the different dialogue groups. Advancement, or visibility of so-called (post)migrant artists in Vienna, is also a declared goal.

The play deals with the most current of all human questions: Who am I at this moment?

Karl Markovics, Actor/­ Director/Pathfinder, State of Emergency Being Human

Additionally, volunteers have also been active at Brunnenpassage since 2011. The members of the volunteer team not only provide crucial support for the smooth running of the individual events, but also act as multipliers. Our pool of volunteers ­includes thirty people.

The overall organization defines itself as an adaptive institution that continues to develop on a regular basis through structurally anchored reflection processes. This demand for reflection becomes manifest within the institution in the signifi­cance of weekly team and program meetings and also in the regular super­vision sessions. Meetings for exchange and retreats with the team and the volunteers are likewise part of the reflection process. These are used to transfer knowledge between the event space and the office. In the context of certain longterm projects—such as Not a Single Story, which is explained in greater detail in the practice section—an accompanying level of evaluation is an important part of the concept. In this way, spaces for reflection in the form of individual interviews or ­focus-group talks with the main actors in the project are woven into the process. Thus, space for personal content,

At Brunnenpassage everyone is equal.

Agnes Brandstötter, Volunteer

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­ xperiences, and opinions is offered in the project and feede back can flow into the process. Brunnenpassage does what other cultural institutions would like to be able to do.

COLLABORATIONS

I believe that cultural activities ... are the best way to create access to each other ...

ed cultural institution relies on collaborations with major cultural institutions in the city center. Work thereby pursues a twopronged approach to collaboration: on the one hand, in the immediate “neighborhood,” and on the other, with ­actors in Vienna’s so-called “high culture” sector. Contact with ­specific dialogue groups is enabled by Brunnenpassage’s ­local ­collaborations with numerous cultural organizations, small ­local institutions, and (post)migrant initiatives. Networking is established through the district service office, the district, the merchants at Brunnenmarkt, religious insti­tutions, schools, and youth centers. Added to that are long-term collaborations with diverse Viennese organizations and multipliers throughout the city. Also, for local networking, ­Brunnenpassage constantly realizes ­discussion events around issues related to diversity and offers space to requested guest events. Initiatives that articulate themselves in a non-­ discriminatory way hereby become part of the regular ­program. Rarely, but when, then very consciously, guest events with a folklore character take place. These can, at times, lead to an initial networking and approach to certain ­cultural ­organizations and local initiatives. Above and ­beyond that, constant reflection of our own institutional openness is necessary in order to ­welcome new initiatives.

Angelika Fitz, director of the Architekturzentrum Wien

Gerald Wirth, artistic director of the Vienna Boys Choir and our regular Sing-Along conductor

Brunnenpassage is oriented on a strong neighborly connection in the local environment—the Ottakring municipal district and neighboring districts. At the same time, the non-centrally locat-

Brunnenpassage’s collaborations and partnerships with established art and culture institutions in the city center present ­further 32

conceptual pillars. These occur with major institutes in various genres and festivals. Cooperation with established art and culture institutions enables mutual bridge building. ­Traditional institutions offer innovative productions and a major stage for the diversity of the participants. In return, a politico-cultural goal is pursued: the opening of established cultural venues for new content in productions, and new participants and ­audiences, which

are more easily reached via Brunnen­passage and the available transcultural competence. What seems essential here is that new population groups are not introduced to classical “high culture” formats in the sense of audience development, but instead, long-lasting collaborations and thereby new formats and new aesthetics arise in the cooperation of major cultural spaces with Brunnenpassage as a locally acting cultural institution. In this way, long-lasting influence arises in art production beyond the local level. Productions are often shown at both locations—at Brunnenmarkt and in the city center. For the renewal of their programs and in the sense of transcultural opening, established sites of art increasingly request networking with artists with migration experience as well as activation and inclusion of previously excluded audiences. Based on experience gathered during long-term collaborations, Brunnenpassage has decided to enter into long-term contractually established partnerships with selected institutions. A separate chapter in this handbook is devoted to conceiving and reflecting on strategic partnerships.

The Brunnenpassage has chosen a new path with many renowned institutions that are gradually moving away from a certain habitus and out of their familiar ways of doing things, (...) and that's what it's all about, that we create new social spaces, that the many voices and wonderful diversity of this city are reflected in the arts as well.

Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Vienna City Councillor for Culture and Science

TRANSFER OF EXPERTISE Brunnenpassage has become a steady dialogue partner at both the national and international levels. The extensive network of (post)migrant artists, and activation and inclusion of public sectors not reached or excluded until now, are key competences of Brunnenpassage. Specific participatory formats and also the methods of outreach dialogue group work are continuously developed further. Sharing the experiences that have been gained has become an essential part of the work: Brunnenpassage’s staff is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences, meetings, and podiums. Ever more culture departments and culture institutions have asked for consultations.

What unites Brunnen­passage and Wiener Konzert­haus is the attempt to share musical excellence.

Matthias Naske,­ ­ irector of the artistic d Wiener K ­ onzerthaus and our longtime cooperation partner

International networking and collaboration have also been sustainedly developed in recent years. For example, Brunnenpassage experts went as delegates of the Austrian Ministry of Culture to the European Commission’s OMC (Open Method of Communication) Working Group (2011–2013 and 2015–2016; Anne Wiederhold and Ivana Pilić). Brunnenpassage was admitted to the international network Trans Europe Halles (TEH) 33

Brunnenpassage Best of Testimonials Scan code to watch video

in 2016. Since 2019, experts from Brunnenpassage have been members of TEH’s Arts Education Platform (Zuzana Ernst and Elisabeth Bernroitner). Brunnenpassage has been a partner in various EU projects, such as Sheherazade, Creative Spaces, and ‘Orfeo & Majnun’, among others. Brunnenpassage headed its own ­Creative Europe project for the first time from 2017–2019 with Living Realities. Changing Perceptions. International delegations visit Brunnenpassage to gather inspiration from its specific methods. Collaborations arise with internationally renowned artists, such as Tania Bruguera, George Ferrandi, and Yo-Yo Ma. In 2019, UN General Secretary António Guterres visited Brunnenpassage.

STRUCTURE AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT Brunnenpassage’s sponsoring organization is Caritas Vienna, which also purchased the building and property. Since 2008, Brunnenpassage has had its own permanent venue permit as a culture institution. Brunnenpassage is financed by the public hand as well as sponsors, private donors, such as foundations, and voluntary contributions from visitors to events. In 2013, Caritas Vienna built a second, decentral art space at Viktor-­Adler market in Vienna’s 10th district—Stand 129—where ­participatory formats are developed for the location there under the artistic guidance of Tilman Fromelt. Kulturhaus Brotfabrik opened in 2020. Brunnenpassage’s planned focus for the years to come is based on several main pillars. Co-productions with major cultural institutions in Vienna’s city center will be further developed. The creation of transcultural, contemporary aesthetics and the setting of current themes in relation to diverse realities will be emphasized. Production conditions will be continually evaluated in terms of matters of redistribution, format development, multilingualism, and diversity of the participants at all levels. Aspired to beyond that are the development of new, decentral sites of art and a sustainable transfer of methods to other districts and to rural areas. Requests from culture institutions and politico-­ cultural departments for diversity consultations have increased. A continual goal is to enable art spaces that grapple with diverse realities and have an impact on society as spaces of action.

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Zuzana Ernst, Natalia Hecht, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Navigating Change – Strategic Partnerships and Impulses for Cultural Policy

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Since the founding of Brunnenpassage in 2007, many successful joint productions have been celebrated with major cultural institutions from the city center. The collaborations enable mutual bridge building: institutions with strong resources are able to offer innovative productions and participants are offered a large stage and visibility. In return, established institutions are given access to new content, artists, and audiences. Nonetheless, the form of these collaborations was not sufficient for an equal partnership that also triggers lasting changes in the opening of new content, dialogue groups, artists, programs, and more diversity in the personnel of the established culture institutions. For this reason, Brunnenpassage has entered into strategic partnerships since 2017, to devote itself to these challenges in a more targeted manner. In the following, based on the evaluation of the partnership model, sketched out first are experiences in dealing with unequal partners and the resulting learning fields. Brunnenpassage attempts to further art practices that are sensitive to diversity beyond its own location and partnerships and to anchor them sustainably in the city. Suggestions and recommendations, which the Brunnen­ passage considers necessary for a transcultural opening in the cultural industry, are summarized accordingly and presented to interested actors.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS–BEYOND COLLABORATIONS In 2017, Brunnenpassage initiated strategic, three-year partnerships with three institutions: with the Wiener Konzerthaus, Weltmuseum Wien, and the off-space of Vienna’s Burgtheater, the Offene Burg. The strategic partnerships were presented in the context of the press conference on the occasion of ­“10 years Brunnenpassage” in autumn 2017; present were the artistic directors of the three institutions, Matthias Naske, Steven Engelsman, and Renate Aichinger, as well as the former minister of culture Thomas Drozda and the acting councilor for culture, Andreas Mailath-Pokorny. The intention of these strategic partnerships is to realize joint productions, but also to initiate broad rethinking in the established cultural industry and promote the established institutions’ recognition of the population’s heterogeneity. Several-year collaborations, which are thereby long-term, enable the development of a working base for transcultural art productions. The strategic partnerships are defined and signed in extensive written agreements. The specific goals are created in a comprehensive process together with the director or artistic director of the individual houses.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS The aim of the strategic partnerships is to further develop Brunnenpassage’s cooperation with the institutions in the city center, beyond selective collaborations. Partnerships enable an intense, sustainable anchoring of the cooperation. This hereby furthers an opening of the partner institutions: in the future, the heterogeneity of society should be reflected in the major ­partner 38

organizations at as many levels as possible. The intention is to establish content that is interesting and relevant for a broad spectrum of the population. The productions experiment with new, transcultural aesthetic experiences. The active participation of marginalized groups, and also their self-representation, are promoted in art production. The recognition and involvement of marginalized artists, curators, and cultural workers as producers of culture is intensified, and new and multilingual advertising strategies are developed. A further important aspect of the opening process is sensiti­ zation to discriminatory structures within the institutions, but also within the team, to raise awareness of exclusionary aspects in the conception, programming, realization, and advertising. The partner institutions’ sustained familiarization with one another at the staff level also seems relevant for developing an understanding of the different working methods and abilities. This allows synergies to arise and tasks can be taken on in accor­dance with the respective strengths.

JOINT PRODUCTIONS At the center of the partnerships is the joint art production. Over the three years of Brunnenpassage’s strategic partnerships with the Weltmuseum Wien, the Wiener Konzerthaus, and the Offene Burg of the Burgtheater, several major and minor productions were realized. A few concrete productions from between 2017 and 2020 are cited here as examples:

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JUMP! STAR SIMMERING: LISTENING OUT LOUD & DREAMING WILDLY 2019-2021 This is a process-oriented art project, conceived by a trans­ disciplinary team. Originally planned for Vienna’s Simmering district, it moved to virtual space due to the Covid 19 pandemic. In the form of a time-travel experiment, participants were invited to listen out loud to the past and collectively dream of a better future. Jump! Star Simmering is a production of the Brunnenpassage in cooperation with the Weltmuseum Wien and the U.S.-American artist George Ferrandi. Supported by SHIFT Wien.

MUSIK FINDET STADT 2019 Musik findet Stadt, a joint urban laboratory of Brunnenpassage and the Wiener Konzerthaus, invited people to participate via its temporary, artistic-urban interventions. In Vienna’s Simmering district and also in the Brigittenau district, spaces for encounter and socially and culturally permeable sites were designed in the sense of a “local cultural offering.” A cooperation of Brunnenpassage and the Wiener Konzerthaus. Musik findet Stadt is part of the initiative Stadtlabore of the office of the city of Vienna’s cultural council, the Kulturstadtratsbüro.

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ORFEO & MAJNUN 2019 ‘Orfeo & Majnun’ is a participatory musical theater project in which the “Orpheus and Eurydice” saga was interwoven with the love story of “Leila and Majnun”. The musical theater production included an extensive participatory process, among others, with the Brunnenpassage’s Brunnenchor, and resulted in an opera in the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus and a street festival at Yppenplatz, the public square around Brunnenpassage. A production of the Wiener Konzerthaus in the context of the EU project ‘Orfeo & Majnun’, in cooperation with Basis.Kultur.Wien and Brunnenpassage. Co-financed by the Creative Europe-­ Program of the European Union.

SHARING STORIES. SPEAKING OBJECTS. 2017–2019 Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. dealt with museum collec­ ting of the present and invited different people to bring in an object meaningful to them and tell its story. Ethnographic ­museums have a problematic history of collecting, researching, and presenting. Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. told multi­ perspectival stories of 150 different objects, without exhibiting the objects themselves, thereby demonstrating other practices of collecting and narrating. Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. was conceived and implemented by a curatorial team consisting of Tal Adler (artist), ­Elisabeth Bernroitner (Brunnenpassage), Bianca Figl (Welt­ museum Wien) and Karin Schneider (cultural mediator). A project by the Weltmuseum Wien in ­cooperation with Brunnen­ passage and additional partners: ­ImPulsTanz, Spacelab, TEDx Vienna, Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art, Caritas Haus Franz Borgia, and ZOOM ­Children’s Museum.

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RAP CHOR SINCE 2018 Rap Chor combines rap and hip hop with a choir form. A two-woman team consisting of a rapper and a choir director have rehearsed with a diverse group on a weekly basis since 2018. The group writes its own multilingual texts, composes the songs, and performs. They have performed at venues ranging from Yppenplatz to the stage of the Akademietheater. A Brunnenpassage production, performances in the framework of the Burgtheater’s ‘StadtRecherchen’ (urban research excursions).

THEATER & FLUCHT 2018 As part of the discussion series Arts Rights Justice, Brunnenpassage organized a theater night on the theme of theater and forced flight in the columned hall of the Weltmuseum Wien. The theater production ‘Ein Staatenloser’ showed, along the lines of a biography, how an artist is forced to flee a country due to censure. The subsequent discussion was devoted to the subject of how forced flight is depicted in theater and the representations and marginalization in Vienna’s theater landscape of actors who had to flee their home countries. An impulse series by Brunnenpassage in cooperation with Arts Rights Justice, EU working group on human rights violations in the arts and UNESCO Austria. Theater & Flucht took place in cooperation with the Weltmuseum Wien.

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PARTNERSHIP COMPASS – A TOOL FOR EVALUATION AND STRATEGY Already after the first pilot year 2017/2018, in addition to successes, also questions and obstacles appeared. The different working methods became evident, such as the major cultural institution’s need for long-term working processes, and also the established institutions’ great economic pressure in contrast to Brunnenpassage’s “pay-as-you-can” principle. For that reason, Brunnenpassage developed the Partnership Compass tool as a comprehensive controlling process in 2019. The Partnership Compass was carried out from January until December 2019. The tool served for evaluation and control at the halftime of the strategic partnerships with the goal of re-adjusting the shared projects and the originally defined goals. The evaluation included an analysis of the quality of the mutual productions, success aspects, and the challenges, structures, dynamics, and process of the collaboration, and also identified strengths and areas for improvement. The Partnership Compass was divided into four steps: analysis, data collection, reflection, and learning fields, as the following outlines. Step 1: Analysis All written documents, such as the signed partnership agreements, the descriptions of mutual productions, press texts, etc., were analyzed and evaluated in accordance with the partnerships’ established strategic goals.  Natalia Hecht developed the categories used for analysis, which were discussed and selected at internal meetings with the Brunnenpassage team. The evaluation was based on the following categories: quality in the transcultural orientation, aesthetics, sustainability, internal and external visibility, equality and anti-discrimination, accessibility, self-representation, participation and empowerment, and co-creation.

Step 2: Data Acquisition In a second step, using guideline-supported interviews, twenty-­ one participating stakeholders in the respective partnerships were questioned extensively to capture their perspectives on the partnership practices and at the same time, promote their active participation, reflection, and participation in the generation of knowledge. The group of interviewees comprised directors or heads of the institutions, Brunnenpassage team members, staff from the partner institutions, political decisionmakers, artists and artistic directors of the productions, volunteers, project participants, and multiplicators from the participating communities, as well as involved cultural workers and curators. In order to give 44

further consideration to the participants’ perspectives about their experiences and what they learned from collaborating on the productions, an additional eighteen focus-talks were carried out, and a questionnaire was developed, which was filled out by seventy members of a choir from a musical theater production. Step 3: Reflection The twenty-one interviews conducted were transcribed in full, the eighteen focus talks with the participants were documented, and the seventy choir members’ questionnaires were evaluated. Key realizations were extracted and summarized in a final document. Throughout the entire time period of the Partnership Compass project, the Brunnenpassage Team worked on interim findings and open questions internally at

team ­meetings. In addition, Brunnenpassage also held regular meetings with individual partner institutions, and four networking and reflection meetings were held jointly with all three institutions. Step 4: Learning Fields Many challenges became evident during the realization of the partnership model. These challenges are described here as learning fields—in the sense of a knowledge transfer of the resulting experiences and as a stimulus for actors in collaborations and partnerships.

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GENERAL LEARNING FIELDS Role of management and openness to self-reflection Sustainable changes within established institutions can take place only when the will to change emanates from the level of management and is clearly given. Consistent openness to self-reflection on the institution and institutional practices is a key moment for change to enable a process of opening at all levels. Self-representation in participation At the level of the participants in participatory productions, for underrepresented groups, the partnership practices were successful in facilitating access to cultural spaces to which they previously had no access. Self-empowerment and achievement of a higher degree of self-representation have a positive effect on participants.

Partaking rather than taking part Partaking is sometimes conceived as participation in already conceived activities, but not as participation in earlier phases of the process. This does not allow for development of the program in accordance with the themes relevant for particular groups. With some of the productions over the course of three years, already before the start of the collaboration, the theme, time frame, and/or participating actors were predetermined by the major partner institution. Proceeding in this way can significantly complicate or hinder equal collaboration and co-creation of content. Controlling access Workshop formats that take place in the institutions in the city center, normally reach more culturally disposed participants. In order to establish equality in terms of access, in some cases, quotas were used for specific dialogue groups, for example, equal numbers of participants from the surroundings of the two partner institutions. Likewise, in workshop series that ran for several months, the location alternated weekly between the two sites to facilitate accessibility. Work with multilingualism In some formats, it was important and effective to work multi­ lingually. At times this led to challenges for the marketing ­departments of the partner institutions that did not have the necessary resources incorporated within their operations— whether the appropriate software for non-Latin script or people within the team who could flexibly take on the translation work. In many cases, based on the relevant know-how, and language 46

resources available in the team, Brunnenpassage assumed the design of multilingual printed material in the partner projects or offered support for translations and editing. (Time) Resources The mutual exchange of knowledge across organizations requires the furnishing of resources. For successful partnerships, responsibilities, and personnel, resources must be established for the coordination and implementation of the partnerships in addition to production financing for joint projects. Additionally, structures should be provided for continuous monitoring and the accompanying evaluation of the overall process should be provided in order to facilitate constructive exchanges. Collaboration, which is based on equal and shared goals requires, above all, time for careful planning and reflection. However, this is not always possible, for example, when production results are required within a very limited time frame due to funding being granted at short notice. Furthermore, the directors of the major houses delegate the task of communication regarding the collaboration to their mediation department in stages, which makes it difficult to anchor the shared goals as concerns of the entire institution and limits the effectiveness of the partnership within the organization to the outreach area. Dealing with power differences The redistribution of resources between partners with unequal economic and symbolic power is a necessary condition. Partners must be aware of this inequality, especially with regard to production conditions, in order to shape the cooperation fairly 47

for all partners involved. Concomitant with that, the recognition of Brunnenpassage’s working methods, and, in this case, its transcultural competence, is essential in order to avoid situations where a small institution is used, for example, simply as a mediator for audience development. After the evaluation, in most cases, the financing of the shared productions and the issue of a possible financial redistribution proved inadequately clarified beforehand. For major institutions, questions arose with regard to the handling of different ticket prices, and free ­admission. The sales pressure that most institutions are under often became clear. An important written basis for this chapter on strategic partnerships is, among others, the unpublished end report of the Partnership Compass written by Natalia Hecht, Brunnenpassage 2019. Partnership Compass was developed under the project management of Natalia Hecht. Involved in the evaluation team, on the part of Brunnenpassage, were Elisabeth Bernroitner, ­Zuzana Ernst, Fariba Mosleh, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard, Gordana Crnko, Dilan Sengül, Elif Isik, and Yamna Krasny. Two consultants were also involved in the tool development: Ivana Pilić (University of Salzburg and Mozarteum University, ­Salzburg) and Alina Cibea (political scientist).

SHARING EXPERIENCE The (initial) results of the strategic partnerships were contextualized in both an Austrian and international context between 2017 and 2020, and disseminated as a methodical approach at conferences, and in lectures and workshops, including:

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2019 What Design Can Do Conference, breakout session Listening Out Loud, Mexico City (MEX)

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2018 Kulturmanagement Forum Wir können auch anders! Kulturbetriebe denken um, Institut für ­Kulturkonzepte, Vienna

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2018 Diversitätsentwicklung in Kunst- und Kultur­ institutionen: Nachfrage und Angebot der Stiftung Genshagen / joint invitation Brunnenpassage & Stadt­ recherchen des Burgtheaters, Genshagen (DE)

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2018 Symposium The Art of Music Education VI. ‘Discovering Cultural Relations – Music Institutes in Multi-Diverse Urban Societies,’ Körber Stiftung & Elbphilharmonie & European Concerthall Organisation/ joint invitation Brunnenpassage & ­Wiener Konzert­ haus, Hamburg (DE)

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2017 The Subjective Museum? — The Impact of ­Participative Strategies on the Museum, ­Internationale

Tagung des Historischen Museum Frankfurt / joint ­invitation Brunnenpassage & Weltmuseum Wien, Frankfurt (DE)

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE PARTNERSHIP MODELS Shared development of a vision and written agreement The partners write out the shared vision for the partnership. In the best case, several levels of the organizational hierarchy are

i­nvolved in this process. The role of the director in this is key. When management is little involved or not at all, the partnership runs the danger of becoming a cover for the actual situation. Thinking space for going new ways Regular clarification and a clear understanding of the roles and expectations of the process assure that the partner institutions are on the same page. For this, it is necessary to determine their standpoints on a regular basis, to cope with possible challenges. Defining concrete milestones from time to time is also helpful. Getting to know one another facilitates a shared process Time resources are essential to afford enough opportunities to get to know one another as acting personnel and as organizations. Individual networking is the key to developing relationships for the realization of the joint productions. Getting to know one another occurs in the best case, formally and informally, centrally and de-centrally. Formal meetings in the sense of 49

evaluation sessions, talks, and workshops are helpful to promote regular exchange and professionalization of the partnerships. More informal events, such as shared meals, or concert or theater visits, also lend themselves to relationship building. In order to get to know the institutions more intensely, it is advisable to meet at the different sites alternately. At every meeting, a period should be set aside for mutual feedback or reflection on the effectiveness of the partnership, and not only on the progress of the current projects. Reflection and evaluation are essential instruments for partnerships. Shared contemplation and an established practice of reflection are elements for achieving the goals of the joint art production. Use of an external supervision of the process or various methods for reaching tangible and documentable results is also helpful. Subcontracts Recommended is to establish agreements and goals for the joint artistic productions in additional subcontracts. The written agreements could contain, for example, responsibilities with regard to co-curation, production budget, public relations work, production conditions (e.g., time plan and room use). Power and redistribution Without available tools for reflection and strategy development, navigating the power inequality between organizations can generate stress in teams. Power differences present a very challenging aspect of partnerships also in the cultural field. The collaboration between smaller and larger institutions calls for the development of interorganizational skills for managing existent power inequalities and skills for strengthening mainly the ­identity of the smaller institution and therewith, the actors involved. Changing this imbalance in power and rethinking

­ xisting ­production conditions is crucial for creating synergistic e partnerships and enabling ongoing transformation of cultural institutions. Exchange and cooperation with cultural policy Although the partnerships are forged at the institutional level, it is advisable to also consider cultural policy decisionmakers right from the start, and in the best case, involve them. Themes such as the criteria for awarding grants, appointments to advisory councils, and cultural policy focuses, such as decentralized cultural work and thematic working groups within urban administration departments can support the impact of the goals pursued by the strategic partnerships.

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Summary and Realizations In the future, the culture sector will be concerned mainly with the question of how art practices can be established that are relevant for the entire population, enable a broad range of perspectives, and thereby do justice to the plurality of society. This means a transformation of the framework conditions for artistic creation. Of course, there is not only one correct way to reach this vision, and it must be emphasized that such transformation processes require a great deal of patience. At the start are a clear commitment to anchor trans­culturality in one’s own art practice and an awareness of the need to create advantages and challenges to enable rethinking at all internal institutional levels. The long-term nature of the process ­requires the necessary persistence, as the desired transformations ­require different amounts of time to take ­effect. An analysis of one’s own institution presents the starting point for a process of opening. Knowledge of exclusions, blocked opportunities to participate, and racist images should be available to sufficiently reflect on concepts and ideas to avoid stereotypes. Program In terms of program design, one issue to work on is how the content of the program offered until now appeals to people from different social and cultural backgrounds. But also, how the program can, in the future, maintain the same quality while becoming more relevant for a diverse audience. It also seems productive to shed light on the fundamental motivation behind the decision to open up transculturally. Brunnenpassage, for example, pursues the goal of enabling conceptual participation and active collaboration in artistic processes as well as creating new aesthetic experiences. In some cases, concepts that work with

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provocation and intervention and thereby position themes, and are less interested in dialogue might seem more suitable. Different approaches and methods at the programmatic level cannot always be clearly separated from one another. Nonetheless, a decision about the focus of one’s own program is important for working out a suitable artistic and transcultural profile. In gathering ideas and developing production concepts for a program, it seems helpful to weigh out whether the considered methods harmonize with one’s standpoints and the available knowledge and resources. Programmatically, partnerships with the desired dialogue groups’ institutions as well as the inclusion of cultural mediators are sensible approaches. Looking beyond one’s own horizon is essential. This happens by acting outside of the building and trying out productions in collaboration with local cultural initiatives and ambas­sadors from the respective local communities. The goal is to support collaboration and development of platforms for cooperation among large, small, and local cultural initiatives, ambassadors, key players, and actors from the ­respective ­communities.

Personnel With regard to personnel, diversity is key to any and all transformation. Serious development of an institution’s transcultural orientation can occur only when a diversity of languages and sociocultural experiences are present within the team, and they must be present at all levels of decision making. The promotion of non-discriminatory competences of the available personnel is a further link. Fundamental sensitization of the most important actors is desirable, possibly in the form of training on individual prejudices, antiracism, transcultural communication, and targeted further education with regard to non-discriminatory cultural work and special dialogue groups. Platforms for reflection on the implementation steps should also be anchored within the structure to allow for an evaluation of successes and failures. In terms of the artistic staff and the artists involved, there should be an interest in working outside of common (mostly intellectual) contexts. In addition to an interest in gaining new perspectives for one’s own work, indispensable are knowledge of the realities of various lives and sensitive handling of categories of difference. What has proven helpful in this is clarifying precise goals and planned working methods together with the relevant artists and reflecting on these regularly during the production process. To avoid the production’s development along attributions or misunderstandings, or reversion to multicultural or differentiating means of expression, process-based super­ vision is required. 52

The working basis, especially for (post)migrant artists, is often precarious. Beyond that are recognition problems due to validation of foreign studies, language barriers, and genres or means of expression hitherto little known in an Austrian art context. Many artists are subjected to judgement based on their origins and not their art. Such discriminatory structures and positions with regard to the artistic staff and working conditions must be identified and removed. Diversity in the Audience A good starting point is the basic attitude of acting not only for, but with the public. The more precisely the desired dialogue group is defined, the better the chances are of also reaching it. Gathering more knowledge about new dialogue groups can occur through different approaches, for example, questionnaires, direct contact with those who previously made no use of cultural offerings, or via organizations and experts. (Post) migrant artists can be employed to create interest among new dialogue groups. Cooperation with organizations, institutions, etc., is likewise an important instrument. Financial and physical

barriers that have stood in the way of accessibility until now can be reconsidered. New ways of advertising, new media collaborations, and the application of multilingualism are further tools to be tried out. One’s own advertising strategy can be reconsidered, and texts adapted. Working with images, slogans, and clear titles supports the project, as does cooperating with 53

media that are read, heard, and seen by the desired dialogue group. For the envisaged audience, allocated tickets are also helpful, and in the case of workshop formats, the registration can be used to consciously steer the compilation of participants along the lines of redistribution. The base for opening up to new dialogue groups is a willingness to work on relationship building. Language skills in the national language should not be required. Instead, working with translations in the promotional material, and ideally, existing language skills among the staff are important for reaching multipliers and organizations. While networks might arise faster than anticipated in building relationships via individual multipliers, likewise, some dialogue groups can be reached only gradually, over many years. In principle, outreach dialogue group work and working with multilingualism require more time.

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Elisabeth Bernroitner, Gordana Crnko, Zuzana Ernst, Tilman Fromelt, Natalia Hecht, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Promising Practices – A Concrete Guide to Action

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Elisabeth Bernroitner

Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. Exhibition Project duration: 2014–2019 Exhibition at the Weltmuseum Wien: October 2017–February 2019

IDEA AND CONCEPT The  Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects  project, a cooperation of the Weltmuseum Wien (project head: Bianca Figl), Brunnenpassage (Elisabeth Bernroitner), the artist Tal ­Adler, and the art educator Karin Schneider, was involved from 2014 to 2019 with the museal collection of the present. The collection of ethnographic objects and historical photographs and books housed at the Weltmuseum Wien is among of the world’s most extensive. Preserved as a living archive, the museum mediates and studies the material and immaterial heritage of Austrian travelers’ and researchers’ (primarily non-European) encounters. Ethnographic museums—such as the Weltmuseum—have a problematic history of collecting, researching, and presenting. Many of the objects that we currently find in such museums point to colonialist appro-

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priation and violence.  In confrontations with these histories of colonialist acquisition and issues related to the power of naming, Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects experimented with alternative collecting and narrating practices based on ­voluntary encounters and discussions among equals, with the aim of dissolving mechanisms for creating hierarchy-based difference, and one-dimensional narrative perspectives. Sharing Stories, a participatory storytelling experiment, hereby focused on not only which contemporary objects are collected and exhibited, but also mainly, how this occurs: How can different people’s stories be shown in a way that they recognize themselves as narrators in them? How do we treat people’s objects in a way that is careful and appreciative? Who is entitled to speak about these objects? how does our view of objects change when different perspectives are allowed to speak? The starting point of Sharing Stories was to show through different but equal stories, the complexity of meanings that can be given to things. The approach of Sharing Stories also critically questioned common practices in cultural museums. In such museums, it was and still is often only the voices of scientists and curators who determine the origin and meaning of an object in the form of supposedly objective description plates. The stories of the people whom the objects belonged to have been and continue to be lost as are the stories of how various things even arrived at the museum in the first place. Especially in a museum with a colonialist collection history, such as the Weltmuseum Wien, it is important to confront this critically and try out new narrative practices.

REALIZATION After an intense conceptual phase that began in autumn 2014, the interdisciplinary, collaborative project Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. invited various people—in the context of open calls, but also personal talks—to bring in an object important to them and tell its story. In order to achieve a wide range of stories and participants, over the course of two years, Sharing Stories visited more than ten stations and worked with diverse cooperation partners including the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art / Volkskundemuseum Wien, Spacelab (a labor ­market institute for young people), Caritas’ retirement home Haus Franz Borgia, ZOOM children’s museum, and the TEDx conference in Vienna. Starting from an open interview format specially developed for the project, 150 personal, comprehensive, and fascinating stories arose: about simple everyday objects, such as a key or a necklace, through to special or rare objects, such as a case for a film that had been lost, or a handmade mask. The owners of the objects shared stories of love and friendship, loss and desire, belonging and alienation, belief, passion, traveling, and adventure, migration, assimilation, terror, and hope. In a critical confrontation with classical ethnographic ­methods, the team developed an interview practice that followed the concept of a guideline-based, narrative interview. Shaped by the aim to communicate on a level playing field and leave as little room as possible for indiscriminate descriptions and 67

i­nterpretations of what was said by those being interviewed, the talks were oriented on the narrative rhythm of the interviewees, respected their borders, and gave them as much time as they wanted. Open questions let the interviewees talk freely, while the interviewer summarized and repeated core statements and asked for confirmation in order to verify what was said. Every story was recorded as an audio file, freely transcribed—preserving the speaker’s anonymity, if so desired—and published in summarized form with a photo of the object. The resulting exhibition opened at the Weltmuseum Wien in conjunction with the museum’s reopening in October 2017. The entire collection of object stories was on display until February 2019. Tal Adler portrayed twenty of the objects in detail: as ­photo portraits taken at their “usual locations” (at home on the shelf, in a box under the bed, in a bag, on a hand, or on someone’s head) and in the form of video interviews with their owners. In addition, video, sound, and text statements were gathered from other people who spoke about the objects from their own perspectives. Here, the intention was to illustrate that one and the same object can have many stories. In order to continue this principle, for the duration of the exhibition, those who wanted to, could bring in additional objects and tell their stories, and also comment on the already available objects from their own perspectives and enrich them with their personal stories. Multiperspectivity The principle of multiperspectivity was one of the project’s core positions, which was present again and again at various

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phases of Sharing Stories. On the one hand, the Welt­museum Wien opened itself to outside perspectives—as is common practice in other museums—and enabled collaboration with external curators, who in dialogue with the museum’s scientific staff, implemented the project in terms of content, concept, communication, aesthetics, and organization. On the other hand, to enable polyphony, the object selection process was made available to those interested in bringing in objects, in the context of so-called Editorial Boards, where they were included in curatorial discussions. Central in the context of the exhibition design, however, was primarily the implementation of a multiperspectival approach, in that, exemplarily for the exhibition, for twenty of the objects, other perspectives were brought in and recorded. These additional perspectives were brought in by people able to offer their own contributions to, and perspectives on the selected objects—whether based on their professional (e.g., scientific) knowledge or personal experience. Interested individuals were also able to share their own stories, anecdotes, and experiences with the respective objects via the museum website and on social media. One and the same dance mask, for example, suddenly received several different stories. These different but equal stories showed the complexity of meanings that can be given to things. With that, also critically reflected on were those museum-based and scientific practices that hierarchically situate curatorial-scientific narratives as superior to the narratives contributed by former owners for the description of an object. Reflections As a further aspect, another concern of the project was to open a discursive space for reflection on the concept of “culture.” Objects shown in a museum are often meant to say ­something about one’s “own” or a “foreign” culture. ­Historically, museums have contributed to carrying out and disseminating definitions along the axes of “us” and “the others,” which ignores the complexity of people, things, and histories. Nowadays, this concept of culture has generally given way to an understanding of culture as a constantly changing social practice that never applies equally to everyone. Therefore, in the context of the interviews, the project team invited several of the storytellers in Sharing Stories, who had used the term “culture,” to disclose their own definition of “culture.” Beyond that, through accompanying formats such as Culture Roulette, Sharing Stories attempted to question a geographically and homogeneously conceived concept of culture that automatically leads to the differentiation “us” and “the others.” The project team developed Culture Roulette as an event format for involving a diverse audience in critical debate on the use of contemporary concepts of culture and to be able to take hold of and name the often exclusionary, political implications of a concept of culture that is used without further reflection. Quotations from media and literature on the concept of culture, several contradictory, some unsettling, were randomly given to invited guests from diverse social realms and put up for dis­ 69

cussion by them and also the audience in the sense of an experimental approach to the concept of “culture.” The project’s realization at Brunnenpassage led to an inclusion of representatives from a nearby community college, the Volkshochschule Ottakring, and also the Romano-Centro; the realization at the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art / Volkskundemuseum, especially, led to an inclusion of the BPoC (Black and People of Color) community, in the context of the “Black Austria” exhibition taking place at the same time. Pop-Up Museum Originally, the plan was to hold the first object talks at different sites in a huge “story” container. However, it soon became ­apparent that for many, a connection to an already existing, set meeting point would present a lower threshold. For that reason, a distinct space was created for the collection of stories in Brunnen­passage in the context of the exhibition Da.Sein.1 People were addressed directly during the events in the accompanying program and invited to participate. The initial experiences at Brunnenpassage as a pilot station made evident that for good and intensive talks, creating an area of retreat specifically for these encounters within these existing sites was advantageous. A pop-up museum was therefore designed for the further stations of Sharing Stories, which as a 1

The exhibition Da.sein at Brunnenpassage was devoted to people’s ­mobility. Curator: Ivana Pilić, photographer: René Huemer

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mobile interview station invited people in for a talk. The mobile partition walls served as a framework for the interviews, and also drew attention to the problems and questions of ­Sharing Stories through text contributions created in an intensive co-writing process. The texts addressed: Where are the objects in this exhibition? What is culture? Who is talking? Through the mobile pop-up museum, the Sharing Stories ­project and also the Weltmuseum Wien, which was closed for reconstruction, could be present at various sites in the city, and thereby reach vastly different target groups. Exhibition Design & Display The several-year research and project phase resulted in an exhibition that opened simultaneously with the reopening of the Weltmuseum Wien and remained on display for nearly a year and a half. The exhibition was one without objects (these were depicted solely in photos), which for a museum as a site of object representation and material culture, is an unusual exhibition practice, yet for the curatorial team, nonetheless a logical step in light of anthropological museums’ and collections’ history of colonialist appropriation and expropriation. Throughout the entire process of collecting stories, a basic principle was that the objects that were brought in, remained in the possession of the storytellers. Following along the same lines, a form for the exhibition was found that enabled the participants to keep their meaningful objects, but nonetheless present a depiction in the museum in the form of an artistic photo. The so-called exhibition displays were interactive stations ­rather than classical, text-based captions, and did not refer to an all-knowing, anonymous authority of the museum as institution, but instead, left space open for complex, personal stories. Video statements by the object owners, which could be selected per touchscreen, but also text, sound, and video contributions by others, all on the same object, demonstrated that the manifoldness of history and the present can also exhibit a personal approach.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK The Role of Brunnenpassage as Co-Curator In the following, we will explore in greater detail, the role and contributions of Brunnenpassage, for which Elisabeth Bern­ roitner was responsible as part of a curatorial team, acting as co-­curator together with Tal Adler, Bianca Figl, and Karin Schneider. While each of these curators was crucial in the design of the project and exhibition—in the context of this publication, in what follows, main focus will be on the work of Brunnenpassage. From the very start of  Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects., Brunnen­passage was a cooperation partner of the Weltmuseum Wien. Within the framework of this first institutional collaboration, Brunnenpassage was the pilot location for gathering stories and objects. Beginning in late 2014, it was deeply involved in the conception of the project and phase of material collection, responsible primarily for including diversity aspects at all levels of the project. The implementation as a story-gathering point went extremely well, owing primarily to Brunnenpassage’s longstanding integration in the neighborhood and intense expe71

rience with narrative work, which had a positive effect on acquiring and ­initially contacting project participants. The pencil is a symbol of education, knowledge, and power and resistance. My pencil is my resistance. My resistance is rap.

Esra Özmen

My mother gave me this ring more than twenty years ago in Jerusalem, as a gift. I wear it every day; it’s like a part of me as a being.

Julia Mashkovich

I have three homelands, you could say. Where I was born—that’s Georgia. The second home is Israel, where I have power and someone to get my back [...]. And the third home, where I earn my wages and where my children go to school, that’s Austria. And no one can take that away from me. Yaprak Tsatsashvily

As project partner of the Weltmuseum, Brunnenpassage made available its expertise and large network in the area of trans­ cultural target-group work, and also shared curatorial responsibility for the planning and design of the exhibition during the entire project phase from 2015 to 2017. A major focus of the cooperation on the part of Brunnenpassage was the direct, low-threshold collaboration with the participants and owners of the objects. In order to enable respectful talks on a level playing field, as well as the respectful handling of personal stories, it was key for Brunnenpassage, as well as the entire curatorial team, to try out new practices of narrating. Among Brunnenpassage’s main concerns was to also include the stories of those people who are otherwise little represented in public institutions. Brunnenpassage acted as gatekeeper and initiator of a bridge between major cultural institutions, such as the Weltmuseum Wien, and the population in this regard, but also in key moments such as personally approaching and inviting project participants from diverse backgrounds, expediting free entry to the exhibition for all story bringers, anchoring the project in various communities, and mobilizing them for the opening and closing events. A project such as Sharing Stories questions every single step regarding the extent to which it can initiate un-learning and learning processes related to traditional museum practices and seemingly self-evident facts; nevertheless the demands made of the conceptual and working methods in the translation process to a historically marked exhibition space—such as the Weltmuseum Wien—are challenging. The Sharing Stories exhibition ­embeds itself as a caesura in the context of the museum as a site of contradictions and critically confronts the history of the museum from within the museum—while at the same time, remains also a part of this very museum practice.

FINANCING

The passport is a key that allows you to travel freely.

Jasmin Winterhalder

The photo reminds me of my roots. Those who know their roots have a better position in life.

Mercy Dorcas Otieno

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The Sharing Stories project was financed for the most part by the Weltmuseum Wien in the context of a special budget, as preparation for and part of the reopening of the institution. This meant, mainly, financing the external curator fees (including also one member of the Brunnenpassage team) and the costs for the exhibition. For Brunnenpassage, its further participation as project partner and co-curator beyond its involvement in the project as pilot station, presented an important base and condition for an equal collaboration.

POST-PRODUCTION For the exhibition context, a catalogue with the complete ­collec­tion of objects and stories was created and subse­quently­ published supplemented with texts by the curators. The complete object and story collection is additionally available as

a digital archive on the website of the Weltmuseum Wien.2 Sharing Stories. Speaking Objects. was presented by the Weltmuseum Wien, Brunnenpassage, together with ­others, at the international conference ‘The Subjective Museum—the impact of participative strategies on the museum’ at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt in 2017. A concrete result of the project is the long-term collaboration of Brunnenpassage and the Weltmuseum Wien, planned for three years in the framework of a strategic partnership.

STORYTELLERS*: Ali Ahmadi, Alexander, Hussam Alsawah, Mercede Ameri, Amir, Anna, Maria Artacker, Claudia Augustat, Hannes Bauer, Beatríz, Ben, Annike Bertha & Aline Bertha, Reinhard Blumauer, Matthias Brandauer, Alexandra Bröckl, Julia Bruch, Buki, Dylan Butler,
­Deniz Cantutan, Ceren, Chloe, Cornelia Chmel, Christina, Daniel, ­Marie Dann, Alireza Daryanavard, Denis, Denise, Friedemann ­Derschmidt, Bernhard Derschmidt, Nino El DiLauro, Dimitrus, Horst Donal, Dora, Daniela Drüding, Editha, Elfriede, Melodi Elmas, ­Steven Engelsman, Nikolaus Epp, Eva, Fatousa, Farrokh Fattahi, Flora, Li ­Gerhalter, ­Baduc Gibaja, Robin Gleeson, ­Gefion  Gufler, Aylin Gunsam, Marion Haberl, Jonas Hadler, Malang Hakimi, Ekaterina Heider, Helmut, Ursula Hofbauer, Markus Holler, Katharina Hüttler, Donner Inge, Ingrid, Julian, Herbert Justnik, Marlene K., Bernd Kajtna, Hermann Kantner (Antiquariat Kantner), Karin, Katharina, Helga Kauer, Eva Kern, Kwang-Chul Kim, Clara Koch, ­Arkadiusz Kolodziej, Karl ­Koschek, Bettina Kovács, Birge Krondorfer, ­Ludwig Kyral, Marlene Leichtfried, Lilo, Yasin M., Gertrude M., Gerda Madl, Noriko ­Mafune-Bachinger, Mela Maresch, Martin, Julia Mashkovich, David Mathews, Meli, Florine Michaud, Mihael, Miko, Mashid Moattar, Murat, Nicole, Nikola, Dominik Nikolic, Nina, Mag. E. Ortner, Mercy Dorcas ­Otieno, Esra Özmen, David P., ­Andrea Pammer, Iris ­Peschorn, Regina ­Picker, Christine Pillhofer, Barbara Pönighaus-Matuella, Friedl Preisl (Akkordeon­festival Wien), ­Martin Ptacnik, Andrey Pyshkin, Eugene Quin, ­Robby R., Roxy Rahel, Raoul Schmidt & Paolo Caneppele, ­Katharina ­Richter-Kovarik, Klaus Rink, Salomé Ritterband, Roni, Nathalie Rouanet, Johann Rumpf, ­Sarah B., Sarah F., Saskia, Marlene Scherf, Christian ­Schickl­gruber, Bert ­Schifferdecker, Irene Schwarz, Uschi & Gus Seemann ­(eumig­Museum), Hakan Serdar, Hassan Shukria, Mario Sinnhofer, Slavica, Georg Spitaler, Andreas Spornberger, Gabrielle Chihan Stanley, Vasilia Stegic Sestan, Annemarie Steidl, SvenjArt, Teisha, ­Torsten, Yaprak Tsatsashvily, Cunyet Ucuncu, Wolfgang Alfred ­Unger, ­Alexander Urosevic, Abdula Ustrukhanov, Vaclav, Belén Vera, ­Veljko Vićentijević, Elisabetta Violante, Anna Voggen­ eder, Jennifer Vogtmann, Lauren Wagner, Yosi Wanunu, Michael ­Weichhardt, Zoe Sakura Minou Weingärtner, Jakub Weryk, Jasmin Winterhalder, Benjamin Wolfsbauer, Regina Wonisch, ­Stefanie Wuschitz, Kerem Yilmazer, Günther Zaviska, Julia Zeindl, Bettina Zorn, and others.

*The storytellers had the opportunity to decide for themselves whether and how they would like to be listed by name.

2 https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/wissenschaft-forschung/sharingstories/#dinge-geschichten

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CREDITS Curatorial team  Tal Adler | Elisabeth Bernroitner | Bianca Figl | Karin Schneider  Curatorial consultants Claudia Augustat | Jani Kuhnt-Saptodewo  Project team Jeannette Mayer-Severyns| Ivana Pilić Artistic concept Tal Adler Sharing Stories  was a project by the Weltmuseum Wien in ­collaboration with Brunnenpassage and additional partners: ­ImPulsTanz, Spacelab, TEDx Vienna, Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art / Volkskundemuseum, Caritas Haus Franz ­Borgia, and ZOOM Kindermuseum. 

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Zuzana Ernst

JUMP!STAR Simmering Virtual Art Project

JUMP!STAR Simmering Documentary (English) Scan code to watch video

2019–2021 JUMP!STAR Simmering was a process-oriented, co-creative art project developed in close cooperation with the U.S. artist George Ferrandi— locally based yet at the same time, international. In collaboration with a transdisciplinary team of artists and the Weltmuseum Wien, the original intention was for the project to culminate in Vienna’s outlying Simmering district, but due to the social isolation mandated by the Covid19 pandemic, the project went online and thereby took on a global dimension. With 21 Days Listening Out Loud & Dreaming Wildly, the JUMP!STAR team hosted an open, digital space from April 13 to May 3, 2020 in which people from Vienna’s Simmering district and many parts of the world could connect on a daily basis via conversation, dance, and song; and braid a long, double infinity rope. The individual rope pieces, which the participants braided

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on their own at home during the lockdown, were then mailed to Brunnenpassage in the summer of 2020. The rope compiled from the pieces is a ­symbol and binding record of this extraordinary time. After the first quarantine period, in autumn 2020, a rope fest was celebrated in ­S­immering, where all pieces of the rope were tied together. The final object is more than 120 meters long. The object, together with an extensive documentation of the JUMP!STAR production, such as sound elements, research works on pandemics, and photos and quotes from the participants, will be on display as a special exhibition alongside the grand staircase in the columned hall at the Weltmuseum Wien.

IDEA AND CONCEPT Starting point of the project was the previously little known fact that the earth will have a new North Star in 1,000 years.1 ­Inspired 1

During the construction of the pyramids, Polaris was not our guiding light, instead, it was a different North Star. A gravity-induced wobble

“I think that Europe has lost a lot of their initial connections to creation. I think in some parts it still can be found. I do think that cultural appropriation is a very real thing. There are a lot of tourists that head here during Sundance time. And that’s great, I mean go ahead and get your connections, but realize that that’s another form of exploitation. You are just coming here to get what you need to go back home. I tell a person straight up when I see them: ‘What are you giving back to us? Why are you here? Are you here for you? Or are you here for the community?’ ” Gitz Crazyboy, Canada, May 1, 2020

in earth’s rotation (axial precession) leads the planet’s rotational axis to turn away from Polaris over millenia, and orient on a new North Star. In ca. 1,000 years, Errai alias Gamma Cephei will replace the Polar Star as earth’s North Star.

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“I am braiding with strips of paper that I got on a trip to Japan. In 2015 I toured with my mother to learn about the Shibori techniques. As we were leaving one of the studios that we were visiting, we were given these strips of paper which were used in the process of stitching, clamping and then dyeing pieces of fabric and I had them all this time and the double-infinity-rope seems like the perfect way to use them. It´s really lovely to have an opportunity to make something with these pieces which have had such a history—I am happy to contribute to the project.”

Leah, USA, April 21, 2020

by this phenomenon, George Ferrandi started the initiative JUMP!STAR in New York and Kansas, USA, in 2017, bringing communities, artists, and scientists together to pose the question of how future generations might celebrate the transition of our North Star, with a sense of connection capable of overcoming divides. The project is named after the astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, the deaf American scientist who founded the contemporary system for classifying the stars.

“In our cultural imagination, the North Star plays the role of the singular thing that we can count on to always be in the same place […]. It’s been our literal and figurative guiding light for centuries, leading ships to shore, leading enslaved people to freedom along the Underground Railroad. How profoundly poetic to discover that, like everything in our bodies, our lives, our worlds, even the North Star changes.” George Ferrandi, on the project, interview in BOOM Magazine, May 2020, NYC

Brunnenpassage invited George Ferrandi as creative director, to develop together with a team of local artists, a version for Vienna, as part of the JUMP!STAR series of socially engaged art projects that grapple with our visions and responsibilities for a better future.

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To recalibrate our relationship to time, with 21 Days Listening Out Loud & Dreaming Wildly, JUMP!STAR Simmering created a shared resonance space in which a team of artists from ­Simmering and various parts of the world could collectively process this historical moment in 2020 – against social acceleration and short-sightedness, the pressure of capitalism and political opportunism, and towards responsibility for one another and generations to come. Amid the current pandemic, structural racism, and successive destruction of the planet, the project’s actors turn to connecting and community-oriented strategies to address questions of how our actions and decisions in the present affect physical and social worlds in the near and distant future.

REALIZATION JUMP!STAR Simmering was originally conceived as a four-month catalyst for one of Vienna’s largest districts. To begin with, Brunnenpassage compiled a diverse core team specializing in participatory and socially engaged art, consisting of choreogra­ pher and dancer Karin Cheng, dialogic artists and performers ­Teresa Distelberger and Mario Sinnhofer aka Touched, singer and ­musician Futurelove Sibanda, author and political scientist Anna Gaberscik, and anthropologist and cultural mediator from the Weltmuseum Wien, Bianca Figl. The co-creative process began in February 2020 with an intense, three-day kick-off workshop

“Our project came at a moment when the world had the same problems. It did not matter whether you were rich or poor, or a teacher or a doctor or anybody. We all had the same resonance of ‘What’s going on?!’ ”

Futurelove, Austria, July 3, 2020

“We need to be able to imagine how we hope things will be in the future so that we can start creating that future now. It becomes our right and responsibility to start imagining the future that we hope for.”

George, USA, April 16, 2020

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“In joining in and listening to other people talk about why they have chosen their special fabric I felt kind of ashamed that I’ve been so stingy. That’s an aspect that came up in my awareness is this wrestling with generosity, giving and abundance and also the desire to not spend and not to conserve and to hold on to and to save. They feel like dual and opposites. That is a kind of a new awareness for me that arrived through being part of this project. As I am trying to look at how to balance those two aspects, I think I am learning something new but I´m not exactly sure what it is yet.”

Diane, Canada, April 22, 2020

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led by Komala Amorim, expert on communal healing processes, ritual development, and transformative work. The workshop was conceived as training and team building for the core team and a wider circle of key individuals from organizations and groups in Simmering. The goal was to develop a mutual base and conceptual focus for the collaboration. As a result of the workshop and numerous concept-development meetings with the entire core team, a score (basic scheme) for the co-creative collaboration was developed, with which the artists could orient themselves within the conception of the participative process with the group in Simmering, while within the given structure, space was available for artistic freedom.

ORIGINAL CONCEPT Guided by the shared narrative and questions, the core team, together with local groups and residents of Simmering, embarked upon the several-month, co-creative process of inventing new rituals and traditions for the distant future. The workshops and events developed together with the Simmering groups were planned for February to early May 2020, and aimed at the development of dance choreographies, clapping games, songs, and narratives, which subsequently should become part of large, public events, as sketches of newly found traditions that can be passed down to the next generations. Work was carried out on

three culminating events, focusing on the past, the present, and the future, each in cooperation with different local groups. Overview of Local Partners Musikschule Simmering (groups of the music school: Big Band, Vocal Jazz Ensemble, World Music class, Computer Music class, project week at the music school with students from Gottschalkgasse), Queerdance im Gemeindebau, Ghana Minstrel­ Choir, G11–Bundesrealgymnasium Geringergasse (secondary school’s music class and theater class), welTraum, Radical Fearies. ­Studio Chor. ABZ Gleichstellungshaus. Senior citizen clubs in ­Simmering. A large double infinity symbol was developed as an element connecting all three events. The symbol was meant to arise in a workshop series with local groups and in artistic formats (performances in conjunction with workshops and discourse) in public space in Simmering, to include the inhabitants of ­Simmering and their input, and thereby, allow a large number of heterogeneous voices to flow into the process. The rope, laid out on the floor, was meant to form the participatory stage. As part of the Gesamt­kunstwerk, the idea was to have performances, scenes, and experimental participatory formats within this double infinity marking.

“Why I love this kind of interaction is because I can look at different people, different faces. I can stare at you. I can really concentrate and really feel the uniqueness and the beauty of each person here. We are actually just so beautiful.” Diane, Canada, May 1, 2020

“Just like how you find that technology is a means that will transform and we also rely more and more on our inner capacities. And definitely there will be a need also to understand what it means to be in harmony with the greater reality. A global, collective citizenship that is also already happening.”

Angelo, Philippines, May 2, 2020

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Adaptation/Transformation due to Social Isolation 21 Days of Listening Out Loud & Wild Dreaming Jump!Star Simmering (English) Scan code to watch video

“A new inspiration is coming every day, every month. When new things happen in your life, also new solutions arise from somewhere.”

Maria, Austria, April 22, 2020

“I think that this very strange situation binds us and connects us to each other in a way we have not experienced before. We are all sitting here in front of our computers and we are just braiding and not knowing what is going to happen in life. But we are bonding on our collective—I guess weirdness.”

Anna, Austria, April 15, 2020

“Also when I’m sad, I try to enjoy my sadness. That, too, is a beautiful feeling. I use it to be happy. Enough with sadness and enough with war.”

Mohamad, Austria, April 18, 2020  

When the first governmental decree forbidding events came into power in early March 2020, the core team of JUMP!STAR, decided that instead of postponing, it was more important than ever to continue working on the project, also in these difficult times. Within just a few days, an adaptation was developed collectively in the team, and a social media expert was brought in as advisor for this challenging transformation. A short, animated video was created as an introduction to the project.

REALIZATION Every day from April 13 until May 3 2020, at the same time each day, between 5:00 and 6:20 p.m. CET, an open-access, virtual meeting space was opened, which people from around the world could enter to spend eighty minutes together. The decision to use this daily format across a twenty-one-day period was based on the idea that, in popular wisdom, it takes twenty-one days to develop a new habit. The regularity and the clear basic structure developed collectively in the core team, along with the flexibility of being able to join on occasion or for a short part of the session, enabled participants to decide individually how intensely they wanted or could participate in the process. Virtual resonance space With special guidance from the artists, all participants were invited every day to take part in talks and listen to one another out loud, while braiding segments of the long rope and afterward, during shared jumping and singing, to dream wildly and formulate wishes for the future. Sequence 5:00–6:00 p.m. Double-Infinity Rope Circle The participants were greeted every day in digital space at 5:00 p.m. CET / 11:00 a.m. EST alternately by Teresa Distelberger, Mario­ Sinnhofer aka Touched, or George Ferrandi, and invited to cut scraps of old clothes and fabric into strips and braid them into a long rope. During the braiding, they were invited to join in shared breathing and discussing, every day on a different theme relevant to these extraordinary times. The goal was to process this challenging moment together and begin to think about how it shapes our hopes for the future. From the second week, special guests were invited to the conversations. Alongside interna­tional guests from Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, and Tanzania, among other places, special focus was on artists and activists from Simmering to allow the project, despite the digital, global connection, to still take root in Simmering and continue the work of establishing relationships that had already begun. Mainly to offer meaningful insight into the current lives of people in the district, through conversations about challenges, chances, areas of impact, dreams, etc. The thoughts and emotions were symbolically braided into the rope segments. These were gathered together after the conclu-

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sion of the twenty-one days, sent by post to Brunnenpassage, and braided together to a huge, connecting rope. 6:00-6:10 p.m. JUMP! Every day after the braiding, Karin Cheng introduced the JUMP! Session, with a simple jump choreography, always to the same song by the JUMP!STAR composer Mirah. The second song was suggested by the participants and offered space for free dancing and experimenting and interacting on the digital dance floor. JUMP! was an important moment, to connect via movement, and to feel the body and contribution of each individual. In addition to the general intent of current awareness, participants were invited to share their personal and global wishes and goals, and to jump for them.

“1,000 years, 10x100 years is an unbelievably long time. Development is going faster and faster, but just now people have realized that it can’t go on like this, always higher, further, always doing more. I think that in 1,000 years the spirit, or more the spiritual side will shift more to the forefront than the technical. I imagine a spiritual world in 1,000 years.”

Hanka, Austria, May 2, 2020

6:10–6:20 p.m. Into the Future / Are you ready? The musician Futurelove Sibanda composed the JUMP!STAR Simmering hymn "Are You Ready?" and sang the song twenty-­ one days long as sing along and ritual, to welcome the new world and express thanks for being connected with the past and present. Beginning on day eleven he invited participants to record the song in their own language and send to him, so that he could learn the different versions. In the final session, Futurelove performed the song in fifteen different languages including Romanian, Tagalog, Bulgarian, Ndebele, Indonesian, and Swahili. Two further opportunities to participate were available in addition to the daily live sessions. On the one hand was the fourpart article series Degrees of Separation by Anna Gaberscik who investigated the social and political implications of social

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Jump!Star Degrees of Seperation Scan code to read booklet

distancing over the course of history and published it over the twenty-one days. At the end of every contribution, readers were invited to respond artistically to precise questions. And on the other hand, with Sounds of Now, Bianca Figl called for people to collect sounds and noises characteristic of the extraordinary lockdown period. The submitted sounds became part of the JUMP!STAR archive and were woven together to a sound carpet presented during the concluding celebration on day 21. This material, including the collective double-infinity-rope and the video documentation of the virtual sessions was displayed at the Weltmuseum Wien from December 2020 as a record of this difficult social moment.

PARTNERSHIPS “I find myself not necessarily teaching sculpture anymore.  All the classes I have we are teaching each other how to find Beauty in the midst of all of this.”

Carole, USA, April 14, 2020

Brunnenpassage’s collaboration with the Weltmuseum Wien is based on a long-term partnership. The aim of the strategic partnership is to create mutual connections between major art institutions in Vienna’s city center and the Viennese population in its plurality and intensify the transfer of knowledge between the institutions. Brunnenpassage’s longstanding expertise in decentral art production supported the active participation of large parts of the population of the 11th district. All activities were carried out by professional artists specializing in socially engaged art processes, under George Ferrandi’s artistic direction. The Weltmuseum Wien was represented by the curator and art ­mediator Bianca Figl. Originally, five additional staff members from the cultural mediation of the Weltmuseum Wien were involved in JUMP!STAR, with the goal of developing a special JUMP!STAR guided tour, tied to the current discourse surrounding restitution. The plan was to offer this tour on a long-term basis after the end of the project at the museum, however, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and a reduction of the museum staff in conjunction with it, this could not be realized.

OUTREACH RELATIONSHIP BUILDING “What makes me angry is that I feel I am privileged. I am a privileged guy and living in a bubble. I feel I live in this parallel universe. The entire planet is sick. But we are looking to our small world and trying to fix it and to move forward, but we are not learning the lessons we should be learning now.”

Fred, Luxembourg, April 19, 2020

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Based on Brunnenpassage’s longstanding practice and expertise in decentral art processes on site at the Brunnenmarkt, this project presented an important new step for the Brunnenpassage team, exploring and applying their methods and expertise at a new site. The project pursued a transgenerational approach and aimed at collaborating with as many local initiatives, schools, and organizations as possible, and through this networking, creating a basis for future follow-up projects. Initiated were collaborations with schools, cultural initiatives, and social institutions in Simmering. Local groups were paired with artists from the core team and targeted workshop series were conceived. After the first prep meeting, however, social isolation began, preventing all planned, on-site physical activities. The relocation of the project to digital space presented a great obstacle for building relationships and inclusion of all involved participants. Due to technical barriers, as well as private challenges resulting from the pandemic, only a few of the actors could be involved. While the digital format enabled partici­ pation and coverage around the world, the project team made a constant endeavor to include actors from the district. A call began

for artists from Simmering who would appear as special guests in the context of the 21 Days Listening Out Loud & Wild Dreaming and share insight into their current lives. These artists, for their part, drew in new participants from their surroundings. Despite the successful digital adaptation of the project in this unusual time of isolation, it was important and essential to realize constituent parts of the concept for a physical event on site as soon as public events were again safe and possible. A rope fest in Simmering in autumn 2020 offered participants the opportunity to get together and share in the conclusion of the project.

FINANCING JUMP!STAR Simmering is a production by Brunnenpassage in cooperation with the Weltmuseum Wien and the U.S. artist George Ferrandi. The core funding for the project was provided by SHIFT, a funding grant from basis.kultur.wien. The partner institution Weltmuseum Wien was able to provide a modest additional production budget. Due to a lack of resources and diverging expectations on their part during the project conception, the planned partner institution Wiener Konzerthaus departed the project in February 2020 during the realization phase (after the artists’ contracts had already been signed), which presented a great challenge. The Weltmuseum Wien also had to lower its share of the production budget due to the pandemic and the associated financial losses. Although the project was thus faced with a significant recalibration of its budget, in addition to the challenge of adapting its content, all artist contracts and payment agreements could be met by virtue of the lower ­material costs.

“I think in order to go forward in time we have to also go back in time.”

Amelia, USA, May 2, 2002

“There is a digital divide that people don’t want to realize, that not everyone has a webcam or a computer that has the bandwidth or enough computers in the household. […] There are certain realities to our current situation that institutions and individuals have to get used to. […] Now things are different. People have to realize that all this technology, the beauty of it has to be tempered with humility and patience.”

Nathan, USA, April 13, 2020

CREDITS JUMP!STAR Simmering Team Artistic direction: George Ferrandi Double-Infinity-Braiding Sessions: Teresa Distelberger, Mario Sinnhofer aka Touched JUMP! Choreography: Karin Cheng Are You Ready? Composition: Futurelove Sibanda Degrees of Separation: Anna Gaberscik Sounds of Now: Bianca Figl Production Lead, Curation: Zuzana Ernst Production Assistance: Melika Ramic Exhibition Production: Bianca Figl Support Content Guidance: Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard Social Media: David Mathews Social Media Consulting: Matthias Haas Communication: Fariba Mosleh

During the project the quotes were publicised on social media. Due to this, the participants chose to be partially anony­ mised, which is why only their first names have been listed.

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Live-Translation: Yamna Krasny Tools for Concept Development: Komala Amorim Scores Input: Julia Höfler Weltmuseum Wien: Petra Fuchs-Jebinger, Mela Maresch Special Guests 21 Days Listening Out Loud & Dreaming Wildly Angelo P. Herrera (peace activist at ‘Bridges of Inter-cultural ­harmony Inc. BINHI BRIDGES’, Manila, Philippines) Ava Farajpoory, Sarah Barisic, Raphael Pollak (initiators of ­‘Simmeringer Gabenzaun’, Junge Generation Simmering) Esref (rapper, Eastblok Family, Simmering) Gabriel (breakdancer, Eastblok Family, Simmering) Gitz Crazyboy (Indigenous activist, author, actor, Calgary, Canada) Gözde Taskaya (rapper, activist, Simmering) Maria Susmakova (dancer, choreographer, Simmering) Mata Hari (activist, co-founder of ‘Radical Faeries Vienna’) Perseida Tenorio Toledo (activist, co-founder of the NGO ,Una mano para Oaxaca’ from Oaxaca, Mexico) Robert Newframer (breakdancer, Simmering) Samuel Terence aka Sam Alive (dancer, Simmering) Thadi Alawi (dancer, cultural worker form Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) Willi Stelzhammer (psychotherapist, cultural worker at welTraum Simmering) Jump! Star Simmering is a production of the Brunnenpassage in cooperation with the Weltmuseum Wien and the U.S.-American artist George Ferrandi. Supported by SHIFT Wien.

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Zuzana Ernst, Natalia Hecht

Not a Single Story Collective Diary In the Framework of the Collaborative Art Project ZukunftsKwizin 2016–2019 “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. [...] when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” (Chimamanda N. Adichie)

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Not a Single Story – Collective Diary refers to Chimamanda N. Adichie’s essay "The Danger of a Single Story", wherein she talks about the tendency to generalize and draw one-sided conclusions. Not a Single Story presents a strategy that confronts the singular with the collective and creates an awareness of the complexity of individuals while relying on collective processing: People speak for themselves and reveal stories from different biographical contexts.

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IDEA AND CONCEPT Not a Single Story – Collective Diary is the result of a three-year co-creative process by ZukunftsKwizin1, an art project engaging young women*, which chose a feminist, transcultural, aesthetic approach to the theme of exile. Using artistic methods, questions of arriving in Vienna were explored, stereotypes were questioned, aesthetically processed, transformed and publicly presented. Brunnenpassage initiated the project in 2016 in response to the long summer of flight in 2015, in order to create a long-term framework in which young women* who had been forced to flee could deal with the shaping of their personal ­future in a creative and resilient way. The collaboration with the educational institution #QualifyForHope2 throughout the project period was essential for the continuity of the participants, which enabled a profound process for all sides involved. The 70+ contributors formed a diverse group with many different interests, challenges, and life experiences from various countries, including Ethiopia, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Santo Domingo, Serbia, and Syria. Over the course of the project period, concrete productions were realized that invited the audience to engage with specific 1

Kwizin means ‘kitchen’ in Haitian. During colonialism, people with different native languages were consciously brought to Haiti to prohibit communication between the enslaved people. As a reaction to that, the people developed Creole. A language full of power and resistance.

2 #QualifyForHope is an educational project for girls and young women with little proficiency in German. It serves to prepare them for (further)

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education in Austria and for entering the current labor market.

Identität Widerstand Zuhause Liebe

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Selbstdefinitionen, Gender, Schönheit

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Identity Resistance At Home Love Self-definitions, Gender, Beauty

Power Deconstruction, Freedom, Strength

Safety, Refuge, Self-representation

Self-love, Generations

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Survival, Loss, Courage

Re-imagine Deconstruct, Unlearn, Shape

and often ignored knowledge. Specific partnerships and cooperations were initiated, which aimed at a direct dialogue with the civic society and the visualization of the negotiated topics. In 2017, for example, the urban intervention ‘Public Lunch in der Freien Mitte’ was created in collaboration with the Architektur­ zentrum Wien. In the context of the international artist residency ‘Care and Repair. Sorgetragen für die Stadt’ at Nordbahnhof, the group organized a public event on questions of hospitality and invited the neighbors to an unusual lunch. The location chosen was an abandoned connecting tunnel between the new urban development area of the Nordbahnhof site and the neighborhood where the education center is located. The initiative explored forms of shared hospitality between new and old residents as a possible approach for transcultural and social co-productions. The results were presented as part of the exhibition ‘Critical Care’ at the Architekturzentrum Wien, which subsequently toured Berlin, Dresden, Dornbirn, and Zurich. As a second cooperation, a project week took place at the Weltmuseum Wien in February 2018. A group of 40 women* worked together with three artists on the key themes of exile, identity and gender. They developed a sculptural work that was exhibited at the Weltmuseum, which dealt with multiple layers of identity. At the end, a performative tour took place in which the women* took a stand on selected artifacts in the museum by means of their bodies, thereby entering into a dialogue with them in the form of a symbolic counter-reaction and subsequently reflecting on this in the group. The audience was invited to follow along and be part of the actions through their own movements. The discussion of topics of exile, identity and gender were further developed in the context of "StadtRecherchen" of the open studio of Vienna’s Burgtheater (Offene Burg/Burgtheater). In an intensive series of workshops, the participants developed a performance titled Paper Passengers, in which life-size paper dolls were created from personal document copies of the asylum process, such as countless forms, translated transcripts, birth certificates, etc., and premiered in the Akademietheater. Not a Single Story - Collective Diary was the final project of this series of multifaceted productions in 2019, with the aim of finding a good conclusion for the three years of joint work, creating a sustainable product of this process and making the contents and experiences visible to a broad public. The project ZukunftsKwizin (2016-2019) was thus the basis for the drafting of the collective

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diary project. The series of weekly workshops, which lasted several years, worked on themes such as identity, love, survival, learning and unlearning. These themes manifested themselves through excerpts from participants’ personal diary entries, collectively produced drawings, critical questions, or statements on the meaning of writing things down. The reflections were interwoven with free, blank pages to offer space for the readers’ own writing. The result is a collective diary with strong quotations that should encourage all readers and especially women*. In addition, the book represents a valuable output of the three-year process, as an artistic documentation as well as product that will be taken forward by the readers and writers.

REALIZATION The diary project arose from the three-year collaboration with young women* in the ZukunftsKwizin project. The participants were reached via a cooperation with the educational program #Qualify for Hope. The long-term collaboration enabled intensive and sustainable conceptualization. Weekly workshop series led by the head of the project Natalia Hecht from the Brunnenpassage team, who is herself a psychologist and artist, were embedded in the regular lessons of the school’s educational program. The production of Not a Single Story - Collective Diary was a deliberate decision to translate this valuable multi-year process into a sustainable result. Forty women* participated in and actively shaped the diary project, with fourteen women* actively writing. Many have thus fulfilled their dream of writing and publishing a book. The diary arose over the course of a long-term collaborative design and decision-making process. The first phase consisted of seven three-hour workshops in which the authors* researched feminist literature, examples of diaries, poems, everyday objects, newspapers, and photos, among others, and designed their own collages, drawings, performances, texts, and diary entries. In an informal atmosphere, numerous low-threshold opportunities for expression were created in order to build up trust and provide the opportunity to grapple with the specific issues important for each woman*. Since some topics could not be articulated or could only be articulated with great difficulty, partly due to personal life ­experiences, there was the possibility to express oneself ­physically and to create images and situations that carried

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meaning. Works by key feminist international artists were discussed in each workshop to gather inspiration. Part of the process was to move from the inner world to a social expression of one’s own voice. From the individual, private sphere of the diary to the social confrontation with collective themes. Therefore, gradually, especially towards the end of the process, work was done in the public space, trying out how the personal opinions can provide impulses for collective processing and conversations. All these steps allowed the group to feel how their personal reality relates to their environment. In the process, the authors* reflected together and were left to decide what they would like to externalize from their personal lives and diary entries, in what form and out of what motivation. Important questions that arose in the workshops: What is a diary? Why do I write? What would a collective diary of all humanity look like? What experiences would it tell? How do I define myself? Am I defined from outside? By whom? What does gender mean for me? How do I define beauty? What is resis­ tance? What does “home” mean? What is love? What women give me power? What is survival? What does courage mean? The workshop format was supplemented with individual talks and sessions to reflect on the diaries with Natalia Hecht as facili­ tator in which the participants had the opportunity to explore personal aesthetic and social inquiries. Whereas the workshops enabled collective reflection, the individual talks focused on personal diary entries. A conceptual framework emerged from 106

the one-on-one talks with which the individual reflections could again be brought together to a collective narrative, by means of discussions and performative readings within the group. Original diary entries from one participant, Wasan Alali, were brought in as a major inspiration and base for Not a Single Story – Collective Diary. Because of her personal interest in writing, Wasan became particularly involved in this project and proposed to incorporate her original entries into the collective diary concept. Her personal diary contained entries since 2011, when she was only ten years old. At that time, she lived in Al Raqqa, Syria, where she was born and raised until she was forced to flee to Austria in 2015. The book had previously belonged to her father. In it, he had written texts and poems about love. When he gave it to her as a gift one day, she began to write down her experiences. When she began writing, the war had not yet begun. Sometimes there were longer pauses between entries, as on her escape through several countries, she couldn’t take the notebook along with her and could only get it back later via detours. In an accompanied reflection process, Wasan decided to publish six entries, motivated by the knowledge that her story would serve as inspiration for a critical thought process. A great deal of the talks involved sensitive translation work and were shaped by long discussions about words and their capacity to express specific feelings. Over the course of these talks, decisions were also made about which parts should be published, and which should remain private for personal reasons. The contents of Not a Single Story – Collective Diary are arranged into six chapters: identity, resistance, home, love, life, and re-imagining. A diary entry from Wasan Alali is embedded between each individual chapter and offers insight into a concrete reality, while the individual chapters open questions and conceptual spaces, and invite active confrontation with the themes. The themes become manifest through excerpts from personal statements and critical questions of the young women* and via collectively created drawings. These elements are interwoven with empty pages in order to offer room for the readers’ own creativity and open up space to counter the “danger of the single story,” while also drawing awareness to collective story telling. Forewords by two authors and activists serve to contextualize, on the one hand, the personal practice of writing a diary with ‘My diary—a mobile home’ by Luna Al-Mousli and, on the other hand, the potential of collective practice in the scope of feminist resistance with ‘A page, not of one’s own’ by Marty Huber. The book design was created in collaboration with the artist Eleni Palles. It was a collaborative process in which the participants decided on typography, type of drawings, chapter development, and general aesthetics in dialogue with the artist. The drawings arose from performative photographs made by the participants in which they had expressed various messages and feelings through their bodies. A conscious decision was made to work with drawings rather than the photographs themselves in order to elevate the work to a level of abstraction that ­dissolves 107

the direct connection to a particular person and enables identification at a general level. The book was presented in autumn 2019 in cooperation with the WIENWOCHE – Festival for Art and Activism in Brunnen­passage. In cooperation with the WIENWOCHE, a press and social ­media strategy was created to present and distribute the book to a wide audience. The book presentation included readings of book excerpts in a multilingual setting. The panel talk with Luna Al- Mousli, Amani Abuzahra, Natalia Hecht and Wasan Alali was hosted by Djamila Grandits. The other authors* Khadija Chikh Abdulrahman, Safa Alhamwi, Alanoud Alhariri, Saly Brim, Yamam Dawa, Ayaa Foheil, Hayfa Haci, Telli Hasan, Jawana Maamo, Krisangela Toloza, Jovana Vucinic, Duha Ibrahim, Rouaa Ajouri, Salwa Dawalibi, Taqwa Alkhatib were also present at the event and introduced to the audience. The book received positive reviews and several people sent the team photos of pages they had filled, in the reflection part of the book. The impact of the project was assessed through individual talks, group reflection, and observation sessions.

FINANCING The base financing for ZukunftsKwizin was provided by the ­Ministry of Culture, which covered mainly the costs of the ­project lead, Natalia Hecht, for three years. The cooperation partner #Qualify for Hope contributed to the material costs each semester and benefited from the financed personnel resources. For production costs for the book, including graphic design and printing, it was possible to attain a grant from the HIL Foundation. The book presentation took place in cooperation with the WIENWOCHE, which sponsored the costs of the event including fees for speakers and host.

CREDITS Idea, concept ZukunftsKwizin and Not a Single Story: Natalia Hecht, Zuzana Ernst, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard Artistic direction: Natalia Hecht Co-Authors* Not a Single Story: Khadija Chikh Abdulrahman, Safa Alhamwi, Alanoud Alhariri, Saly Brim, Yamam Dawa, Ayaa Foheil, Hayfa Haci, Telli Hasan, Jawana Maamo, Krisangela Toloza, Jovana Vucinic, Duha Ibrahim, Rouaa Ajouri, Salwa Dawalibi, Taqwa Alkhatib, and Wasan Alali Forewords: Luna Al-Mousli, Marty Huber Diary entries and editorial work: Wasan Alali Graphic design: Eleni Palles Institutional support: Claudia Posekany, Lubna Al Soufi Editing: Ammar Alabd Alhamid, Fesih Alpagu, Chris Dake-Outhet, Mark Eichhorn, Elif Işık

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Quotes from participants I discovered that other people also have feelings and questions similar to my own. I never thought that I could or would write a book. I a ­ lmost don’t believe it but now I have our book in my hands. My name is there as author, and it’s an unbelievable feeling. I told my big brother that I was going to write a book and he laughed and didn’t believe me. He said… you are going to write a book? And today I’m going home with a book that I wrote and I’ll give it to him as a present. I never thought that anybody would be interested in what I think, in what I feel, what I’ve experienced. It came as a complete surprise that so many people are interested in my life. I’m proud of myself. We have proven that we’re brave, intelligent, and strong. We wrote a book. It’s so special to see that now other people will be motivated to go on and write their own ideas and feelings in the collective diary. My experiences now have a new role. I found out that I’m strong. That I shouldn’t forget myself. I noticed that there’s a lot I have to unlearn. It’s important to ask yourself: am I going to get anywhere with the things I’ve learned? Or do I want a different life. I want to decide for myself what’s best for me. We can rethink and transform everything.

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Wie Wiebefreie befreieich ichmich michvon vonGewalt? Gewalt? Wo Wofühle fühleich ichmich michsicher? sicher?

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How Howdo doI free I freemyself myselffrom fromviolence? violence? Where Wheredo doI feel I feelsafe? safe?

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Tilman Fromelt

Zeit.Geschichten Storywalks at Brunnenmarkt November 2009–March 2011 The Zeit.Geschichten format was developed to artistically gather stories related to the biographies of people around Brunnenmarkt. These personal stories were compiled and staged as “storywalks,” that is, an audience took walks leading from story to story and place to place. Later on, the stories were published in the book Zeit.Geschichten recording a small piece of local, “grassroots” history in book form.

IDEA AND CONCEPT Biographical stories are important historiographical fragments often excluded from majority discourse. For the Zeit.Geschichten format, storytelling was chosen as an accessible form of communication in order to reach people as “speakers.” Everyone has a story to tell, but not all stories are suitable for presentation on a big stage. And not everyone wants to stand in the spotlight and tell his or her personal story. Therefore, the artistic framework gave storytellers the chance to choose a site and tell their life stories in front of a small audience of eight to twelve listeners. This is meant to enable a very personal, if not intimate story­ telling situation. Rather than emphasizing the art of storytelling,

at the forefront should be the stories’ authenticity. The listeners, the audience, went on a walk taking them from year to year, from place to place, and from story to story. Five or six personal ­stories­were told in the context of a one-and-a-half hour evening program. Usually, several “storywalks” took place simultaneously on one evening, and sometimes also different tours.

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PROGRAMMATIC PLACEMENT Between 2009 and 2013, Brunnenpassage’s program included a focus on the engagement with stories and oral history. ­Included in this was a series of guest appearances entitled Die Kunst des Erzählens (The Art of Storytelling) with professional national and international storytellers, such as Saddek el Kebir, Parvis Mamnun,­Jan Blake, Alexander Kostinskij, Odile Néri-­Kaiser, ­Ferrucio Cainero, and Peter Chand. Also included was the participa­tory series of workshops for adults Erzähl­ session (storytelling session), Erzählwoche (storytelling week) for children, and the ­project Freiraum Erzählen (open space for storytelling) taking place in schools. From 2012 to 2014 came participation in the EU project Sheherazade. Sheherazade involved research towards the use of storytelling as a tool for adult education. Since many storytelling formats focused on the oral transmission of stories, myths, and fairy tales from different cultures, or the inventing of fictional stories, a growing interest in the inclusion of biographical stories developed, which Zeit.Geschichten addressed. “Then we finally go out on the streets and enter the first shop where unfortunately, the teenagers have no luck with the owner who is too stressed out and doesn’t want to know anything about their art project. Two more failures follow but then we eventually end up in the cafe and bakery Haci Baba and have a long conversation with the owner. The conversation is in Turkish, so I don’t understand his story, but I understand from his sparkling eyes, his smile, and above all the teenager’s laughter that his story must be very interesting and amusing.” (Kurier, 2011)

IMPLEMENTATION The Zeit.Geschichten concept (taking “storywalks” at Brunnenmarkt) involved the consideration of individuals’ biographical stories as highly important historiographical fragments. The main focus was on the stories’ authenticity. Emphasis was placed on people sharing their biographies in their own way.

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STORYTELLERS

It is a beautiful experience, to hear these stories from other peoples’ lives. From time to time, you can learn something for your own life.

Feride Güneş, scholarship holder 2011

In the selection of the storytellers, diversity was a key factor. The stories featured, among other things, anecdotes about arriving in Vienna, wedding days, and sausage vendors in ­Ottakring. Brunnenpassage’s main goal was to feature as speakers, especially those people who are not usually given space to articulate in mainstream society. People who’ve experienced forced migration, for example, are often not at liberty to express themselves, and instead, journalists tell their tragic stories or authori­ ties collect them. In Zeit.Geschichten, there is no such thing as judgment. The storytellers decide themselves which stories they would like to share with others. The audience that listened to the stories consisted mostly of people with an affinity for art due to the unusual setting. Therefore, it was important to take care in the selection of storytellers in order to avoid a tour with “migrants” telling stories to ­“Austrians.” Zeit.Geschichten made it possible to get to know the neighborhood a bit better and for people to begin talking, which was a very important aspect of the project. In many cases, storytellers decided to go on the next tour after their performances to listen to other stories. The short walks from one story to the next are significant for allowing participants to process the last story and

get ready to hear a new one. Some listeners also discovered new shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants in the neighborhood.

REALIZATION The most difficult aspect of the project was finding people around Brunnenmarkt willing to share their personal story. Explaining the format was particularly challenging. The team’s language skills were crucial here, in approaching potential participants. As a general rule, six months were necessary to coordinate the project from approach to event. On the day of the performances, the audience met at Brunnenpassage. The format was explained to them and the route discussed. Two organizers, at least, were necessary for the evening. One person guided the listeners from place to place and the second took care of the storytellers and 120

the schedule. If necessary, the organization team could change the route so the audience could enjoy the evening without any disruptions. After taking the tour, everyone regrouped at Brunnenpassage for tea. Sometimes the storytellers joined the audience to talk a bit more.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK Formats such as Zeit.Geschichten make it possible to address specific people. With five to six stories per tour, it is important to have a variety of story types such as funny, proud, frightening, etc. in order to avoid reducing underrepresented groups to “victim” stories. Both communicating the project’s idea and the search for stories proved challenging. Many people are under the impression that they have nothing interesting to share. In such cases, it was helpful to ask about specific events, such as the birth of a child, the opening of a hair salon, arriving in ­Vienna, etc. Once the story was agreed upon, there were several meetings to work on it, and reduce it to a speaking time of five to ten minutes. For compacting the stories and making them more consistent, it proved useful to ask specific questions and offer encouragement in developing specific parts. Empathy and knowledge of story structure are required for this.

In 2011, Zeit.Geschichten was carried out in cooperation with Start Wien (scholarships for engaged students with an immigration background). This cooperation was a great benefit for Brunnenpassage since the scholarship holders helped increase the variety of stories and enabled simultaneous interpretation of the stories in different languages. Furthermore, workshops were held to prepare the scholarship holders for their tasks. Professional script editors were not involved in the collection of the stories, which meant that more time was required to arrange the compilation of the stories and double check them.

FINANCING A great deal of effort was required to find people willing to share their personal story, and to solidify these stories. Sufficient 121

r­ esources in terms of personnel were thus crucial. The project received financial support from a sponsor (The Crespo Foundation) for one year. This support made it possible to work with forty scholarship holders and to document the project in book form.

POSTPRODUCTION During a project such as Zeit.Geschichten, relationships develop among individuals. Staying in touch after the joint process is crucial; to say thank you, for example, or to ask for feedback about the event. A longer relationship must be taken into account as some of the storytellers are eager to draw on the trust that was built during the project. Zeit.Geschichten requires, in essence, an empathetic approach and a great deal of sensitivity. The storytellers were recorded on tape, with prior permission. These recordings were transcribed and shaped the basis for the book. Publishing a book with the stories is, of course, ­optional and depends on financial possibilities. In writing down the ­stories, one challenge was to avoid disturbing their authenticity by using standard German, which was not used by the speakers. The Zeit.Geschichten publication thus attempts to preserve the dialects and accents used by the speakers. Brunnenpassage ­secured permission from all storytellers before writing down their stories for the book.

CREDITS Concept and artistic director: Tilman Fromelt Collection of stories, transcription of stories, and tour guidance: Burek Büyük, Mustafa Cihangir, Tilman Fromelt, Vanja Fuchs-Grgurevic, Lia Kraus, Gülüzar Bozkurt, Hüseyin Onur Becid, Demet Serin, and many more. Project coordination with the scholarship holders: Ivana Pilić

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A storywalk - some of the stories that were told

1976 – “ABOUT PIGS, LADIES AND PERMS” Told by Nesli Avcı This here used to be a hair salon [note: The entrance area of the restaurant “Etap” on Neulerchenfelderstrasse]. Here was a hall, there was another hall, and in the back was a small changing room. That, way behind there, was a garden. Here, at the hair salon, “Friseursalon Stampfer,” I did my apprenticeship in 1976 and when I finished, I stayed to work here for another three years. Then, unfortunately, my boss retired. It was a women’s hair salon. A man could enter the shop only to pick up his wife but other than that, no man was allowed in here, not even Mr. Stampfer. Mrs. Stampfer’s daughter was Christa Stampfer, the TV announcer, maybe you know her. Christa Stampfer did the show ‘Licht ins Dunkel’ for years. When we were asked how old she was, we always had to answer, she’s thirty-five. We always had to say, she’s thirty-five. Of course she was older but she didn’t want to reveal her age. Until one customer pointed out to me, “Every year I ask you about her age and you always say thirty-five.” I didn’t think she’d ask every year and remember the answer. But we always had to say she’s thirty-five. There used to be a spiral staircase here. She always went up it, and came down with her hair done. Up there was Christa Stampfer’s and her mother’s apartment. I lived next door at the “Solichhaus,” a butcher’s shop. When the pigs were delivered, they were still alive, then they were slaughtered in the back. Sometimes the pigs ran away. Then you had to look for them in the streets or they got under a car somehow or something. It was pretty funny. The pigs knew it was over when they got in there. So they screamed already at 5 a.m. That was when the delivery arrived. Cattle were also delivered, but they had already been slaughtered. Of course it smelled, and there were cockroaches and mice. For a long time, they were slaughtered there until somehow it was prohibited. When we heard the pigs screaming in the morning—they were hiding somewhere or didn’t want to come in—hearing all that was not very nice. They’re animals. And when you hear them… it’s a good thing I never heard the cows because I think I would have never eaten meat. Or if it had been sheep… well, the “Solich” was very well known. And when they came to get a manicure, to have their nails done, there was meat coming out from underneath. Yes. We had to do all that. Brunnenmarkt was like that. Before, it was almost only all Austrians who came to us. Elderly ladies. The “Potato Ladies.” Under their nails, there was soil coming out, they were so black. Back there on the left 123

side, that used to be the washing area where we washed the ladies’ hair. When we asked them when they had last washed their hair, there was one who sometimes answered: “Remember, I was here three months ago…” Well, back then, it was nothing like today. There are stories from back then. Once a colleague forgot about a customer who was getting a perm. Well, after a certain time I pointed it out to her. She thought she wasn’t done. And after a while she noticed that she had been sitting there for two hours. I then had to wash the perm out and then it fell out. The hair. It all fell out. Well, I mean the hair broke. Right where you stretch it, it broke. Yes. Thank god, she had some strands left so you could cover it up a bit. Of course she was really mad and screaming but we couldn’t change it back. She got everything for free for some time, until her hair had grown back. And she stayed with us somehow. Other than that, we had one lady who had a small boutique and the woman also had a small dog. She knew that I was afraid. And when I began with the manicure, it showed me its teeth. I was sitting there, shaking the whole time. So many stories to tell… Also, when I first started my apprenticeship, the employees wanted to play a trick on me. It was April Fool’s day, what could they do? Send the apprentice girl shopping! Back then there was a small store at Brunnen­ markt. They wanted me to buy 100 grams of sliced Liptauer (cheese spread). Back then I didn’t even know what Liptauer was. I went to the store and asked for 100 grams of sliced Liptauer. And of course they all started laughing and they made fun of me. And I had to go there to buy something almost every day. “Do you need some sliced Liptauer again?” It went that way for three years. Yes, my apprenticeship. I really did see a lot…

2006 – “THE TEAR” Told by Iris Sitte It’s me. The year 2006, the lung tear. Hallelujah to this lung tear! I was a prostitute for about twenty-seven years, seriously addicted to alcohol, about seventeen years of that I was addicted to pharmaceuticals, too. I could not remember anything when I came to. I was screaming from pain. An ambulance took me to the hospital. They knew right away that it was a lung tear. They did a lung x-ray and found a tear of about ten centimeters. It was a matter of life and death. One possibility was to drill a hole, so the air could come out. So my heart wouldn’t collapse and the air… oh god. Okay, well. Under normal circumstances I should have stayed in the hospital but I was thinking to myself, no, and I could convince the doctor to let me go because if I were really going to die, I wanted to be at home with my animals. I’ve got small puppies—great, great characters. Then I found out what actually did happen. It was my last day of work, my last day with alcohol. Thank god. I found it all out then. The keys were there, the money wasn’t there, my phone wasn’t there, it was gone. I had no idea. It appeared that I made about 700 Euro that night and had seven bottles of champagne. I couldn’t remember a thing. It was October 15. My neighbor who lived downstairs had his windows closed and heard a bang. I got out of the cab and fell onto the edge of the sidewalk with the left side of my back. And that’s where my lung tore. I was twenty-seven years old… I was an alcoholic, a wet alcoholic. I was in Kalksburg, I was at AA meetings. I intended to do that so many times. I only knew a few good people. And they talked until they were blue in the face. I always thought I could handle it. Today, I know just how stupid I was, being a prostitute, yes. It started in the evening. When I was dressing up and putting on my make-up, I had to throw up, yes. And a prostitute makes money with, I’m saying it out loud now, well, with shagging people. But also with drinking alcohol. OK. Then I walked over there. I was standing in the street. On the Gürtel. Dressed 124

up as “Grande Dame.” Long hair. All perfect. What was going on inside of me? When there was no business, I got frustrated. I was all rejection. Had to approach people. When there was no business, there was a reason to drink of course. You’re frustrated. When there was business, I had to drink as well. Not only to make money but so I could stand it. I didn’t have any money, I had nothing. I’ve earned piles of money in my life. It was… it got worse. Well, so I was resting at home. After one week, the lung tear was at seven centimeters. After another week, it got to three centimeters and after three weeks, the lung tear was gone. Great. And I was resting at home, hoping to be healthy soon because I needed money to buy food. And after fourteen days of being at home, I woke up at 4 a.m. My flat actually just consisted of 257 wigs in every color and length and variation, every pair of heels and so on. And I felt the necessity to pick up a garbage bag and put at least the last clothes in it because I couldn’t take everything since my lung was not okay yet. Then I went to the park and put it there. And I waited until it was 7:30 in the morning. Then I took the tram to go to the police station at Deutschmeisterplatz. That’s a control point. I was always protected when I was working. At least that was important to me. When I was drunk, I didn’t work any more because I got aggressive then. Anyways, 7:30 a.m. and I was standing there and said, here’s my card, I wanna do my last two final examinations. There I was, no money, owing rent to my landlord. I didn’t know anything. I went to the social services and they looked at me critically. Then they asked me: “What do you want from us?” Tears were running down my cheeks and I said, “I just wanna live for a bit. I just wanna live somehow!”

2010 – “MEETING AGAIN” Told by Angelika Högn It was last year, June 12th. I remember that exactly because I should have taken the plane to Spain for my vacation that day. Unfortunately, the volcano destroyed my plan. So I cancelled all my arrangements and decided spontaneously to go see Alexander Goebel. I should add that I used to play in a band when I was a teenager. When we were all eighteen, my friends and I made music and played some gigs. Back then I was the singer’s girlfriend. I also did background vocals and management. Music and art have always accompanied me. So I was looking forward to the event very much. Then I was really amazed with Alexander Goebel and his performance at the age of fifty-seven. It was a great show. When I was walking home, I was in a great mood. The show was at Metropol. I was lost in thought. Back then I had been more or less single since 2004 and through my brother-in-law I found a website, called “groups.” It’s not a page for singles but it connects people with similar interests. Relationships may develop out of it but the main idea is, “I like comedians. Who wants to join me to go and see a show?” I am mainly interested in movies and music and that’s not that much. Through the webpage I discovered another hobby. Radio plays. Now I work on radio plays. For this website you can, of course, create a profile with all your interests to let other people know what you like to do. You can also upload pictures and I used to upload them on a page like Facebook and I also uploaded an old one because I liked it so much. So I’m walking home, in the meantime it was already June 13th, at about 12:30 a.m., a very important date! I immediately went to my computer when I got home, thinking I need a musician. Yes, because it’s really important that your main interests are similar. You don’t have to do everything together but the main interests are important. And for me it was always difficult to find someone who shares my passion. So I get to the computer, open this site, “groups,” looking around and then I find someone who also says that he likes to make music and likes comedians, etc. He wrote that he’d like to have people around who like singing and making music with him. He is a carpenter. I didn’t recognize him in the picture. Somehow I kept thinking of that person. I clicked on his profile again and again. I was thinking, my god, I’m in 125

such high spirits because of Alexander Goebel’s show, just write to him, “What kind of music do you make? I’m interested because I just got home from a great concert.” He immediately answered, “Thanks for writing. I have to admit, I had a deja-vu experience when I saw your picture because the black and white photo reminded me of a nice girl who was in a band that I played drums in. She was the singer’s girlfriend and did background vocals. But that can’t be you... ,” he added that he’d like to hear from me again and so on. “Best wishes, Richard.” And just when I read that, “Best wishes, Richard,” I knew right away that it was the drummer from our band. And I wrote back immediately, “If you mean Angie—that’s what they used to call me—by that nice girl who was with Klaus, then that’s me.” So then he answered, “I can’t believe it! How did that happen?” And then we had so much fun and wrote back and forth to one another for half an hour and exchanged numbers. Then we spoke on the phone and arranged for a meeting. We had coffee together a few days later and told each other what happened in our lives. He went the “normal route,” got married, divorced and has a daughter. I rather went the “music way.” We then had dinner together and arranged for a meeting the next day at my place to take a look at pictures from old times and catch up. I found my diary. I’ve written five diaries and I realized that we had first met on November 13th in 1974, so we had met a very long time ago. It turned out that he had already been in love with me back then. I used to think he was very nice. At the time there was always this question, it says so in the diary, whom would you date if not Klaus? So we had a good time exchanging pictures. When I first meet a guy, I always pay attention to how tall he is. You see, I need to know if I have to wear high heels or flats. He’s very tall. When that came up, we looked at each other and there it was: the first kiss after thirty years! And it’s definitely nice to hear that he had wanted to kiss my lips forever. It was simply wonderful. Since then, it was the 13th, a Sunday, it’s been going really great. We started out slowly and tried everything out to get to know each other. We talk a lot. We work together on radio plays. He’s got a studio in his apartment where we can record every role, and I write the scripts. We do the recording together. We make music with his daughter and cut the radio plays. I also learned dancing despite my age because he’s got a gold badge in dancing. He’s been a successful dancer since the age of eighteen, so I wanted to keep up with him. We went to a Flamenco workshop and really liked it. We are soulmates and we plan on growing old together. In the back of our minds there’s Spain with lots of animals and charity readings and charity concerts to help animals or poor people there, in some village where e­ veryone gets together. That’s just a dream we share, so we do have a lot in common. I say it is destiny and not a coincidence that we met.

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2007 – “MOE’S ESCAPE” Told by Mojtaba Tavolki Well, my name is actually Mojtaba but since I got to START1, they call me Moe. Today I’ll tell you the story of my escape. I’m originally from Afghanistan and I came to Austria in 2007. I’ll tell the story of how I got from Afghanistan to Austria. The whole journey was actually illegal and with a smuggler of course. First we went to Iran and then to Turkey, to Greece via the Black Sea, to Italy and then we finally got to Austria. My whole escape took about half a year. We escaped in winter and the whole escape was extremely terrible because of the cold. During the trip, many people got sick and in some cases it was really bad. During the escape, we also had to walk, and rode with trucks, and so on. There were more than fifty people who had escaped. In Iran we met the smuggler who took us to Turkey. When we arrived in Turkey, we had to go to Greece via the Black Sea with an inflatable boat. In Greece, the police arrested us because we didn’t have any identification and they took us to a refugee camp. Then they gave us identity cards. We got on a big ship to Athens. In Athens we took a train going to Patras where the ships go to Italy. We had to hide underneath a truck that went to Italy. That took around thirty hours, us being on that ship, underneath the truck all of the time, on that piece of metal between the wheels. We spent thirty hours there without moving or eating anything. Then we were in Italy and we went to Rome. In Rome there is a park where ­refugees meet. That’s where they got us tickets. Why did I want to come to Austria? The reason for that was that many people said when you get to Austria you have better chances to survive and have a better life, a happy one. That’s why I came to Austria. When we got to Austria the police arrested us and they took us to Traiskirchen. Then they took us to a home for young people. I was sent to Mödling. I’ve been in Austria since 2007. For two years I didn’t have any contact with my family, none at all. In 2007, I met an Austrian family through “Connecting People.” I was with them for some time. I lived with them and went to school, all very normal. This family and the Red Cross helped me find my family in ­Pakistan. I contacted them and in the meantime I was granted “subsidiary protection” and so I was allowed to stay in Austria, I am allowed to stay. They extend this every year for a year. With that I was able to bring my family here as well and we had a family reunion. The decision was positive. My family arrived in Austria six months ago. We are ­happy again, so to speak. In the very beginning it was 1

START: scholarships for dedicated students with a migration background

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surprising that they speak a different language in Austria because I thought they would speak English. I didn’t understand anyone in the beginning. I spoke in English and they spoke something else. And then I asked them and they said: “Yes, that is a different language!” And then I said, okay, I’ve got to learn that if I want to stay in Austria. That’s why I focused on the language and went to school and did other things, like play football and meet friends. I was lucky to have an Austrian family because I was able to achieve so many things and without them it would have been difficult. Since 2010, I’ve got a scholarship from START, which is a great help. It means a lot to me and they support me when I have a problem. And now my siblings go to school. We are a family of six. I’ve got three sisters and a brother and my mother is there, too. They all go to school. My mother is in a German course. She’s adapted to the new country.

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Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

DJing at Brunnenpassage November 2009 until 2018 DJing is an established component of popular culture, long recognized and used as an independent art form—primarily in conjunction with music production—in combination with dance, video, poetry, slam, and rap, through to classical music. This interdisciplinarity corresponds with Brunnenpassage’s concept and offers a number of connecting points to other art formats. The training of DJns not only helps to break antiquated stereotypes, but also enriches urban life with musical diversity.

IDEA AND CONCEPT The DJing project at Brunnepassage was oriented on young women from sixteen to thirty years old. They should be supported in the music scene, allowing them to become accomplished in a profession that in 2009, when the project began, was otherwise reserved for men. DJing for women was Brunnenpassage’s first women-­specific project. The objective was to create a safe environment for ­promoting women in this technical field.

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The elaboration of a personal music style as well as live performance contribute greatly to personal development. The young women grew more courageous and gained confidence through the group, and thereby developed an ease in terms of experimenting. For many of the young women, dealing with technical equipment, learning about the most important music software, and also meeting professional DJns was extremely important. In order to eliminate financial barriers, Brunnenpassage supplied participants with the complete technical equipment including proper software. The following three DJing formats were created in order to enable access to different levels and create future perspectives in the music scene for women: ―

Let’s DJn enabled initial encounters with the art of DJing.

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DJn Klasse is a six-month basic training course that took place in 2009 in Brunnenpassage, and in 2016 at Stand 129 at Viktor-Adler Market.

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DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde, 2010–2017, arose as a support for professional artists in their careers.

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Let’s DJn Since 2009 These introductory workshops were conceived as an entry into DJing and enabled an initial introduction to DJing techniques. Interested young women could try out their hand at the turn­tables or simply stand back and watch. The workshops took place ­every few weeks and lasted a minimum of three hours. Some women showed up more than once before deciding to become more heavily involved with DJing. The DJns from the DJn ­Kollektiv Brunnhilde ran the basic workshops. Other DJns were invited as guest lecturers on specific subjects, such as scratching or music production. The members of DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde also participated in the advanced workshops.

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DJn Klasse November 2009–June 2010, and January–July 2016 DJn Klasse was developed as a six-month basic training course and involved a high degree of commitment. At the same time, as a closed group, it had great potential for artistic development. Two renowned DJns ran the workshops and passed on their artistic and technical knowledge. The aim of this workshop series was to give a group of twenty women between the ages of sixteen and thirty years, from diverse sociocultural backgrounds, basic training in DJing. After an open trial period, the group was closed to new members. The training modules were split into weekly rehearsals at Brunnenpassage and intense training sessions on weekends. Participants first learned about working with vinyl and record players, DJ-appropriate CD players, as well as DJ software and PA systems. Further sessions covered music theory, programming, music production, and self-marketing. Already during their training, participants gave regular performances. DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde 2011–2018 Several women who participated in the first DJn Klasse at Brunnenpassage showed more enthusiasm for DJing than expected. Therefore, in early 2011, DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde was founded for interested graduates from the DJn Klasse. The objective was to support the DJns in their professional careers and to make use of the power of a collective. Brunnenpassage’s role was to arrange for bookings and serve as a platform for artistic exchange. It also offered further training on demand, organized events using Kunst­Kamion (Brunnenpassage’s mobile stage), and offered support in the area of marketing. The DJns of Brunnhilde received payment for in-house and external gigs. Several of the DJns from Brunnhilde are meanwhile able to live in part from their music. In return, Brunnhilde was the musical flagship of Brunnenpassage. DJn Kollektive Brunnhilde enriched Brunnenpassage’s program with DJn-lines and was an established player in the Viennese women’s music scene. Their repertoire ranged from Hip-Hop/Soul, Oriental, Balkan, through to Minimal, Techno, and House. From 2011, the DJns were booked more than 1,000 times for performances or workshops as Kollektiv Brunnhilde. ­Often, several DJns gave performances on the same night. In addition, Brunnhilde worked increasingly with “back-to-back DJing.” The DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde played at the following venues (among others): Museumsquartier (at the opening of ImpulsTanz Festival), Popfest (at Karlsplatz), Rote Bar, Ost Klub, Prater­sauna, Café Leopold, brut/Künstlerhaus, Rathaus, Parlament, Rhiz, Fluc, Volksgarten, Donauinselfest, Soho in Ottakring, Events of Wiener Festwochen ITC, Forum Alpbach, and Linzfest, as well as at international venues, such as the Pride festival in Zurich. Brunnenpassage engaged in the following artistic colla­borations: ―

cooperation with Wiener Festwochen ITC and Street Academy (2010-2012);

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‘Das ist mein Ding’ with Wiener Festwochen ITC and Dschungel Wien (2010);

Brunnenpassage has changed my attitude and my whole life and I have changed as a human being. I have grown and flourished.

Petra Grošinić: DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde

Awesome. DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde took care of the warm-up at Museums­ quartier.

Press: Kurier, 2013

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DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde rocked Pratersauna. Society 24, 2013

Against the male-dominated scene [...]. ORF, 2012

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participation in events by femous (2012);

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‘Waschen-Macht-Sound,’ a production by WIENWOCHE (2012);

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KunstMobil: workshops and performances (2013/2014);

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workshop series in VJ-ing and DJing in collaboration with the art mediation at mumok: (2014);

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State of Emergency: Being Human, sound design and live DJing: DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde (Petra Grošinić, Theda Schifferdecker, Christina Steyskal/Drums), in the context of the theater production by Brunnenpassage in cooperation with the Vienna Volkstheater (2014);

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‘Fremdenzimmer’ theater production with Theda Schiffer­decker (2015).

In 2011, DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde was awarded the international ‘faktor kunst’ prize by the German Montag Stiftung Kunst und Gesellschaft. In 2014, based on the model of DJn Klasse, training for DJns was initiated in Graz. Due to the great success of the project and changes in society, a lot more women are meanwhile behind the DJ stand than there were in 2009. Brunnenpassage therefore decided to end the DJing projects and the Kollektiv Brunnhilde in 2018, in agreement with the DJns, in favor of other, newer projects. On the one hand, it was sad for us all, but on the other, it was also connected with a great deal of joy, as several of the women have meanwhile attained a high level of popularity within the DJ scene, and simply no longer need Brunnenpassage for support.

REALIZATION Conceptually, DJing as a genre was interesting for Brunnen­ passage because it can be combined easily with other art forms. At Brunnenpassage, successful artistic collaborations took place with dance projects, as well as theater productions. Furthermore, the development of a program that worked exclusively with women seemed interesting for target-group work. Although the use of technical equipment is great when DJing, and for the most part, it is a solo endeavor, a format that offers such a great deal of support for young women and aims at strengthening

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them, was very important for Brunnenpassage. Originally, the project began as a collaboration with the Wiener Festwochen, Into the City, and an intro DJing workshop with DJ Ipek from Berlin. The idea for this more intense project arose later, together with DJ Ipek, and also because some of the participants had already articulated a desire to learn more, beyond the introductory workshop.

ARTISTS With DJ Ipek and DJ Sweet Susie, two suitable instructors were involved. Both are excellent DJs, for their part, and both also had the necessary teaching experience. Brunnen­passage then decided on a curriculum together with the artists. It was very important that the two teachers had connections, ­allowing participants to get on stage for the first time. In many cases, Ipek and Sweet Susie accompanied the students to evaluate their performances. Also, the young women had ­several opportunities to see their teachers on stage and learn from their acts.

STAFF For the overall coordination of the DJn training, Brunnen­passage made available a staff member employed for twenty hours. As she was a DJn herself, she was well versed in the field. First, the required equipment was purchased, and its storage, maintenance, transportation, and insurance taken care of. While initially, the technical team at Brunnenpassage was heavily involved, increasingly, responsibility was given to the participants in DJn Klasse, so that after a time, they were able to set up and take down the equipment for rehearsals themselves. The teachers were not present at the weekly rehearsals, but the project ­management attended the sessions.

FINANCING One possibility for financing DJn Klasse was to find sponsors. Another possibility was to apply for funds specifically for women’s­ projects. Brunnenpassage also received some of the equipment and discounts from sponsors. The first DJn Klasse was supported by a sponsor (Western Union).

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DIALOGUE GROUP WORK The advertising was multilingual. Pictures of female role models, videos, audio files, and social networks were important for the campaign. However, the most successful method was through personal conversations with the individual women. In some cases, they had to be encouraged to participate. Reaching the desired target group and putting together the DJn Klasse were the key obstacles during the project’s start-up phase. In order to assemble a diverse group, it is a good idea to outline the target group as precisely as possible from the start: from the desired age span, different social backgrounds, intended multilingualism, through to catchment area. Focus was on reaching women with limited opportunities in society who could profit from such an intensive support structure. When the diverse composition cannot be reached, extending the registration deadline is advised. This facilitates a control of group composition. A constant challenge during training is commitment in the group. Also important is to avoid creating big expectations, such as: “We’ll make you a star!” and instead, emphasize the necessary personal commitment.

CREDITS Idea and Concept: Özlem Sümerol, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard Artistic Director of DJn Klasse: DJ Ipek / Ipek Ipekçioğlu und DJ Sweet Susie / Susanne Rogenhofer Project Management: Elif Işık, Ivana Pilić, Zuzana Ernst, Dilan Sengül Assistance: Petra Grošinić

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Brunnhilde (in German) Scan code to watch video

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State of Emergency: Being Human By Clemens Mädge, based on William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ Premiere A Co-Production of the Vienna Volkstheater and Brunnenpassage Supported and accompanied by Karl Markovics Sponsored by Bank Austria February 2012–May 2014 Brunnenpassage brought a play with thirty actors to the stage of the Volkstheater. A team of international artists under director Daniel Wahl worked on the adaption of Shakespeare’s ‘The ­Tempest’ in a collaboration with actors of different ages and from diverse cultural backgrounds. The play, State of ­Emer­gency: ­Being Human, written by Clemens Mägde, premiered April 4, 2014 in nine different languages. Further performances took place on April 5 and 6, and May 16 at Vienna’s Volkstheater.

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IDEA AND CONCEPT The theater project was initiated by Bank Austria, Brunnen­ passage’s main sponsor for many years. Bank Austria suggested working on a project together with director and actor Karl ­Markovics. Initial meetings spawned the idea of creating a theater production under Brunnenpassage’s artistic direction with Karl Markovics paving the way and providing support. State of Emergency: Being Human was Brunnenpassage’s very first theater production. As a venue, Brunnenpassage was looking for a big theater located in the city center. After several attempts, cooperation with Volkstheater was decided upon, which proved to be a success. Brunnenpassage developed the basic artistic concept and chose a director and took over the artistic management. William Shakespeare’s last play, ‘The Tempest’, provided the artistic base. The concept deliberately avoided emphasis on obvious “migration topics.” Author ­Clemens Mädge created a contemporary adaption based on the story of Prospero, inspired by the rehearsals taking place with actresses and actors from Brunnenpassage. One goal was to unite, for the first time, a large group of people who had all been involved with Brunnenpassage’s projects for many years. The play brought together projects such as Brunnenchor, Groove!, the dance classes, and DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde for a production process lasting one and a half years. Carolin Vikoler in an interview with Anne WiederholdDaryanavard on the idea: Was it difficult for you, coming from the independent theater scene, to imagine doing a project on a big stage such as Volks­ theater for an audience of a thousand people with all kinds of diverse perspectives? How did you put together a team for this? One of Brunnenpassage’s concepts is to take big stages “by storm.” For instance, we’ve worked with the Wiener Festwochen and Wiener Konzerthaus since 2007. For this project, we decided to go with Swiss director Daniel Wahl. He staged a lot with large ensembles and amateur actresses and actors, and worked for example, at Schauspielhaus Hamburg, and has experience working with large city and state theaters in general. He prefers to work in a team and brought Benjamin Brodbeck (musical direction) and Viva Schudt (stage and costume designer) with him. Early in the process, we agreed upon using Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ as a starting point and then author Clemens Mädge joined the team. During rehearsals with so many people, it proved to be very helpful that the art direction team had worked together before and the big ensemble could be divided into smaller groups from time to time. We chose Vanja Fuchs to be in charge of dramaturgy because she has been involved with Brunnenpassage’s storytelling formats and also offers a ­Viennese connection, which was very important for us. How did you choose the thirty actresses and actors and how were they paid? Many of the actors have taken part in the weekly music, dance, and singing projects at Brunnenpassage for years but for most 149

Stimuli of another kind. A project full of blood, sweat and tears!” [...] A big applause!

Die Krone, April 6, 2014

Live music by (the very good) DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde.

Kurier, April 7, 2014

of them, this is their first theater production. We didn’t do a typical casting. We approached particular people whom we had gotten to know over the years at Brunnenpassage. Participation at Brunnenpassage is always free of charge and people take part in projects because they are interested in them and want to. The players’ expenses are covered. The usual straitjacket of rehearsal periods and attendances is eased by their voluntary status, and therefore it’s not as strict as in a regular theater production. This means that the organizational skills of the team become even more crucial. What is State of Emergency: Being Human about?

Almost one and a half hours of Shakespeare meeting the young, creative spirit of Brunnenpassage.

Kosmo, April 3, 2014

[...] An unconventional adaption as an atmospherically thick and moving spectacle.

Die Furche, April 10, 2014

In a unique version of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ thirty amateur players act in a professional setting. Through to applause.

Der Standard, April 7, 2014

Volkstheater is in a state of emergency. This [...] performance was not only well meant but well done.

Die Presse, April 6, 2014

[...] tries out a new aesthetics with thirty people from extremely diverse backgrounds. Ö1, April 4, 14

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It’s a journey into one’s ruffled inner self, a wild ride through the convolutions of a storm-beaten brain. Prospero, Duke of Milan, is the center of the story, which takes place on an island. In fact, Prospero’s head is the actual setting of the play. Everyone is a part of Prospero: they all become one. There are several ­passages with choral speaking. And the whole splits into multiple parts to survive. One human being undergoes inside of himself, every state of emergency that many different people have experienced. The play is based on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, but it is neither a word-for-word production nor a true adaptation.

Individual experiences with states of emergency are processed on stage. Music and sound are very present during the play. Does Brunnenpassage see itself as a (post)migrant cultural space? Brunnenpassage is indeed a (post)migrant cultural space but it rarely uses this term. We rely on connections people make when they engage in art without “calling out identities.” The idea is simple but powerful. People are not classified at Brunnen­ passage. When they come to participate, they are dancers, singers, etc. in that very moment. We make art easily accessible because we especially want to reach those who do not have access to diverse “high culture” spaces. This often applies to people who have a migration experience, but not exclusively. Brunnen­passage mainly tries to take Brunnenmarkt’s hetero­ geneity as an example and hopes to see a similar picture at its events. Specific outreach dialogue work is a major part of our

job. Our participatory productions are often collaborations with major cultural institutions of so-called “high culture.” Since 2007, we’ve been working on a daily basis in a lasting way on community arts in theory and practice, transcultural art production, and on themes related to the development of diversity in cultural politics, and art as a human right. Excerpts from the interview: ‘Ausnahmezustand Mensch Sein - Eine Kooperation zwischen Brunnenpassage und Volkstheater Wien,’ (‘State of Emergency: Being Human – A cooperation between Brunnenpassage and Volkstheater’) published in gift - Zeitschrift für freies Theater

State of Emergency: Being Human brings intercultural life to the big stage.

Falter, April 2, 2014

State of Emergency: Being Human: nine languages on stage.

Der Standard, April 2, 2014

Dylan Butler (Brunnenpassage) in an interview with director Daniel Wahl about the directing: Retelling Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’: How did that come about?

Volkstheater presents a spectacular venture together with the ArtSocialSpace Brunnenpassage.

When I have the opportunity to work with that many people from such diverse cultures, I have to ask myself: What is ­“being ­human”? And also, how does a human behave when in an extreme situation? That’s when ‘The Tempest’ by Shakespeare came to my mind. I read it and thought, that’s terrific! To tell that story with a group of people, using all these roles appearing in

You’ve never seen Shake­ speare like this: From Brunnenmarkt to Volkstheater.

Shakespeare’s play that are all present to some extent within me, in very small doses.

This performance is about: a journey, a quest for answers, the question of identity and independence.

How would you explain the title State of Emergency – Being Human? We all live in a more or less structured way and manage to find our way. What happens when all of this gets out of hand? Which cultural aspects stay and how much civilization remains? What happens to a human being who cannot function in the usual ways anymore? We can observe it ourselves. It doesn’t have to be Fukushima. It can be small things in your daily life when the system overloads, when you are stressed out and have to draw back on some strange old knowledge. That was my main interest and that’s the reason for the title, “State of Emer­gency”, which of course has something to do with Prospero: it is indeed a “state of emergency” when your own family betrays you and

Die Bühne, April 14

Art live, January 28, 2014

Karl Markovics in “Schau­fenster,” Die Presse, March 14, 2014

Brunnenpassage appears to prove worthy of the big stage.

Ö1, April 20, 2014

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basically exiles you and you are left abandoned with your threeyear-old daughter. Can you imagine anything worse than that? That’s the reason for the question: What happens to a human being who has the chance to find revenge? Does the person fall back into old patterns? Does he treat people the way he had been treated? The actual idea was to find this out with the group. What role does community arts have in the world of theater? I think if theaters are not open to it, people will ask themselves sooner or later why are we spending money on that old theater? I believe culture changes in the same way society does. Why did you want to direct this play specifically? One remarkable thing about this project is that people from ­diverse cultures meet up. They come from completely different backgrounds and have been shaped and socialized in different ways. I think it’s very interesting to see how people work together. What difficulties are there? Is it sometimes more of a hindrance to use languages than it is to simply work with body

language? However, you have to communicate with each other in some way. And that’s the main reason why I felt it’s a great project. Just trying to work with thirty people with different backgrounds to see where this adventure takes us. Excerpts of an interview for the documentary video.

Vanja Fuchs (dramaturgy) in an interview with Clemens Mädge (author) about the play: If you would have to describe in brief what’s happening at the theater in general, the words: “State of Emergency: Being ­Human” would fit perfectly. What you can mostly see on stage is exactly that, different states of emergency under certain conditions. What “states of emergency” in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ were particularly interesting to you? Well, a lot of them, of course. Shakespeare put almost every motif there is in ‘The Tempest’. On the one hand, the play is about justice and injustice but how does one define that? In the “normal” world, it often feels as if we are not treated in a fair way even though that’s not the case a lot of times. To what extent 152

can you intensify that? And then there are these desires of various people throughout the play, their wishes and the question: How do I get there? How can I fulfill my wish? One thing about Prospero that I thought was particularly interesting was, on the one hand, this “I want, I want!” and “I want, and I deserve it, too,” but on the other hand, I’m not doing anything to get it. So, I feel treated unfairly and therefore I’m the victim, but instead of saying, “Okay, I was treated that way and I have to change that myself now and maybe change my way of thinking myself,” instead, I will try to find reasons or new ways to punish others. The “storyline” of your play is not radically different from Shake­ speare’s but there is a huge change in the way you use different perspectives to tell the story. State of Emergency: Being Human has many voices telling the story. Daniel Wahl and I were thinking about the approach to it. We didn’t want to just retell ‘The Tempest’ but asked ourselves the question of what the play is really about. Meaning, there are nine or ten roles in the play and the rest are acting as props or

the ship’s crew. We came to the starting point that it’s only about one character in the end. It’s only about Prospero. Prospero or whoever that is, it’s “us,” everyone on his or her own and together with many voices. We know that from ourselves: as a whole, we have one character but this character is split into many small parts. And that was the reason and starting point for the play. We wanted to show the inner life, the struggle within, or an inner process between small parties that all exist within one person. Just as it said in the announcement: thirty becomes one and one becomes thirty. The play didn’t emerge from behind closed doors but developed bit by bit during the first rehearsals and through encounters with the performers. What is it that changes when you’re so involved in the rehearsal period as a writer? What did you rewrite? For me, it changes everything because it’s a whole different experience. Up until now, I simply wrote plays and when they were finished, they were performed on stage. In this case it just didn’t seem right to do that. Our approach to ‘The Tempest’ was 153

similar to working in a stone quarry. We needed to break some stones in the text and fix them the way we needed to. That’s why I thought I can’t just go there with the play all done because then the performers would just have to learn the lines by heart. It was also about connecting with these thirty people, and not to announce, “We’ll have rehearsals for six weeks and that’s it,” but to make a process out of it. In the beginning, we didn’t use the text during rehearsals and then I started writing and noticed that it’s not good to go too fast in finishing the play, but rather, advancing bit by bit is a much better solution. We also had professional actors and actresses and I knew that I could give them a three-quarter-page monologue and they would perform it so well that I would just melt in my chair. It was often inspiring what the performers showed during the first rehearsals. It is probably impossible to find the lonely island using a naviga­ tion system. Where is it? I think we can find the lonely island in ourselves. It’s found in a big city or could also maybe be in a small town. You can also find yourself on a lonely island being amongst three million people in Berlin or almost two million people in Vienna. You can move around in the city and still not come into contact with anyone. There is a small, lonely island in each of us and you have to watch out that it doesn’t get too big. Excerpts from the interview ‘Die einsame Insel liegt in einem Selbst’ (‘The lonely island lies in ourselves’), published in the program leaflet ‘State of Emergency: Being Human’

Actors Pranjal Arya, Johanna Bernroitner, Agnes Distelberger, ­Hamayun Mohammed Eisa, Sanja Govorčin, Vedrana Govorčin, Xenia Gschnitzer, Alexander Hajos, Maria Hruschka, Andrea ­Kapferer, Bockwoon Lahlal Chung, Shaina Lo Ian Ieng, ­Angelika Luger, Christian Mitterlechner, Agnes Ofner, María Verónica ­Pereira, Emil Purtscheller, Ilga Purtscheller, Laura Roche, ­Regina Rosenauer, Sonnhild Schwarz, Alexandra Skrabal, Susanna Skrabal, ­Natalie Sopuchova, Franz Sramek, Miriam Torwesten, Jasmin Winterhalder. 154

Sound Design and live DJing: Kollektiv Brunnhilde: Petra Grošinić, Theda Schifferdecker, Christina Steyskal (drums)

CREDITS Director: Daniel Wahl Author: Clemens Mädge Dramaturgy: Vanja Fuchs Stage Designer: Viva Schudt Costume Designer: Viva Schudt, Katharina Kappert Music and Composition: Benjamin Brodbeck Lighting Designer: Bert Schifferdecker Video: Dylan Butler Concept: Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard, with the assistance­ of Elisabeth Bernroitner and Tilman Fromelt Production Manager: Elisabeth Bernroitner Production Assistant: Dylan Butler Assistant Director: Suzie Lebrun Assistant Directors (during the rehearsals on stage): Suzie Lebrun, Philipp Ehman Assistant Stage Designer: Tamara Raunjak Stage Manager: Sigmar Kusdas Assistant Stage Designer: Simone Arora

Assistant Costume Designer: Almasa Jerlagic Production Assistant: Christina Pröll Technical Consulting: Bert Schifferdecker Technical Support: Richard Bruzek Organizational Work: Julia M. Tauber Target Group Work: Fariba Mosleh

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IMPLEMENTATION Since its founding, Brunnenpassage has been involved in ­numerous music and dance productions at major theaters and in concert halls in Vienna’s city center. It had been a dream for a long time to stage an in-house production and therewith bring together participants from Brunnenpassage’s projects (dance, singing, DJing). The time to do so came when Bank Austria offered to provide the necessary means for the production. The concept of the play State of Emergency: Being Human was defined on two levels with regard to the target groups. On the one hand, the performers, with their sociocultural diversity as well as their prior engagements in Brunnenpassage’s projects, represented an important target group. On the other hand, the goal was to reach a heterogeneous audience. Brunnenpassage developed the main concept of the theater production. The objective that shaped the artistic framework included integration of various manners of expression, such as speaking, singing, dancing, DJing and multilingualism. The idea

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was to use the available multilingualism as a means of expression on stage without making it an exotic element. There was no room for social attributions or tragic personal stories. Instead, the goal was to meld together the different backgrounds and have the various languages weave a carpet of sounds and words. This process was meant to create encounters among all of the participants and use them as impulses for the artistic production. In addition, it was a challenge to find a suitable theater as well as to make decisions concerning the team of artists. From the beginning, the plan was to show State of Emergency: Being Human on the stage of a major city or national theater to promote transcultural thinking in cultural politics. Finding a major theater turned out to be difficult. First we asked Theater in der Josefstadt because of its proximity to Brunnenpassage and its completely different audience. During the planning process, Theater in der Josefstadt ended the cooperation after six months for multiple reasons, including financial problems. In the end, we were able to gain Volkstheater as cooperation partner, which proved very successful.

ARTISTS Brunnenpassage conducted extensive research for potential directors. After several interviews, collaboration with Daniel Wahl was agreed upon. The decision was based on the Swiss director’s broad experience in working with large ensembles and amateur actors, as well as his stage work for theaters. Daniel Wahl came with a team: Viva Schudt (stage designer) and Benjamin Brodbeck (music and composition). In the course of a mutual collaboration, Shakespeare’s ‘The ­Tempest’ was chosen as a starting point for the piece and ­Clemens Mädge was asked to join the team as author. In order to ensure a smooth production process, it was crucial to involve a team of artists that had already worked together in the past. The presence of artists from different disciplines is definitely an asset in working with a large group of amateurs and also helps in dividing groups into smaller ones. Brunnenpassage asked Vanja Fuchs, a Vienna-based dramaturgist to join the team. Based on previous joint projects, she presented an important interface between the art direction team and Brunnenpassage, as well as the Viennese theater scene. The rehearsing in the presence of several artists from various disciplines proved helpful in the work with the large group of amateur actors, as did the work in subgroups. Bert Schifferdecker, Brunnenpassage’s former technical director, supported the entire rehearsal process as technical advisor and joined the team (of artists) as lighting director. The directing team was completed later with costume designer Katharina Kappert, who as a staff member of Volkstheater, acted as an important link between the ensemble and Volkstheater. Suzie Lebrun was brought in as assistant director by Brunnenpassage.

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STAGING The production was based on Brunnenpassage’s working foundation, and the staging was developed by the director and team of artists. Although the play is based on Shakespeare, it was not meant to closely follow his work. Instead, it was an adaptation that included the artists’ personal experiences. There is no clear division of roles within the play. All actresses and actors are part of Prospero: they all become one. And the one splits into many small parts in order to survive. One human being internally undergoes every state of emergency that many different people have experienced. The staging thus includes many passages with choral speaking, music and the sounds are very present. Working with the group, spatially, in contrast to working with an individual occurs repeatedly. For the stage design, stage designer Viva Schudt worked heavily with water, and also increasingly used light projections.

ACTORS The ensemble consisted of thirty members: students, people with and without a work permit, people with and without migration or refugee experience, retired people, white-collar workers, etc. The youngest actor was fourteen, the oldest sixty-one. Three DJns from Kollektiv Brunnhilde also performed on stage (as a part of the ensemble). In the particular case of State of Emergency: Being Human, we decided to neither publicly ­advertise the possibility to take part nor organize a casting. All actresses and actors, some of whom had already worked with Brunnenpassage in the past, were personally invited. The process of finding the artists took four months, from ­November 2012 to March 2013. No previous acting experience was required. Brunnenpassage simply addressed visitors who showed an interest and assembled a group of highly committed and diverse members. The final group, as it premiered on the night of April 4, 2014, had transformed several times. Initially, about sixty members were involved in the project. As usual for this type of project, the number of participants fluctuated enormously. For many participants in the initial group, the project was too intense and the rehearsals turned out to be too exhausting. Some could not reconcile the intense project with their work and private lives. In the summer of 2013, three artists left the group due to the fact that the most intense rehearsal period was scheduled from July to August, which coincided with Ramadan, the month of fasting. Due to fasting and the extreme summer temperatures, they could no longer take part in the rehearsal process. German and English were chosen as the project’s working languages. During the rehearsals, Daniel Wahl translated the most important passages and instructions into English and the artists interpreted them to each other. Nevertheless, for some it turned out to be a major challenge, and unfortunately a few members of the group decided to quit. The entire text written by Clemens Mädge was translated into Dari for one actor with little knowledge of German and English so that he could understand and relate to the text. 160

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The artists received compensation for their participation. In consideration of the various lifestyles, the usual straitjacket of rehearsal periods and attendance was softened by their voluntary status, and was therefore not as strict as in a regular theater production, which demanded great organizational talent in the production team. Brunnenpassage, for their part, brought in DJns from Brunnenpassage’s Kollektiv Brunnhilde in the theater production. The project focused, in particular, on artistic and emancipatory goals in order to involve the DJns led by Benjamin Brodbeck into a music production process. Petra Grošinić, Theda Schifferdecker, and Christina Steyskal of DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde contributed to the play with the sound design and a live DJ performance. In addition to that, Christina Steyskal played drums on stage.

REALIZATION The production manager, as a focal point of communication, is indispensable for the entire coordination and has an overview of all rehearsal plans, dates, deadlines, and the budget. The production manager was also responsible for communication between Brunnenpassage and the team of artists. Furthermore, the production manager was in charge of coordinating Brunnenpassage’s goals and its cooperation partners. The selection process, as well as supervising and supporting the artists turned out to be the most time-consuming element of the production process. Since Volkstheater and Brunnenpassage shared the goal of reaching new, mutual audiences, the latter developed an advertising concept. The rehearsals were divided into segments. They took place on fifty-three days at many different locations, and whenever possible, at Brunnenpassage. The most intense rehearsal period took place at Hundsturm (Volkstheater’s rehearsal stage) in July and August 2013. The stage setting was arranged during the final rehearsals, which took place at Volkstheater’s main stage with the complete scenery. Lighting, sound, and costumes were also completed during the final rehearsals. Between rehearsal periods, Brunnen­passage 162

organized weekly workshops exclusively for the actors. The aim was to train their bodies and voices and to enhance the group’s team spirit and strengthen the self-confidence of every individual. Furthermore, the group was offered numerous possibilities to practice the lines and choral speaking.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK Diversity was the most important factor of State of Emergency: Being Human. At the level of cultural politics, the objective was to open Volkstheater to new audiences. From the beginning, focus was on the joint publicity work with Volkstheater and Bank Austria. In October 2013, and thus six months before the premiere, the press offices of Caritas Wien, Volkstheater, and Bank Austria held a press conference at Volkstheater’s “Rote Bar.” Karl Markovics volunteered to take

over the PR-work. The group had prepared press folders in German, English, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Turkish, as well as a trailer. The solid press-related cooperation between the partners led to the presence of press-journalists at some rehearsals, which resulted in the publication of an overwhelming number of articles. In order to reach audiences with different native languages, Brunnenpassage produced flyers, stickers, and posters in nineteen different languages, which were handed out beginning on the day of the press conference. The choice of the languages was a natural consequence of the languages spoken by the artists and crew. In addition, the group emphasized networking by addressing different people who acted as multipliers, such as various (post)migrant cultural associations, fellow artists, embassies, and well-known representatives involved in arts and cultural policy. In general, events on site at Brunnenpassage are free of charge. However, this was not possible in the case of State of Emergen­ cy: Being Human. Hence, it was all the more important to find ways to help some people gain access in spite of the financial barrier. The solution entailed a certain number of free tickets 163

and numerous “Kulturpass–Tickets” for the socially disadvantaged. However, there are a number of other reasons that prevent people from taking part in cultural events, such as fear. The tickets were sold, as usual, at Volkstheater and a limited number of tickets were given to clients of Bank Austria. Brunnenpassage had its own contingent of tickets and organized advanced ticket sales. Furthermore, an additional contingent of “Kulturpass – Tickets” were kindly made available.

FINANCING For the theater production, Bank Austria’s funding was a requirement. Brunnenpassage’s base financing would have been insufficient to fund such a large-scale production. Despite the guaranteed financing, Brunnenpassage’s human resources were stretched to their limits during the project.

POST-PRODUCTION The play State of Emergency: Being Human continuously changed over the course of the project, which lasted for two years. Brunnenpassage documented its development by taking photos and shooting videos of rehearsals, performances, and interviews and putting them on its website. Also, the TV station “ORF III” accompanied the project for eight months, filmed the premiere, and broadcast a twenty-minute documentary.

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After the last show it was necessary to do some follow-up work, which consisted of preparing the final statement of accounts, storing the objects used for stage design, preparing a press review, thank you notes, and a photo book for everybody involved, organizing a final meeting for the artists, etc. Most of the actors are still involved in other productions at Brunnenpassage. Due to multiple requests, a theater and performance division was established at Brunnenpassage, which works out new ­coproductions, presents monthly guest theater and performance shows, and also offers a monthly series of theater workshops.

“It was important for me to support this project because I’ve had personal experience with what theater can do to a person. H ­ umanity’s most basic questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? are also the basic questions of theater. What ­effect do these questions have on a person? That’s why I consider this ­project­ so interesting, because these people aren’t professionals. (…) Ideally, an encounter with theater turns into an honest encounter with life, with one’s ego.” (Karl Markovics, 2013)

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ORF III - Documentation State of Emergency: Being Human (in German) Scan code to watch video

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Gordana Crnko

StrassenKunstFest – Street Arts Festival Since June 2013 (annually) The StrassenKunstFest is a project that arose in 2013 on the initiative of the association of merchants in the Brunnenviertel neighborhood and the Brunnenpassage. The festival has since taken place on an annual basis. For an entire Saturday in June, an extensive program is offered to the inhabitants around the Brunnenmarkt at several venues placed in the market and the Yppenpark, with sound islands, mobile street, music, circus, and dance acts, an art market, and lots of possibilities to join in.

IDEA AND CONCEPT The festival’s key feature is the cooperation of a great number of Brunnenviertel’s local initiatives and organizations who came together for the first time in this dimension for this occasion. The association of merchants in Brunnenviertel (IG Brunnenviertel) is responsible for the festival in cooperation with the

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district of Ottakring; the area renewal office, Gebiets­betreuung 7/8/16 (GB*west); NONO ::Kunst-Projekte::; Vienna Market ­Management, the Market Authority – Municipal Department 59; and the Wiener Einkaufsstrassen (WKO im Bezirk). The head of the music division at Brunnenpassage acted as co-initiator of the festival, and right from the start, took over as artistic ­director. In conceptual terms, at the forefront is the merging of art and everyday life. The artists perform largely on the street; for the most part, there is no separation between audience and stage; and the threshold of access is minimal. Participatory concepts, as well as workshop and participatory formats are main points of the festive activities. The first festival in June 2013 was initially conceived as a onetime event. It all began when the IG Brunnenviertel began looking for a summer counterpart to the autumnal Herbstfest, which had already taken place for many years. Parallel to that, Brunnen­ passage had planned a small event with street ­musi­cians, which was meant to take place around the Brunnen­passage in good weather. Over a coffee came the realization that the two concepts could be combined with one another quite well. The ­posi­tive responses of visitors and all involved after the first ­festival led to the decision to host an annual Strassen­KunstFest.

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In the first years, the StrassenKunstFest took place outdoors, scattered throughout the entire day along the Brunnenmarkt, stretching from Ottakringerstrasse to Grundsteingasse. From 2016, the activities moved to the upper part of the market and meanwhile take place mainly in the park at Yppenplatz and the surrounding streets. The focus of the artistic program has also now moved to the afternoon and evening. More than 300 parti­ cipants take part in the program every year. Thousands of visitors and passersby throughout the day are part of the festival. Many individuals and initiatives volunteer their time to help out.

REALIZATION In the first year, the festival was planned very quickly from ­Feb­ru­ary until the festival day in June, parallel to all other running music projects at Brunnenpassage. Over the years, ever more experience was gained, and the joint organization with cooperation partners worked well. A minimum of six months preparation time is required for a StrassenKunstFest of this magnitude. One of the basic ideas is to become (better) acquainted and network with a large number of old and new local partners through the festival. Beyond that, with this type of format, we are able to make an impact in the local surroundings. Through a stimulating program, it is possible to make sites frequented by specific groups of people more interesting for other people, and in that way, public space can be shaped more heterogeneously. A participatory project that is supported by so many initiatives fosters identification and reaches a great number of people from dif­­ferent communities. Every year, new partners join, in most cases, they also remain involved in the festival happenings in following years. In this way, the network of participants continues to grow each year. Through the many preparatory meetings and shared activities, a space arises for becoming better acquainted with one another, which is very useful in the long term for shared everyday life as neighbors.

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ARTISTS AND INITIATIVES One of the aims of the festival is to contact as many local artists and organizations in the surroundings as possible—especially cultural and immigrant organizations, but also clubs for retired people, restaurant owners, community colleges, language schools, and market stall operators, and encourage them to take part in the StrassenKunstFest. In general, networking operates better via a concrete occasion. Relevant discussions take place throughout the entire year and basically, the networking effort in the surroundings never stops. For Brunnenpassage, the StrassenKunstFest is also a wonderful occasion to get to know a lot of artists, initiatives, and projects that might perhaps be interested in a permanent collaboration. At a local level, the first step is about the inclusion of as many different communities as possible. Curating a quality artistic program becomes significant in a second step. A lot of amazing artists live in Brunnen­viertel; in addition, also several transregional bands, dance companies, and artists are engaged. Corresponding with the numerous communities represented at Brunnenmarkt, special importance is placed on allowing artists with different backgrounds to perform. They often bring their core audiences with them, who subsequently stay for further parts of the program or take part in workshops. The main goals of the StrassenKunstFest can be found precisely here: inclusion of various communities with the simultaneous creation of meeting places in otherwise relatively strictly regulated public spaces. And that goes in all directions: people have danced to Davul & Zurna, but also sung along with traditional Wiener Lieder, held puppet making workshops, and played a jazz concert on a grand piano—the StrassenKunstFest has something for everyone.

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IMPLEMENTATION An open-air event of this magnitude demands an enormous coordination effort. However, the extensive work should always be seen as long-term networking. Diverse technical questions, official permits, advertising, and logistical planning are jointly organized by the cooperation partners and Brunnenpassage. In case of bad weather, alternatives have to be planned for, as well as spaces­ for the artists and their equipment and instruments. Key is to have a master plan and comprehensive checklists for all involved. Meticulous planning, for one, naturally has the purpose of ­providing for smooth technical workflows. Matters have to be taken care of simultaneously, alterations take place cumulatively, and adjustments in the schedule cannot be avoided and must therefore be considered right from the start. Beyond that, detailed planning serves the paradoxical purpose of generating an outward impression of spontaneity. For example, often socalled “walking acts” are planned for unidentified venues: artists appear as though out of the blue, without notice, play short acts or invite passersby to take part. In this way, the festival appears

utterly spontaneous and full of surprises, however this works only when all of the individual parts mesh perfectly and timelines are as coordinated as possible. Communication of the program also upholds this effect. While at individual venues where the acts are performed, for orientation, posters are hung listing them in the correct chronological order, beyond that, there is no exact festival plan laying out all of the details. The purpose of this is to communicate the idea of becoming involved in the happenings without looking at the clock. All acts thus take place several times, also so that the visitors are relieved of the pressure of having to “catch” a performance. In terms of aesthetics, the festival lives from its living room flair. Stages are, in a literal sense, not present; there are several ­venues, which are all set up as different living rooms. The socalled main stage is also a large wooden seating surface located in the middle of the park, which can be used wonderfully to per180

form on, but does not have any classical stage elements. The gathering of furniture begins already several months before the festival, from sofas to living room tables; all kinds of carpets, in particular, are called for. With great care, the fixed venues are designed as living rooms. At the venues, too, the artists sit on armchairs when possible and have floor lamps available as lighting. The audience can choose their seats from among different pieces of living room furniture. Additionally, a few living room ­islands are set up where no established program takes place. This hereby creates possibilities to occupy public space, for people to understand the surroundings as their own living room, to feel comfortable without having to consume anything, enjoy a good conversation in a comfortable atmosphere, but also sing a song or play something on a guitar they’ve brought along. This design and the deliberate use of the already available surroundings makes the festival as a whole seem very friendly and inviting, with few barriers to be overcome.

THEMATIC FOCUSES Every year, the StrassenKunstFest program is very diverse. Extremely different acts are planned. However, there is also a thematic focus every year, which most artists are inspired by. For the first festival, the focus was on “street music;” the following years’ focuses were on “dance” and “circus.” In 2015, the theme of the StrassenKunstFest was “play.” Integrated were both an urban game, which lasted for several hours, integrating large parts of the festival, as well as a game street—an extra section of street, with traffic blocked off for the festival—with opportunities to play different games from table tennis to a huge ­Mikado. A special aspect of the program at the StrassenKunstFest 2015 was also the hosting of the first European Musical Saw Festival, which took place in this form for the first time, and under the organization of Andreas Fitzner, brought the masters of this art form, “the singing saw,” from the whole world to Vienna. 181

In 2017 the motto was ‘Word.Language.Voice.’ The program included several projects that addressed the various languages of the district; the theater piece Shalom Habibi played in various stations around the happenings. In 2019, the StrassenKunstFest was particularly prominent. The festival, which had the motto ‘Love, Loss & Longing,’ was a twoday event for the first time, in the context of the participatory musical theater project ‘Orfeo & Majnun’. In addition to collabo­ ration with local partners, in 2019, the festival also took place as a cooperation with the Wiener Konzerthaus and Basis.Kultur. Wien/WIR SIND WIEN.FESTIVAL in the context of the EU project ­‘Orfeo & Majnun’, which was co-financed by the European Union’s ­Creative Europe program. For this, Wiener Konzerthaus, Basis.Kultur.Wien, and Brunnenpassage implemented workshops on the themes ‘Love, Loss & Longing’ in various genres, such as dance, music, poetry slam, virtual reality, film, pantomime, and others at several sites in ­Vienna from January to June 2019. In the context of the Strassen­KunstFest, the workshops concluded with performances spread out on several stages, along with a number of other artistic ­contributions. The participatory musical theater project ‘Orfeo & Majnun’ combined the saga “Orpheus und Eurydike” with the love story “Leila und Majnun.” The conclusion of this project was the Austrian premiere of the opera ‘Orfeo & Majnun’, which was performed on June 10, 2019 at the Wiener Konzerthaus. The Brunnenchor (see the chapter on singing projects) also sang on the Wiener Konzerthaus stage for the premiere of this performance.

FINANCING There is a small budget that has been made possible by funding from the  district administration office Ottakring, district chairperson Franz Prokop, from the city of Vienna through the Vienna Business Agency, with the assistance of the Vienna ­Eco­nomic Chamber. This Budget covers what are, for the most part, 182

­ odest artists’ fees. The program organization is financed by m Brunnenpassage. Helpful material donations are available, and food and drink vouchers are provided by the IG Brunnenviertel for the participating artists and volunteers. When necessary, the Strassen­KunstFest can be realized with an amazingly low budget, however, organizational time resources for six months are a requirement. Sometimes specific projects are given an extra grant for performances in public space, which allows them to take place at the StrassenKunstFest, as without external financing, they could not be realized with the modest festival budget. In 2019, additional financial means were made available through Brunnenpassage’s involvement in the Wiener Konzerthaus’s production ‘Orfeo & Majnun’.

POSTPRODUCTION After the conclusion of the festival, networking continues to take place with the actors. At first it is necessary to thank all who were involved, gather feedback from the artists, filter out weaknesses in the realization, and reflect on the whole process internally. Local residents and others involved now know one another better than before and it is important to maintain these contacts. Often, new projects arise from an initial collaboration, and with individual artists there is mutual great interest in succes­sor productions. Specific parts of the program can flow into follow-up programs at Brunnenpassage. Gathering feedback from the volunteers is essential, as they have contributed a great deal to the realization of the festival and every year, the work steps should be improved for future festivals. Also, ­asking for feedback in written form has proven useful to ­provide simu­ltaneous documentation. Every year since

2014, video ­documentation in the form of a two- or three-­minute montage has been created. This video shows the relevant highlights of the festival and is also used on all virtual channels for announcing the following year’s festival.

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CREDITS The StrassenKunstFest is a cooperation of Brunnenpassage with IG Brunnenviertel, the GB*west, the district of Ottakring, NONO, the Market Authority – Municipal Department 59, the WKO im Bezirk, and many others. Sponsored by the district administration office Ottakring, district chairperson Franz Prokop. Financed by means from the City of Vienna through the Vienna Business Agency with the support of the Vienna Economic Chamber. Artistic Director: Gordana Crnko Participating artists, projects and initiatives Academia Flamenca, Adama Dicko Seno Blues, Aerdung, After­ math Dislocation Principle / Jimmy Cauty, Alessandra Tirendi, Alexia Chrisomalli, Ali Ay, Alireza Daryanavard & (DARYA), ­Ammar Alabd Alhamid, ARTA, Artis Astra, Aşkın & Coşkun, A Wiener ­halal!, Aybike Kaya, Banda Caburé, Barka, Basma Jabr, Belle Etage Streettheater, BildSprachBox, Billy & ­Johnny, Blickwinkel - ­Comic Street, BO3 & friends urban dance, ­Brigitta Maczek & Mona Hollerweger, Brunnenchor, Burning Börnie, Café Olga Sanchéz, ­Charlotte Ruth, Chega de Soro, Chilifish, Christian Bakanic, ­Circus Luftikus/JUVIVO 15, Dagmar ­Benda, DanceJam featuring VHS 17, Institute of Language Arts – ­University of Fine Arts ­Vienna, Das Modular Synthesizer Ensemble, ­David ­Schweighart, Der Schwarm, de YPPIES, Didie Caria, Die ­Ungeraden, Die ­Wödmasta, DJn Kollektiv Brunnhilde, [dunkelbunt] DJ Set, Duo Inverso, Duo Schlader-Oslansky, ELEMU-Chor der ­Volkschule Grubergasse / Leitung Rafael Neira Wolf, Esmeraldas Taxi, ­EsRAP, Fábio Coutinho Altenburg, Fesih Alpagu, Fii, Florian Kalaivanan & Ruth Biller & others from C³ = Curious ­Circus Collective, Florian Nitsch & ­Fariba Mosleh, Frauen in Weiss / conductor Ivana ­Ferencova, Fruit & Flower, Futurelove Sibanda, Fuzzy Riot, Georg Baum, ­Golnar & Mahan Duo, Groove!, Halay City Marathon, HALS, Hans Tschiritsch, imPrOP / conductor Helene Griesslehner, I Parea, Ismar & Friends, Jazzkovsky, Jeans­ kamel, Judith Aguilar, youth orchestra Ragazzi Musicali, Juliett ­Prohaska, Karim Chajry & Maghreb Vibration Trio, Karin LaBel, Kaveri & Philipp Sageder, Kid Pex, Kinderchor, Croatian sports and culture association Busovača, KunstMeeting, KunstKamion, La Masutra, Lina Maria Venegas, Luis Widmoser & Karin Cheng, LutherBandAdults, Madera Vienna, Manuel Wagner, ­Maracatu Renascente, Maria Thornton, Marie Spaemann, Marijan ­Raunikar, Markt_platz, Martha Jarolim, Marwan Abado, Masala Brass Kollektiv, ­Michael Fischer, Michael Pöllman, Microsoccer, ­Minimal Twango, Monakultur, Moneim ­Adwan, Moneka Group, Moša Šišic & The Gipsy Express, MusikarbeiterInnenkapelle, Musikkapelle Söchau / conductor Antonio Lizarraga, Musisches Zentrum Wien, Onon Muren & Chiao-Hua Chang, ­Orchestra of the music department of the Gymnasium Boerhaavegasse / conductor Peter Manhart, Orquesta Típica ViTa MusicA, Park­betreuung der Kinder­freunde, Passion Artists / directors Sabina Zapior & ­Dante Valdes & ­Stephen Ellery, Peña Flamenca La Granaina Wien, peu à peu!, Pfao!, Phone 3 Phone, Play Together Now, Princesse Angine, Puzzle People, Rap Chor, Recycling-Kosmos, Richard Bruzek, Roma Verein Vida Pavlović, Romy Kolb, RONJA* & Pavel 184

Shalman Duett, Salam Hawara, Schayhan Kashemi, Shalom Habibi, Sheri Avraham, Shiho Mizoguchi, Soia & Vale, Stefan Fraunberger, street game conspiracy, students in the dance department at MUK Private University Vienna / directors Elena Luptak & Esther Balfe & Saskia Tindle & Nora Schnabl & Virginie Roy & Christina Medina & Nikolaus Selimov & Marijke Wagner & Jolantha Seyfried, Superar-choirs of the Volkschulen Wichtelgasse and Gaullachergasse, Superar Musikgruppe von Back on Stage 16/17, SuperSoulMe, Susita Fink, Tahereh Nourani-­ Mokaramdous, Taiwan Chor in Wien / conductor Ruei-Ran Wu, Tangomolino, Tanz die Toleranz, Tanzkaraoke Cie. Willi Dorner, textstrom Poetry Slam, The First European Musical Saw Festival, THE JamKat PROJECT, Tischfussballbund Wien, Trickfilm­projekt Unerhört, Trio Amarcord, Uli Scherer & Wolfgang Puschnig, Ulli Fuchs, Ulrike Wieser & Karoline Grün, Verein Cocon, Verein GIN, Verein Töchter der Kunst, VHS Ottakring, Via Lentia, Vila ­Madalena, Waltraud Brauner, Wiener Spielwut, Yu Chen, Yuki liest, Zauber der Sitar, ZukunftsKwizin, and others.

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Gordana Crnko

Singing Projects at Brunnenpassage Ongoing since 2007 Singing is one of the oldest forms of human expression. It has a direct and intense impact and enables both individual expression as well as communication. Singing with one another creates a sense of togetherness despite language barriers, and for that reason, presents itself as a suitable artistic form for Brunnenpassage. The singing projects thereby present an elementary program area of Brunnenpassage.

IDEA AND CONCEPT The offers in terms of singing are developed in terms of accessibility and range from open workshops to closed groups through to participatory concert formats. In the entire music division, stylistic focus is on interdisciplinary and transcultural projects, frequently along the interface between contemporary and traditional performance practices. This concept is also pursued in

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curating the singing formats, whereby the aim is to allow new, fascinating aesthetics to arise, but also to create easy entry for a wide range of different participants. Brunnenpassage ­deliberately relies on collective formats in which people with and without experience can contribute equally. The specific focus is on gathering people who have previously had little opportunity for a closer engagement with singing, and enabling them a fun entry, and subsequently, unproblematic participation in one of the offered formats. In most cases, neither prior experiences nor (previous) musical training or knowledge of note reading are required. An overview of the individual formats: ―

Stimm Workshops (Voice Workshops) are a series of open voice training workshops for all who are interested in singing.

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Choirs Brunnenchor (Brunnen choir) is a closed format group, which includes people of all ages. Kinderchor (Children’s choir) is an offer for children from six to eleven years old. Rap Chor (Rap choir) addresses mainly teens and young adults.

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As a cooperative format, Sing Along allows for bridge building between Brunnenpassage and the Wiener Konzerthaus.

While Stimm Workshops are easily accessible and without obligation, the three choir formats have higher, although not equally strict levels of obligation. Sing Along productions enable the singers from the Brunnenchor as well as a great many Brunnenpassage visitors, to partake in a special concert experience.

STIMM WORKSHOPS One-hour Stimm Workshops have taken place weekly in Brunnen­ passage since 2009. The (re)discovery of one’s own voice and the pleasure in singing are mediated by different singing instructors and voice trainers. The spectrum ranges from breathing techniques and body work to rhythm exercises and the basics of overtone singing, through to simple canons and shared improvisation. Neither prior experience nor registration are required. This additional offer arose from the rapid growth of the Brunnen­ chor and the challenge posed by new, potential members with different prior experiences. Stimm Workshops are not to be understood as offers solely for beginners. Many members of the Brunnenchor participate regularly in the Stimm Workshops and use the events as a warm-up for the choir rehearsal taking place later. Another aspect also makes the Stimm Workshops a highly valuable instrument for Brunnenpassage’s entire music program—through the principle of changing instructors, the Stimm Workshops are a good opportunity for getting to know new artists in the area of singing in a practice-oriented context. Roughly twenty to forty participants take part each week.

BRUNNENCHOR

Brunnenchor Stadt Wien Video (in German) Scan code to watch video

The Brunnenchor was founded in autumn 2007 and is thereby one of the oldest Brunnenpassage projects. While the first choir practice in 2007 took place with a total of eight interested singers, the choir meanwhile has 120 singers who practice together weekly and organize regular concerts. The repertoire is very broadly based—one or two programs are put together every year, with the focus defined through an epoch, music style, or specific theme. One trademark of Brunnenchor are the many languages in which it sings. On average, ten to twelve performances are given ­every year, whether in the Wiener Konzerthaus, during the Lange Nacht der Kirchen (Long night of churches), at Schauspielhaus, open-air at the market or at city housing projects, at Semper­ depot, or at the wash salon on Ottakringer Strasse. The selected artistic collaborations reflect Brunnenchor’s broadly based repertoire:

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A regular highlight since 2009 have been biannual Sing Along concerts in the Mozartsaal of the Wiener Konzerthaus and at Brunnenpassage

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Cooperation with the Wiener Konzerthaus on the ­music theater production ‘Orfeo & Majnun’ (2019)

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Performance at Heldenplatz during the Sea of lights for Ute Bock (2018)

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Performance in the context of the Urbanize! Festival (2016)

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Performance in the context of the Bath Fringe Festival (2015)

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Collaboration in the demonstration One Billion Rising in front of the Vienna Parliament (2015)

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Performance at Urania with Elżbieta Towarnicka in the context of the Let’s Cee Film Festival (2014)

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Collaboration on the theater production ‘Die Ereig­ nisse’ at Schauspielhaus Wien (2013)

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Joint concerts with the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra, among others, with Limpe Fuchs and Michael Fischer in the context of Wien Modern (2012)

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Recording for a video installation in the context of the exhibition ‘In Arbeit’ at the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology (2011)

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Joint concert with the Vienna Boy’s Choir at Brunnenpassage (2011)

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Performance in the context of the dance show ­Colour your Life at Brunnenpassage with the company IYASA (2010)

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Cooperation with the Wiener Festwochen/Into the City with the cult singer from the former Yugo­slavia, Vlada Divljan at the opening of Soho in Ottakring (2010)

KINDERCHOR Weekly rehearsals of the Kinderchor have taken place at Brunnen­passage since October 2016. Children’s songs from around the world are sung in several different languages. In selecting the repertoire, the languages available among the singers are included. The Kinderchor comprises twenty to thirty children from six to eleven years old, as well as six to ten music buddies. Music buddies are students from the Vienna University of Economics and Business who sing together with the children and beyond that, also carry out minor organizational tasks, and care for the children. This project works on a semester basis and concludes with two or three performances.

Kinderchor WUtv Video (in German) Scan code to watch video

The cornerstone for this project was laid in ‘Lernen macht Schule’, an initiative that has campaigned for equal educational opportunities for children from all population groups since 2010. This initiative was started by the Caritas Vienna and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) and is financially supported by REWE International AG. Brunnenpassage was asked to join as a cooperation partner.

RAP CHOR Rap Chor is the most recent project in the area of singing at Brunnenpassage. Rap Chor was started by Esra Özmen (EsRAP) 195

Singing is simple. But there are always a thousand reasons not to do it: you feel silly, feel like you’re not right, you don’t want to make any mistakes, are embarrassed, don’t trust the person standing next to you. Results, in sum, in one of the basic problems of our coexistence. But then on Tuesday of last

week we had Sing-along at Brunnenpassage, and all of a sudden, all of the basic problems were on hold. Old and young, jogging suits and sports jackets, dress handkerchiefs and buzz cuts, some quickly inhaling the rest of a pizza slice while others have already dutifully unfolded their notes. In the midst of it all: viola, guitar, bagpipes, Monika Jeschko, conductor of the Konzerthaus youth, and Gerald Wirth, conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. We sing “Carrickfergus,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” and other Irish songs. The rhythm is precise, the space vibrates, and suddenly everything is incredibly easy. Sure, everyone can sing! […] It’s that simple. And yet so revolutionary. Sibylle Hamann in Falter, 2014

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and Betül Seyma Küpeli (Shayma) in spring 2018. The two founders turned to Brunnenpassage for organizational and technical support, and for the use of its spaces. In June 2018, the first major appearance took place in the context of a cooperation with Burgtheater’s StadtRecherchen (urban research). The pro­ ject continued in autumn 2018, now under the conductorship of Jana Dolečki and Esra Özmen, and the collaboration increasingly developed also at an artistic level and in terms of content. Practices take place weekly, participants write the lyrics themselves, and performances are planned for the end of each ­semester. The group comprises five to thirty participants, sometimes with great fluctuation. Planned as an offer mainly for teens and young adults, Rap Chor has continually had participants of widely diverse ages.

SING ALONG Sing Along is a participatory concert format that has taken place since 2009 in cooperation with the Wiener Konzerthaus. At the beginning of the evening, visitors are given their own song book and are invited to actively sing along. The concerts are offered in both the Mozartsaal of the Wiener Konzerthaus and as a standing concert at the Brunnenpassage. Sing Along productions thereby signify important political and cultural bridge building. Beforehand, the Brunnenchor prepares for roughly two months for the Sing Along. Together with a band, they then support the audience in singing together during the concert. At the same time, the choir mixes in with the audience, dissolving the borders between presentation and reception. The concerts have meanwhile taken on cult status at Brunnenpassage and address both regular visitors as well as newcomers. The Sing Along series has a special status among the Brunnen­ chor singers, as some of them first came into contact with the Wiener Konzert­haus­in this context.

The following Sing Along productions have taken place until now in the context of a cooperation between Wiener Konzerthaus and Brunnenpassage: ―

Sing Along Alla Turca (October 2009)

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Sing Along Beatles (October 2010)

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Sing Along Wiener Lied (March 2011)

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Sing Along Singers & Songwriters (October 2011)

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Sing Along Viva México! (March 2012)

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Sing Along Christmas Oratorio (December 2012), in the large hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus

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Sing Along Africa (March 2013)

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Sing Along Family (October 2013)

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Sing Along Celtic Ireland (March 2014)

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Sing Along Jerusalem (October 2014)

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Sing Along Spirituals & Gospels (March 2015)

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Sing Along América Latina (October 2015)

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Sing Along Family (April 2016)

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Sing Along Aven Roma (October 2016)

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Sing Along Around the World (October 2017)

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Sing Along American Songbook (March 2018)

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Sing Along Bella Italia (October 2018)

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Sing Along Traditional (March 2019)

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Sing Along Caribbean (October 2019)

The singing formats at Brunnenpassage interact with one another and develop from one another conceptually. They complement one another and through the large, full range, offer ­various possibilities for entry and participation. In the follo­wing, the Brunnenpassage choir formats will be explained in greater detail. 201

REALIZATION As collective music formats, the choice of choirs seems obvious. A choir can bring together a lot of different people, is capable of developing to a high artistic level, generates a high degree of identification, and presents few barriers for access. Thus, the Brunnenchor was very quickly called to life after the founding of Brunnenpassage in 2007. The idea was to achieve a higher musical level than would be possible in a workshop format offered for a limited time. Additional motivation came from the desire to reach as wide a range of dialogue groups as possible, as well as the great potential in terms of outward visibility, but also the relatively simple technical realizability. The idea of also offering a choir for children at Brunnenpassage was present for a long time, but failed at first due to the high costs. After the inquiry from ‘Lernen macht Schule’ in autumn 2016, nothing stood in the way of the Kinderchor. Rap Chor supplemented the Brunnenpassage’s choir offers in spring 2018. It therewith extends the offer of singing programs with a format that enables both strong personal realization as well as an intense co-creative choir-like group process. The two founders, Esra Özmen and Betül Seyma Küpeli, strongly emphasize the participation of (young) women.

ARTISTS In the selection of artists at Brunnenpassage, several parameters take effect in all formats, regardless of style, genre, or art form. These are a high artistic integrity and authenticity, experience in the design of collective creation processes, as well as openness for new and transformative approaches. What have also proven to be equally useful are a high degree of flexibility as well as the willingness to participate in reflection processes. With the choir conductors at Brunnenpassage, also a diversity of methods is essential, as the, in part, very great differences in the singers’ music knowledge presents an extremely great challenge for the choir conductors in all three choirs. Maintaining the balance between a process-oriented approach, which allows engaging with the participants and the job of enabling a performance is also no easy task. The choir conductors try to take into consideration each individual’s needs to allow for the personal growth of each singer. At the same time, however, suitable tasks for each participant should be found in accor-

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dance with their abilities, so that the final product demonstrates sufficient quality. With groups that work together and develop over a longer time period, the need for communication at a personal level is greater. Ultimately, a high level of social competence and resiliency is required of the choir conductors to master this aspect. Ilker Ülsezer has been the Brunnenchor choir conductor right from the start. Mutual growth over the years has great advantages for continued development. The conductor knows the choir inside and out; many processes work almost automati­ cally; also the meanwhile very familiar atmosphere helps in the realization of targeted goals. Naturally, the short-term projects with other choir conductors also play an important role. Group dynamics are animated, routine interrupted. The guest conductors have a fresh ear and perceive minor weaknesses in an entirely different way. With the Kinderchor, the most challenging aspect is the ­extreme diversity within the group itself. Tension between a project-­ oriented schedule and process-oriented pedagogics is thus most strongly evident here. Jana Dolečki has taken on the job of conducting the Kinderchor from the very start. Initially, she had the support of co-choir conductor Artur Bobrowski, and later that of Frenk Lebel. Since spring 2019, Jana Dolečki has had the musical support of guitarist Mike Hellinger. The Rap Chor founders, Esra Özmen (EsRAP) and Betül Seyma Küpeli (Shayma), were already fixtures in the Viennese alter­ native, artist, migrant, and music scenes for many years at the time of the Rap Chor founding in spring 2018. With this project in particular, this establishment in the relevant artistic circles in the city plays an important role. Outside of the experiences, for example, running the workshops, for a project that contributes greatly to self-empowerment, the leaders’ role-model function is an essential component of their expertise. In autumn 2018, Jana Dolečki followed Betül Seyma Küpeli as co-conductor of the Rap Chor. Esra Özmen is responsible for the texts and grooves, and often works intensely with the ­participants in individual settings, while Jana Dolečki offers support in the arrangements and choir song parts. The leadership of Brunnenpassage’s music division is ultimately responsible for the entire music program and the involvement of all choir formats, as well as the overall programmatic direc-

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People here are really nice, and there are lots of friendships.

H. Ezgi Karakas Schüller, Brunnenchor

Singing connects us!

Vedrana Kočevar, Brunnenchor

These songs are not simply songs, but also culture from another country. (…) Singing together is a wonderful experience. When I sing alone, I sing tenor only. But with shared singing, we sing first, second, third voice and bass together, and it sounds beautiful.

Oluchukwu Akusinanwa, Brunnenchor

tion in each season. Frequently, proposals are made by the choir conductors or the cooperation partners, which have to be coordinated and curated.

JOINING In the initial stages, Brunnenchor was founded as an open choir. Those interested could simply come to the evening rehearsals and sing along. This open principle worked quite well as long as the number of singers and the available performances remained manageable. Very quickly, however, a strong dynamic developed at Brunnenchor, and more and more people were interested in joining, and more and more inquiries for performances came in. Through that, it became necessary to regulate the possibilities for joining the choir. A first step was to allow new members only at the start of a new project; therefore, joining was possible two to four times per year. Since 2014, due to the great number of singers, Brunnenchor has had to close to new members, and since then, openings are filled along the lines of diversity at the start of each new project. With the Kinderchor, the opportunities to join are very clearly regu­lated by the school or university semester. Entry in the Kinderchor is thus possible for children at the start of the school year in September, and also after the semester school break in March. Most children, however, join in September and remain until the end of the school year. For the music buddies, it is also possible to join the choir at the start of the semester. Most students remain for an average of two semesters, which greatly eases the transition times, especially in September, when fluctuation within the group is the greatest. Of the three Brunnenpassage choirs, Rap Chor is by far the most open group. While here, too, at the start of each semester a call for new participants takes place, it’s possible to join at any time of the year and nearly at every phase of rehearsals. The only time that it is not advisable to join is shortly before a performance, and those interested are asked to wait until after the performance, but also in this case, the waiting time is a few weeks at most. With Rap Chor, this flexibility is due to the size of the group, as it is the smallest of the three choirs. The manageable size of Rap Chor enables a very intensive personal supervision of the entrants, yet without compromising the group. This situation is also tied to Rap Chor’s uniqueness – members can participate in writing texts, in solo rap, and also in choir-like elements. Parti­ cipants decide what aspects they want to and can participate in, and in that way find an easy way to join in nearly every phase of rehearsals.

ACCESSIBILITY The singing projects at Brunnenpassage are freely accessible, no qualifications are necessary, and there is no singing test. Everyone is able to take part, and even more so, the offer aims to address people who have previously had no opportunity to participate in similar formats. Of course, that has broad consequences that must be taken into consideration right from the start. For example, there are great differences in abilities among 204

the singers in all three choirs, whether in terms of intonation, sense of rhythm, ability to write texts, or musical education etc. This makes it very challenging to conceptualize a program that is not too simplistic for the advanced participants and also not too difficult for the beginners, and in doing so, achieve a general improvement in quality for the benefit of all. This occurs in the three choirs in a way that is appropriate for each. Brunnenchor offers extra rehearsals when needed for new singers. The intention is to thus enable a quick and easy entry into the repertoire for newcomers. Also invited to these extra rehearsals are singers who have difficulty keeping up with the learning pace. They thereby receive the additional time necessary to rehearse the songs without holding back the progress of the whole group at weekly rehearsals. Apart from that, in addition to Brunnenchor’s weekly rehearsals, performances and projects, are a steady offer of workshops on various themes, such as intonation and rhythm, among others. The participants in the Kinderchor also present extreme differences in their prior musical experience. Several of the children come from educated, middle-class families and have pursued many different activities in their leisure time, also musical ones, some have played an instrument or taken singing lessons for several years. There are also many children who have had the experience of displacement participate in the Kinderchor, several have never had music lessons before, in either ­theory­ or practice. Important especially in this diverse group is to include all of the children and integrate them into the rehearsals. This occurs through a largely process-oriented approach, and a pleasurable and playful attitude. Nonetheless, there is, of course, also the space and possibility for support on an individual basis, for example, in this way, advanced children who so desire sing solo parts, naturally also in the context of the regularly occurring performances. The university students also have entirely different musical abilities, but this is easier to deal with as for the students, social engagement is at the forefront of their participation in this project. The differences among the Rap Chor participants are perhaps the greatest as with the Rap Chor there are a several abilities or talents that can be present: singing, rapping, writing texts, performing. Great differences are present among the participants not only in their abilities, but also in terms of experience. For example, some women in the Rap Chor have written and rapped their own texts for years. At the same time, there are participants for whom taking up space is a very new experience. Here, too, practices are designed so that all who are interested can find their place at their own speed. With Rap Chor this occurs quite well due to the different possible activities – some want to participate mainly by writing texts, others like to be in the spotlight and rap their texts out loud into the microphone.

There is simply no comparable place in Vienna. I think that every district should have one Brunnenpassage.

Oyuna Bazarragchaa, Brunnenchor

Brunnenchor is a place where I can meet people and ­exchange thoughts and ­opinions.

Anil Üver, Brunnenchor

The Brunnenpassage is an open home for me. I can learn so much there, which I love doing.

Mona Hollerweger, Brunnenchor

To finish, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the supple­mental offers. As already mentioned, the Stimm ­Workshops format was developed in response to the significant increase in the number of singers, which resulted in the ever-growing differences in levels in the Brunnenchor. The 205

The thing I like best about the practices is the steps we take and the songs.

Child / Kinderchor

idea was, of course, also to offer an additional format with less commit­ment in the area of singing, but also to have an alternative format that newcomers could be referred to until the next entry possibility. Frequently, newcomers visit Stimm Workshops for several months and then join the choir at an entirely different level. Singers are also sometimes directly addressed and invited to attend Stimm Workshops for several weeks in order to be able to keep up with the other singers.

SUPERVISION The technical effort for all three choirs is basically kept within limits. Brunnenchor requires a piano and a microphone for the rehearsals. Performances can also be held without any great technical challenges. The situation is similar for the Kinderchor, which likewise requires a microphone and a guitar amplifier for rehearsals, and for performances, not much more is necessary. The situation for the Rap Chor is somewhat different as it has other requirements, but because of the tight budget it is necessary to look for rehearsal solutions in an inexpensive way. All participants require their own microphone, ideally already during rehearsals, to be well-prepared for the stage situation. Unfortunately, this is rarely possible, for one, due to financial reasons, and for another, because Rap Chor rehearsals are often relocated to other spaces, in part due to other events taking place at the same time, and unfortunately, the volume has to be kept down in most of these alternative spaces.

The music buddies make sure that the children who sing here at Brunnenpassage in Kinderchor, can arrive safely at Brunnenpassage, and feel good.

Adrian Jagow, music buddy

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The exact opposite is the case with the amount of logistics and individual supervision that has to be invested in the choirs. Rap Chor acts quite independently, and although there is regular dialogue between the division head and the choir leaders, no great effort is necessary. For the Kinderchor and Brunnen­ chor the situation is entirely different. First of all, there is the weekly supervision of rehearsals. Notes have to be copied, announcements written, and dates and attendance lists organized. Further­more, constant contact must be maintained with the cooperation partners, and production and concert inquiries have to be processed. Repertoire issues have to be clarified, programs compiled for performances, concepts created for the upcoming months, and joint projects developed. And in no case, should one underestimate the supervision of the choir members, which takes a great deal of resources in both Brunnen­chor and Kinderchor.

With Brunnenchor, the issue is mainly communication with a large number of people. Answering emails, carrying out discussions related to content, following up on complaints, but also lending an ear to personal problems―the communication with roughly 120 people is indeed very challenging and time intensive. Responding to the frequent requests to join has also meanwhile become quite demanding. Brunnenchor has been closed for several years and thereby, most of the inquiries have to be denied, which in the context of Brunnenpassage is per se not easy. Several of those interested are also not very accepting of this; however, most eventually take part in other open projects. The challenge in terms of supervising the Kinderchor results largely from the very special group compilation. Projects for children require very intense supervision, and this project also requires a great deal of resources for communication with the parents. For some children, but mainly for their parents, participating in leisure activities is not self-evident. Here, a great deal of work on developing relationships and persuasive effort are necessary to enable the children’s participation in cultural ­activities. Some of the children have to be picked up at home and brought to the practices, and then accompanied back home afterwards. This is the basic prerequisite for their participation, as often the offer to pick up the children and bring them home is the only way to convince the parents to allow their children to take part in the Kinderchor. The other group that is important to supervise are the students from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the ­music buddies. The project ‘Lernen macht Schule’ is based on the underlying idea of learning from one another. In this way, the children benefit through the role-model function of the buddies, and vice versa, the students also gain important skills through taking on responsibility in the group. For some of the students, the insights into utterly different living environments are entirely new, and here, it is necessary to support them in overcoming their uncertainties. Additionally, workshops and targeted group coaching takes place on a regular basis, making it possible to reflect on one’s own role and group dynamics.

I want to practice singing here. And we have performances. And that is fun.

Child / Kinderchor

One of the most beautiful moments is when the children come up to you, hug you, and ask how you’re doing. And they tell a lot about themselves. And when you go home with them, you simply get to know them better, where they come from, what they like to do.

Jana Hagenauer, music buddy

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CHOIRS AS AMBASSADORS Singing choirs have enjoyed increased popularity in recent years. In modern societies shaped by time pressures, they have a balancing effect and promote social solidarity as singing together connects beyond language barriers. Additionally, choirs have another wonderful trait in terms of outward effect; they are magnificently suitable as ambassadors, both in their group form at performances, concerts, and involvement in various projects as well as in their smallest parts through all of the singers who can be seen as multipliers. Brunnenchor has thus drawn attention from the very beginning with concerts, and as a mobile music format is often on the road as ambassador for Brunnenpassage, also beyond the borders of Vienna and Austria. The Kinderchor regularly receives more inquiries for performances than time resources allow. Here the ambassador function is very strong, for through its connection with major organizations, such as the Vienna University of Economics and Business and the REWE group, Kinderchor is constantly invited to events taking place in large venues, usually in front of a great number of viewers. For the “cool” locations and occasions, it’s usually Rap Chor that’s invited. With the three choirs, Brunnen­passage thus has the appropriate format to offer for every request.

Every single participant in the three choirs is also to be understood as an important ambassador. Since the founding, over the years 700 different people have sung in Brunnenchor, a further 200 are on the waiting list to join. In the past eight semesters of Kinderchor, roughly 120 children and their families were in close dialogue with Brunnenpassage. Nearly forty people have used the offer of the Rap Chor through the second semester of 2020.

SIGNIFICANCE Brunnenchor has the most participants on a weekly basis of all the Brunnenpassage projects. Some singers have been involved in Brunnenchor since its founding, a number of friendships have developed within the group. Many members of the voluntary team at Brunnenpassage first came into contact with Brunnenpassage as Brunnenchor singers, and vice versa. Through the 208

years of connection, many singers feel at home at Brunnen­ passage, the space is often described as a “second living room.” This rather large group forms a base-pool of Brunnenpassage supporters who are the first to be informed of special inquiries and can always be rallied for involvement in networking matters. Brunnenchor singers also form the largest steady donor group. All of these factors generate great commitment and a very special quality, Brunnenchor singers have influenced Brunnen­ passage for many years, both internally and externally. The exceptional thing about Kinderchor is the interaction between children and music buddies. Some of the children have multiple disadvantages to overcome on their paths to the future due to their origins. For them, participation in leisure ­activities and higher education is not self-evident. In Kinderchor they ­profit greatly from contact with the students through the positive role models, and learn to claim their share of societal resources. The students, for their part, profit from contact with the children and their families in that they gain awareness of social realities that they would otherwise usually not ­consciously notice in their everyday lives. For the fields of study at the University of Economics and Business in particular, which do not focus on social justice and strengthening of social cohesion, this effect

Rap Chor primarily wants to show that a medium such as rap provides a way to react to political and social problems, practice resistance, and create awareness of themes that are not visible (or have been deliberately made invisible) in public space. ­Frequent themes are everyday racism, structural and institutional discrimination, but also the question of dominance (­ hegemony) in both the system and the family.

Betül Seyma Küpeli (Shayma) and Esra Özmen (EsRAP),

http://smallforms.org/rapchor,

[accessed: November 4, 2020]

causes a significant expansion of the students’ horizons and thus has a long-lasting effect on their personal development and career paths. Participation in the music buddy project can be chosen as an elective and is recognized as three academic credits per semester in the context of studies at the University of Eco­nomics and Business. Just as group processes are strongly at the forefront in Brunnen­ chor and Kinderchor, the work in Rap Chor is heavily content-­ shaped. Self-written texts, themes that have to be outwardly communicated—the mediation of content is fundamental and the main focus of practice sessions. Of great importance is a strengthening of self-image, a major concern is taking the space to clearly communicate one’s wishes, especially for young ­people and even more so for women. The combination of an indivi­dual­ 209

approach to rap through solo writing on the one hand, and a co-creative choir process in the group on the other, makes this a unique format and enables the creation of entirely new collective approaches.

FINANCING Brunnenpassage founded Brunnenchor in 2007. Back then, very few production means were available. A second-hand piano was found via a call for donations, and song folders and notes were among the basic equipment. Regular costs include payment of the choir conductor and everyday project organization and super­vision. Beyond that, internal productions, which require musicians, require extra financing. At first glance, running costs for regular practices do not seem to be so high. However, what must be keep in mind is that the choir practices take place nearly all year long, so payments for the choir conductors are permanent expenses that weigh heavily on the music budget. Kinderchor also has by far greater expenditure due to the intensive support of the different participant groups, large consumption of resources and enormous organizational effort. Financing by Brunnenpassage alone, without the support of the ‘Lernen macht Schule’ initiative would be impossible.

For all three choirs, self-financing is practically ruled-out. For many of the participants, the Brunnenpassage choirs are a place where they can participate without the burden of obligatory participant fees. The largest voluntary source of donations in terms of participants comes from Brunnenchor. These donations are not enough to cover all of the choir’s costs, however, they are nonetheless quite significant.

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CREDITS Curating and head of music division: Gordana Crnko

Stimm Workshops Leaders: Artur Bobrowski, Alexia Chrisomalli, Julie Karagouni, Ines Popović, Christian Recklies, Golnar Shahyar, Futurelove Sibanda, Ilker Ülsezer, Sabina Zapiór

Brunnenchor Choir conductor: Ilker Ülsezer Guest choir conductors: Bassem Akiki, Maria Craffonara, ­Stephen Delaney, Michael Fischer, Stefan Foidl, Su Hart, ­Antonio Lizarraga, Gerald Wirth Workshop leaders: Artur Bobrowski (improvisation), Jelena Mortigija-Reiter (rhythm), Philipp Sageder (body percussion/ rhythm), Golnar Shahyar (improvisation), Saeid Tehrani (body percussion), Damien Tresanini (choreography), Sabina Zapiór (intonation)

Kinderchor Choir conductors: Jana Dolečki, Artur Bobrowski, Frenk Lebel Musical accompaniment: Mike Hellinger

Rap Chor Choir conductors: Esra Özmen, Betül Seyma Küpeli, Jana Dolečki

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Sing Along Directors: Maria Craffonara, Heinz Ferlesch, Rafael Neira-Wolf, Gerald Wirth Host: Monika Jeschko For Sing Along Africa, a collaboration took place between Brunnen­chor and the Ghana Minstrel Choir. Sing Along Alla ­Turca was realized in collaboration with the Istanbul ­Kulturverein. Musicians: Thomas Castañeda, Maria Craffonara, Miguel Delaquin, Lorenzo Gangi, Andreas Hellweger, Katharina ­Hof­bauer, Karin Hopferwieser, Rafael Neira-Wolf, Albin Paulus, ­Michael Prowaznik, Mark Royce, Simon Schellnegger, Bastian Stein, Emanuel Toifl, Richard Winkler, and Nikola Zarić, among others.

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Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Piknik Having breakfast together Since 2007, monthly Having breakfast together facilitates a first mutual acquaintance between people. The objective is to bring together people who live around and work at Brunnenmarkt. That way everyone can get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. Piknik provides an opportunity to talk, ask questions about Brunnenpassage, come up with new ideas, and share criticism. Piknik is one of the easiest access projects in Brunnenpassage’s program.

IDEA AND CONCEPT Piknik is the only regular format at Brunnenpassage that is not artistic. It was created to establish a space where people can meet and talk in a relaxed atmosphere without having to consume anything. Piknik has been very popular from the beginning. Across the year, there are usually two or three dates with a ­special program, such as small concerts (for example with an oud or accordion player), readings, or DJ-lines. From time to time there have also been specific culinary themes. However, focus is on exchanging ideas and sharing breakfast, and that should not be drowned out by the program.

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Our invitation reads: Grab a jar of jam or some olives and have breakfast at Brunnenpassage! Surely there’ll be someone there who has borek or cake. We provide beverages and the tableware. Piknik is a great opportunity to meet people and to get to know each other. Take this chance to learn more about Brunnen­ passage.

IMPLEMENTATION The initial objective was to create an open space for exchange for visitors on the program and concept of Brunnenpassage, as well as a way of getting to know the staff at the Brunnen­ passage. Although the office doors are always open and it is generally possible to submit new ideas, Piknik offers a more relaxed atmos­phere to get to know the other guests as well as the staff. Piknik was conceptualized during the pilot phase when there was hardly any non-project-related budget available. Over the years the project has been maintained due to its big success. Since the founding of the team of volunteers, Piknik’s realization has become more and more a self-organized project of the volunteers at Brunnenpassage supported by the technical staff.

REALIZATION The three-hour picnic takes place every first Sunday of the month. Guests are asked to bring something for the open buffet. There is always breakfast and beverages provided by Brunnen­ passage (mostly bread, butter, and fruit). A long breakfast table is set up, the staff takes care of preparing the buffet, the team

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makes coffee for everyone and heats up the samovars. In the beginning, a maximum of twenty guests came to Piknik. Now, it is common to see more than 100 people sharing breakfast at Brunnen­passage on a Sunday. Open-air picnics also took place time and again, however, a previous permit is necessary for these. In the beginning, especially during the colder times of year, there were challenging situations: for example, several times more than forty hungry people waited in front of the door, and then wiped out the buffet in half an hour. Within the team, these situations were subjected to intense discussion and a way of dealing with them was sought. Those in question were referred to the next available food distribution point, as Piknik cannot replace this type of support. Piknik is a monthly occurring project and therefore not suitable as structural and direct relief. Because guests appear at times without bringing anything, Brunnen­passage has since made more food available so that enough breakfast is there for all guests. In addition to many regulars, some of whom have come to Piknik every month for years, often families, groups, friends, and individuals who are new guests find their way here. There are program formats at Brunnenpassage that deliberately take place on Sundays after Piknik, to facilitate entry. For example, the monthly Theater Workshops are deliberately programmed on the day of the monthly Piknik.

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FINANCING Piknik does not require a large budget. In addition to the space where it takes place, all that are required are seats and tableware. Also, shopping for the breakfast varies with the number of guests.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK Although multilingual flyers and posters are used to promote Piknik, the idea spreads mainly by word-of-mouth. Also, people who are strolling by the market hall on a Sunday, often spontaneously come in for some coffee. For some time, Brunnenpassage used Piknik to connect with local initiatives. That is, to this end, entire teams of local ­dialogue groups were officially invited to converse in a relaxed atmosphere. Project ideas constantly arise at Piknik and also self-organized activities, such as a subsequent walk together through the woods, which for a long time took place after the shared breakfast, independent of the Brunnenpassage program. Likewise, language-tandems form and other neighborly networking takes place.

CREDITS Concept: Ahmet Zavlak and Hanna Swoboda Management: rotating members of the curatorial team of Brunnen­passage since 2012, mainly the Brunnenpassage ­voluntary team

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Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Between Neighbours Photography Exhibition in the context of Eyes On – Month of Photography June–December 2010 Brunnenpassage conceptualized the photography exhibition ­Between Neighbors to create new possibilities for meeting ­people at Brunnenmarkt. During the festival Eyes On – Month of Photography, photographer Ulrich Eigner was invited by Brunnen­ passage to shoot portraits of people who live at Yppenplatz/ Brunnenviertel. The exhibition took place at Brunnen­passage in November 2010 during the Eyes On – Month of Photography festival. Further events associated with the project were organized with the goal of creating dialogue between neighbors and Brunnenpassage.

IDEA AND CONCEPT People from the neighborhood (with a view of the marketplace) were invited to participate in the photography project. One ­objective was for the neighbors to meet each other. Many of them had hardly spoken to each other before. An additional goal was to make the residents’ individuality visible and explore their coexistence. Environmental portraits were used to show the diversity of the people in their personal living spaces. The surroundings and background are key elements in environmental portraiture. The photos are taken in people’s usual environment, such as, their home or workplace, and they typically illuminate the subject’s life and surroundings. Individuals thus have more say in their presentation than in a photo studio. It was important to contact people who live close to Brunnenpassage, especially those who had never been in touch with Brunnenpassage before for whatever reasons (insecurity, lack of interest, rejection?). As a result, many neighbors talked with the Brunnenpassage team for the first time. Throughout the project, a number of people have shown their willingness to approach and meet others. There are countless cases of people who have connected on a personal level beyond the project.

EXHIBITION The exhibition not only showed photographs but also had its own artistic spatial concept. Brunnenpassage was divided into two rooms. A living room and a dining room were set up like a stage. The photographs were hung on the walls. The furniture (such as chairs, a table, a sofa) invited the guests to linger and made them feel at home. The spatial concept proved useful during the events of the project. Certain objects, such as personal items from the participants, were added to the scenery to highlight the characteristics of the living space. A photo album 220

represented another element of the exhibition. One page was dedicated to each participant. On top of this, the concept was supplemented by a video installation with interviews with the participants about living together, as well as an explanatory text in four languages. The portrayed neighbors were personally invited to attend the opening of the exhibition as well as the other associated events. Over the course of the two-week exhibition, the following associated events took place: guided tours of the exhibition, a picnic at the exhibition space, a coffee party, a small concert, a movie night, and a dinner. The exhibition was included in the Eyes On - Month of Photography 2010 catalogue.

IMPLEMENTATION Conceptually, the Between Neighbors exhibition was about “personalization,” that is, giving the neighbors a face. With the exhibition, Brunnenpassage served as a neutral and open space for people to get to know one another and laid out the artistic framework. Language barriers and prejudices that prevent cooperation were surmounted.

ARTIST The decision to work with photographer Ulrich Eigner was based on the quality of his work as well as his experience in environmental portraits. Equally important was to choose an artist who approaches people in an open manner. An artist sensitive to the challenge of photographing people in their personal surroundings who (for the most part) have previously never been photographed professionally was required. For the most part, the photographer and the project manager were the only ones present at the photo shoot.

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REALIZATION From June to December, the project management worked ten hours a week on the overall organization. The photographer was less involved in the organizational tasks. First of all, plans of the buildings were organized. Contacting the neighbors was the most difficult part of the project. This was facilitated, in part, by contacting the owners or managers of the buildings who were informed about the project and sometimes offered their help. The process lasted several months. Creating a concept for the exhibition was another major step in the process. It was crucial to include a professional stage ­designer in this phase of the project. Brunnenpassage’s technicians then built the exhibitions rooms. In the meantime, participatory elements were developed and programmed for the associated events.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK The project comprised two phases. First, the participants had to be reached and invited to engage in the photo project. For this, leaflets were distributed in all the buildings around Yppenplatz. However, personal conversations were actually the key to raising awareness. The team went door to door to speak to people. The multilingualism of the team was a great help in contacting some neighbors. This phase took several months and allowed insight into how the residents perceive Brunnenpassage. Once the protagonists were chosen, appointments were made for the photo shootings. Posters and leaflets were used to promote the opening as well as the exhibition. Many of the protagonists brought along their families and friends to show them their portraits. Transregional promotion also took place through the cooperation with the Eyes On – Month of Photography festival.

FINANCING The exhibition was co-financed by the cooperation partner Eyes On – Month of Photography. At the same time, crowd funding was implemented and successfully realized. During the exhibition, Brunnenpassage financed the project management, technicians, and staff.

POSTPRODUCTION The exhibition was documented in the ‘Eyes On - Month of Photography’ 2010 catalogue. The participants were also thanked, in part, with a shared dinner during the time of the exhibition. Most of the photographs were given to the participating neighbors as a gift after the exhibition. Some of the relationships that Brunnen­passage developed with its neighbors are particularly special as they have remained consistent for years. A few have even developed considerably. For example, via Between ­Neighbors, contact was made with an Indian dancer who now performs at Brunnenpassage on a regular basis. Back then she had only been living in Vienna (at Yppenplatz) for a short time. 222

CREDITS Idea and concept: Tilman Fromelt, Anne Wiederhold-­Daryanavard Photographer: Ulrich Eigner Project management and curation: Ivana Pilić Exhibition concept and stage design: Ivana Pilić, Bert Schifferdecker

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Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard

Cinemarkt Cinema at Brunnenpassage Since 2009, seven to nine times per year A cooperation with St. Balbach Art Produktion Cinemarkt is a monthly movie event taking place at Brunnen­ passage. The movies shown are original versions with sub­ titles. The movies are followed by discussions with filmmakers and experts, or concerts. On the one hand, this format offers an ­especially easy way to access Brunnenpassage as well as a platform for political discourse. The cinema format reaches more than 1,000 people every year.

IDEA AND CONCEPT Going to the movies is well-known and popular in nearly all countries of the world. Cinemarkt’s primary goal is to offer high quality cinema to a great number of people. Many of the movie night visitors are first time visitors to Brunnenpassage. Taking a seat at a cinema and watching a movie is much easier than actively participating in a class or workshop. Cinemarkt is also concerned with raising awareness of political issues, such as ­migration, ­refugees, and racism, and therefore promotes ­Austrian filmmakers with immigration histories, and discusses their movies. Discussions with the film’s protagonists and Viennese initiatives working in areas related to the film’s subject often take place after the screenings. A diversity of styles and topics lends the

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format its power. The movies share an anti-cliché stance and point out injustice. In addition, Brunnenpassage also screens previews before the release of films. As a venue for the “this human world” – film festival and formerly the ‘Let‘s CEE Festival’, also festival films are shown at Yppenplatz, and made available for a large audience.

IMPLEMENTATION Cinemarkt’s concept is divided into two levels. On the one hand, emphasis is on easy access to the Brunnenpassage program, which is achieved by screening only original-language versions and maintaining an open setting. On the other hand, political topics related to discrimination, human rights, marginalized groups, etc. are made available for all population groups with a view to a sensitization for a special theme.

REALIZATION The most time-consuming element of preparing for the film series is curating the films. Frequently, the selection connects thematically with other programmatic focuses at Brunnen­ passage. Some movies are recommendations made by filmmakers or distributors who consider Brunnenpassage an attractive location outside of the classical cinema world. Brunnenpassage cooperates with the film festivals “this human world” and ‘Let’s CEE’. Furthermore, finding and inviting experts is also time intensive. The respective cooperation partner arranges the movie rentals. Since 2013, a cooperation has existed with the “this human world – International Human Rights Film Festival” and since 2018, this has intensified through the conceptual collaboration in the

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context of the impulse series Arts, Rights, Justice. Since 2015, a further cooperation has existed in the context of the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence,” with Klappe auf! and a media project of organizations active in women’s ­politics, in collaboration with the animation festival Tricky Women. The Brunnenpassage’s volunteer team helps carry out the events and provides drinks and popcorn for the audience. After the movie and discussion, time is always allotted to talk informally.

FINANCING Cinemarkt is organized in cooperation with St. Balbach Art ­Produktion. Brunnenpassage has an annual budget for the project. Voluntary donations are collected at the events. Furthermore, various alternating sponsors help fund the project. Advertising occurs mainly via trailers prior to the screenings.

DIALOGUE GROUP WORK Promotion for Cinemarkt targets mainly the same group as the theme of the film. In most cases, a particular community is interested in the movie based on language or content. Promotional posters are hung around Brunnenmarkt to advertise Cinemarkt. Also, small numbers of leaflets, sometimes printed in the ­movie’s original language, are handed out to multipliers who

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then ­systematically distribute them. The artists who are present at the events also invite more people. Furthermore, cooperation partners promote the movie nights via newsletters, social ­media, and the press. Selection of films shown and discussed ―

Born in Evin (Maryam Zaree | Germany/ Austria 2019 | German)

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Espero Tua (Re)volta (Eliza Capai | Brazil 2019 | ­Portuguese)

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this human world - International Human Rights Film Festival

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Jesus shows you the way to the highway (Miguel Llansó | USA 2019 | English) /slash Filmfestival

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JOY (Sudabeh Mortezai | Austria 2018 | English/German)

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Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (Steve Loveridge | USA/England 2018 | English/Tamil)

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Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu | Kenya/ South Africa/ France/ the Netherlands/Germany 2018 | English-Swahili original version with German subtitles)

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Weapon of Choice (Eva Hausberger, Fritz Ofner | Austria 2018 | English/German)

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Ciao Chérie (Nina Kusturica | Austria 2017 | French / German/ English/ Romanes/ Serbian/ Dari/ Somali/ Japanese/ Italian/ Kurdish)

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City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman | USA 2017 | ­Arabic/English)

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Die Migrantigen (Arman T. Riahi | Austria 2017 | ­German)

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Dil Leyla (Aslı Özarslan | Germany 2017 | Turkish, ­German)

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Silvana (Mika Gustafson, Olivia Kastebring, Chistina Tsiobanelis | Sweden 2017 | Swedish with English subtitles)

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The Congo Tribunal (Milo Rau | Schweiz/ Germany 2017 | Swahili/ Lingála/ French/ German/ English)

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When God Sleeps (Till Schauder | USA/ Germany 2017 | German)

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Whose Streets? (Sabaah Folayan | USA 2017 | ­English)

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Albüm (Mehmet Can Mertoglu | Turkey/ France/ ­Romania 2016 | Turkish with English subtitles)

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The Citizen (Roland Vranik | Ungarn 2016 | Hungarian with English subtitles)

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Unten (Đorđe Čenić/ Hermann Peseckas | Austria 2016 | German/Bosnian with German subtitles)

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Fang den Haider (Nathalie Borgers | Austria/ Belgium /France 2015 | German)

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Last Shelter (G. I. Hauzenberger | Austria 2015 | Farsi/ Urdu/English)

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Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven | Turkey/ France 2015 | Turkish with German subtitles)

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Paradise! Paradise! (Kurdwin Ayub | Austria 2015 | ­Arabic/German/Kurdish with English subtitles)

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Sonita (Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami | Germany/ Iran/ Switzerland 2015 | English/Farsi/Dari with English subtitles)

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Taxi Teheran (Jafar Panahi | Iran 2015 | Farsi with German subtitles)

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Jakarta Disorder – Ist Demokratie möglich? (Ascan Breuer/ Viktor Jaschke | Jakarta 2012 | Indonesian with German subtitles)

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Pirates of Salé (Rosa Rogers/ Merième Addou | ­England/ Morocco 2014 | Arabic with English subtitles)

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Everyday Rebellion (Arash & Arman T. Riahi | Germany/ Austria/ Switzerland/ Greece/ Belgium 2013 | ­English)

Guests in attendance: Kurdwin Ayub (film director), Ute Bock (Verein Flüchtlingsprojekt Ute Bock), Renate Blum (LEFÖ, counseling, support, and assistance for migrant women), Abou Bossou (cultural worker), Ascan Breuer (film director), Eric Bwire (LGBTI activist), ­Nelson Carr (campaigner #aufstehn), Đorđe Čenić (film ­director), ­Andrea Eraslan-Weninger (Integrationshaus), ­Hussam Eesa ­(activist, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently), Ilkim ­Erdost (former ­director VHS Ottakring, director Verein Wiener ­Jugendzentren), EsRaP (Esra and Enes Özmen, Music­duo), Sina Farahmandnia (PROSA), Nora Friedl (no racism), Heinz Fronek (Asylkoordination Österreich), Faris Cuchi Gezahegn (LGBTIQ+ activist, Afro Rainbow Austria), Djamila Grandits ­(curator, ­cutlural worker, ­former director this human world, Cine­Collective), Jelena ­Gučanin (journalist), Gerald Igor Hauzenberger (film director), Alev Irmak (actor), Tomáš Kaminský (film producer), Dilara Kara­bayir (actor), Belinda ­Kazeem (cultural theorist), Kenan Kiliç (film director), Aslı Kışlal (actor and director), Daniela Krömer (Ludwig ­Boltzmann ­Institut), Kokavere Lavutára (Band), Nina Kusturica (film ­director), Ulrike Lunacek (former vice president of the European Parliament), Angela Magenheimer (Ehe ohne Grenzen), Mahnaz Mohammadi (film director), Rubina Möhring (journalist and president of "Reporter ohne Grenzen"), Anna Müller-Funk (Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte), Murathan Muslu (actor), Javad Namaki (actor), Shahin Najafi (activist, musician), Michael Reimon (author, former journalist, politician, member of the EU-Parliament), Arash T. Riahi (film director), Arman T. Riahi (film director), Anja Salomonowitz (film director), Renata Schmidtkunz (editor, filmmaker, presenter at the ORF), Marco Schreuder (LGBTI-­activist and politician), Moša Šišic (musician), Harri Stojka ­(musician), Petra Sußner (asylum rights expert), Hüseyin Tabak (film director), Jaroslav Vojtek (film director)

CREDITS

Idea: Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard und Andreas Kous Project Management: Rainer Zeitlinger, Ivana Pilić, Zuzana Ernst, David Mathews Assitance: Brunnenpassage’s volunteer team Screening of the Movies: St. Balbach Art Produktion

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Tania Bruguera

Manifesto on Artists' Rights Art is not a luxury. Art is a basic social need to which everyone has a right. Art is a way of building thought, of being aware of oneself and of the others at the same time. It is a methodology in constant transformation for the search of a here and now. Art is an invitation to questioning; it is the social place of doubt, of wanting to understand and wanting to change reality. Art is not only a statement of the present, it is also a call for a different future, a better one. Therefore, it is a right not only to enjoy art, but to be able to create it. Art is a common good that does not have to be entirely understood in the moment one finds it. Art is a space of vulnerability from which what is social is deconstructed to construct what is human. Artists not only have the right to dissent, but the duty to do so. Artists have the right to dissent not only from affective, moral, philosophical, or cultural aspects, but also from economic and political ones. Artists have the right to disagree with power, with the status quo. Artists have the right to be respected and protected when they dissent. The governments of nations where artists work have the duty to protect their right to dissent because that is their social function: to question and address what is difficult to confront. Without the possibility to dissent, an artist becomes an administrator of technical goods, behaves like a consumption manufacturer and transforms into a jester. It is a sad society where this is all social awareness creates. Artists also have the right to be understood in the complexity of their dissent. An artist should not be judged first and discussed later. Artists should not be sent to jail because of proposing a "different" reality, for sharing their ideas, for wanting to strike up a conversation on the way the present unfolds. If the artist’s proposal is not understood, it should be discussed by all, not censored by a few. If one publicly expresses and evinces ideas in a different way from that of those in power, governments, corporations and religious institutions too easily declare that one is irresponsible, wanting to use guilt and incite the masses to violent reactions as their best defense strategy, instead of processing criticism and calling for public debate. Nothing justifies the use of violence against an idea or the person suggesting it. Governments have the duty to provide a space for self-criticism in which they are accountable for their actions, a space where 236

the people can question them. No government is infallible; no human being --even if elected-- has the right to talk for all the citizens. No social solution is permanent and it is the artists who have the opportunity and the duty to suggest the imagery of other social alternatives, of using their communication tools from a space of sensitive responsibility. Artists suggest a meta-reality, a potential future to be experienced in the present. They suggest experimenting a moment which has not yet arrived, a situation of ̈what if that were this way. ̈ Therefore, they cannot be judged from spaces in the past, from laws trying to preserve what is already established. Governments must stop fearing ideas. Governments, corporations (today they are like alternative governments), and religious institutions are not the only ones with a right to build a future; this is the right of citizens, and artists are active citizens. That is why artists have the right and the responsibility not only to think up a different and better world, but to try to build it. Artists have the right to be artivists (part artists/part activists), because they are an active part of civil society, because art is a safe space from which people can debate, interpret, build, and educate. This space must be defended because it benefits us all: art is a social tool. Governments should not control art and artists. They should protect them. Artists have the right not to be censored when gestating their work or during the research process of conceiving it. Artists have the right to create the work they want to create, with no limits; they have the duty to be responsible without self-­censorship. Society has the right to have its public spaces as spaces for creativity and artistic expression, since they also are collective spaces for knowledge and debate. Public space belongs to civic society, not to governments, corporations, or religious institutions. Freedom of artistic expression does not emerge sponta­neously. It is something one learns to reach leaving behind pressure, emotional blackmail, censorship, and self-censorship. This is a difficult process that should be respected and appreciated. Artistic censorship not only affects artists but the community as well, because it creates an atmosphere of fear and self-censor­ ship paralyzing the possibility of exercising critical thinking. To think differently from those in power does not make you ­irresponsible. In moments of high sensitivity (wars, legislative changes, ­political transitions), it is the duty of the government to protect and guarantee dissident, questioning voices, because these are moments in which one cannot do away with rationality and critical thought and it is sometimes only through art that many emerging ideas can make a public appearance. Without dissent there is no chance of progress. 237

Socially committed artists talk about difficult moments, deal with sensitive topics, but, unlike journalists, they have no legal ­protection when doing their work. Unlike corporations, they have no significant economic backing. Unlike governments, they have no political power. Art is a social work based on a practice that makes artists vulnerable and, as is the case with journalists, corporations, and governmental or religious institutions, they have the right to be protected because they are doing a public service. The right to decide the value of an artistic statement is not a right of those in power. It is not the right of governments, of corporations, of religious institutions to define what art is. It is the right of artists to define what art is for them. Art is a complex product without a single and final interpretation. Artists have the right of not having their oeuvre reduced or simplified as a schematic interpretation which may be manipulated by those in power to provoke and, consequently, result in public offenses directed to the artists, so as to invalidate their proposals. To create a space for dialogue and not for violence against works of art questioning established ideas and realities, governments should provide educational platforms from which artistic practice may be better understood. We must be cautious about the increasing criminalization of ­socially committed artistic creation under the rationale of ­national security and the need to control information because of political reasons with the purpose of censuring artists. There are many types of strategies for political censorship. ­Political censorship is not only exercised through direct political pressure, but censuring the access to economic support, creating a bureaucratic censorship postponing production processes, marginalizing the visibility of a project by drawing artists away from legitimization, and distribution circuits; controlling the right to travel, deciding who has the right to talk on what subjects; and, at times, even using “popular sensitivity” as censorship. All these are decisions taken and conducted from political power so as not to be challenged. The process of discovering a different society, the inner negotiation required to understand the place of arrival and the place one has left, is inherent to contemporary condition, which is, increasingly, a migrant condition. This is a condition that artists embody and on which they have the right to express. After all, a national culture is the hybridization of the image those who do not live in the country have of it and all present day by day build, wherever they have originally come from. We cannot ask artists, whose work is to question society, to keep silent and resort to self-censorship once they cross a territorial border. Artists have the right not to be fragmented as human beings or as social beings. Artistic expression is a space to challenge meanings, to defy what is imaginable. This is what, as times goes by, is recognized as culture. 238

A society with freedom of artistic expression is a healthier ­society. It is a society where citizens allow themselves to dream of a better world where they have a place. It is a society that expresses itself better, because it expresses itself in its entire complexity. There is no other type of practice in the public sphere providing the qualities of the space created by art. That is why this space must be protected. Governments have the duty to protect all their citizens, including those who may be considered uncomfortable because they question government or what is socially established. Critical thinking is a civic right which becomes evident in artistic practices. That is why, when threatened, we should not talk of censorship, but of the violation of artists' rights.

Words read in "Expert Meeting on Artistic Freedom and Cultural Rights" Hall # 21, Palais des Nations, seat of the United Nations Organization Geneva, December 6, 2012

Tania Bruguera is an artist and activist from Cuba. “Bruguera uses the term ‘Arte Útil’, i.e. art as a tool to alter ­social contexts. Spectators become citizens. And involvement, a ­political effect.”1 In 2020 and 2021, Brunnenpassage was cooperation partner in a production of the Wiener Festwochen under the artistic ­direction of Tania Bruguera. Because of the pandemic, the ­production had to be postponed after extensive preparations. Tania Bruguera had promised Brunnenpassage a foreword for this book. Due to political protests by artists in Cuba and ­massive repressions against Tania Bruguera, among others, she was not able to realise this project and asked us instead to print a speech she gave in Geneva in 2012 at the 'Expert Meeting on Artistic Freedom and Cultural Rights' of the United Nations Organization. We thank Tania Bruguera for allowing us to publish her speech and this powerful, still highly topical statement on artistic ­freedom!

1 https://www.festwochen.at/en/schule-fuer-integration

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Short biographies Elisabeth Bernroitner has been active at Brunnenpassage since 2011, as director and curator of the theater and performance ­division since 2014. She was on the board of the IG Kultur Wien until late 2019, and artistic director and managing director of PANGEA Werkstatt der Kulturen der Welt from 2016 to 2018. Previously, she was project director at Tanzquartier Wien. She is a theater studies scholar and cultural anthropologist with an MA in Performance Art Practices, and has training in the areas of dramaturgy, cultural management, and diversity management. Her work focuses on (post)migrant contemporary art practices, postcolonial strategies, diversity development in cultural institutions, transcultural and antidiscrimination agendas, decentral cultural work and socioculture, participation, and co-creation. Gordana Crnko has worked at Brunnepassage as a curator and director of the music division since 2011. She was co-initiator and since then artistic director of the StrassenKunstFest at Brunnenmarkt. Previously, she was involved in various national and international activities in the area of art and culture. Her interests and the focuses of her work are interfaces between traditional and contemporary performance practices, sociodynamics and decision making processes in heterogeneous (large) groups, and interdisciplinarity. Zuzana Ernst has been the vice artistic director of Brunnen­ passage since 2016. Her focus is on community-oriented practices at the interface of contemporary art and participatory politico-cultural work. She has served on the board of IG Kultur Wien since 2019, and has been a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Institute for Education in the Arts since 2017. As scenographer and founding member of the transdisciplinary performance group tangent.COLLABORATIONS, she has been devoted to methods of audience participation and collaborative piece ­development since 2012. Tilman Fromelt is program director at Kulturhaus Brotfabrik. Previously, he was a regular participant in the conceptual work at Brunnenpassage from 2008 to 2013. He then devoted himself to developing the art and cultural space Stand 129 at Vienna’s Viktor-Adler market, which is currently still run as a venue of ­Kulturhaus Brotfabrik. Before moving to Vienna, he worked as an actor on diverse stages in Germany, and as an instructor in adult education. Natalia Hecht is a transdisciplinary artist, psychologist, ­activist, and expert in community arts from Argentina, who has lived in Vienna since 2008. At the center of her artistic practice are poetic, participatory co-creation and reflection processes with communities that are confronted with different sociopolitical and ecological challenges. Through collaboration, aesthetic action, and critical social reflection, key themes such as transculture, feminism, inclusion, the environmental crisis, health, and migration are investigated in order to initiate collective and personal processes of resilience, connection, self-representation, and transformation. As a cultural worker for many years, she designs 240

and directs evaluation processes in the arts and culture sector with a focus on sustainable partnerships and opening up institutions to diversity and change. Ivana Pilić is a curator and cultural scientist. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on “discrimination-critical art practices” at the University of Salzburg and the Mozarteum. ­Before that she was artistic director at the Brunnenpassage. Her work focuses on research concerning transcultural formats and the development of diversity-critical concepts in the ­cultural sector. She is a member of the board of directors of WIENWOCHE - Festival for Art and Activism. Ivana Pilić is also active as a juror, among other things in the “Tandem Inter­culture” of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and on advisory boards and committees, among other things for the European Commission as an expert on “Intercultural Dialogue.” Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard is an actress, organizational psychologist, co-founder and artistic director of Brunnen­ passage. Her work focuses on the development of formats for transcultural art, socially engaged art, diversity development in cultural policy, and experimental and documentary theater. Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard works as a juror as well as in committees, among others for the European Commission, as an expert for diversity in the cultural sector. She is engaged ­nationally and internationally for lecture activities and consulting. Since 2020 she has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Volkstheater Vienna.

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Acknowledgments

A great thank you goes to our sponsoring organization Caritas Vienna – Director Michael Landau and the managing director for the trust in our work, the generous financial support and for the content-related and artistic freedom. We would like to express our special thanks to Werner BinnensteinBachstein, who initiated Brunnenpassage in his former function as Secretary General of Caritas Vienna in 2007 and who continues to be an important supporter and companion of our work. We would like to thank all those who accompanied us along the way at Caritas Vienna. As representatives of many, we would like to explicitly mention by name Georg Irsa, Sabine Gretner, Florian Pomper and Monica Delgadillo Aguilar, Tilman Fromelt, as well as Julia M. Tauber. We would like to thank the Department of Culture and the Municipal Department for Diversity and Integration of the City of Vienna, as well as the District Council of Ottakring and especially our District Chairman Franz Prokop and all sponsors and donors for the many years of funding and content exchange. Special thanks to Veronica Kaup-Hasler, City Councillor for Culture, and Andrea Mayer, Secretary of State for Arts and Culture. Thanks to the Federal Ministry of Arts and Culture, especially to Kathrin Kneissel, Head of Department IV/10: Arts and Culture: European and International Cultural Policy at the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, for the many stimulating conversations, the encouragement and the financial facilitation of the first and second editions of Art Practices in the Migration Society. We would like to thank from the bottom of our hearts the wonderful Brunnenpassage team: Elisabeth Bernroitner, Richard Bruzek, Züleyha Celiksu, Gordana Crnko, Gerald Deimbacher, Robert Duncombe, Hamayun Mohammad Eisa, Zuzana Ernst, Elif Ișık, Mushtaq Faizrahman Khani, Yamna Krasny, Aysel Kutan, David Mathews, Fariba Mosleh, Michael Podgorac, Rodrigo Martinez Rivas, David Garcia Santos, Kanako Sekine. A heartfelt thank you also to the volunteers: Mustafa Abdullah, Yasser Amin, Younes Asalforoosh, Nateghian Asghar, Ghassan Bobed, Ali Delemi, Eraghi Farideh, Farshan Forouzi, Sepideh Forouzi, Martina Forstner, Zahra Ghafarian, Ulrich Glatz, Ali Jafari, Nevin Kabak, Walter Lehrer, Elisabeth Mitterlechner, Lale Dokhte Malek Mohammady, Masoud Naderi Maralani, Romaine Ouattara, Maral Peiravyfaroji, Fakhrisadat Hashemi Petroudi, Mahmud Reza, Mahmud Rezaie, Regina Rosenauer, Zeinali Sajad, Hashmatullah Safi, Hedwig Seyr-Glatz, Fereshteh Sotoodeh Sarteli, Azizollah Shariati, Mehri Sheykhi, Maher Zaher, Nourian Zahra, Ali Zarghami. As well as to the former team members: Husseín Abdulaim, Kinan Ahmad, Bairak Alaisamee, Ammar Alabd Alhamid, Hayder Alchaabwi, Ibrahim Al Samarai, Mohamad Alsalm, Hussam Alsawah, Katharina Augendopler, Sheri Avraham, Jaber Barchin, Ibrahim Bah, Beate Bauer, Julian Beyer, Dylan Butler, Mustafa Cihangir, Alireza Daryanavard, Gassama Dembo, Karoline Exner, Lana Fallaha, Stefanie Fischer, Mahsa Ghafarian, Amin Ghazipour, Djamila Grandits, Petra Grosinic, Vian Hasan, Ruth Haselmair, Natalia Hecht, Mahmud Abdul Jalil, Mohammad Abdul Jalil, Ernestine Kadlec, Marlene Kalnein, Dila Kaplan, Anna-Maria KemethofetWaliczky, Klaus Kerstinger, Seda Kocabas, Leonie Markovics, Vinka Mlakic, Hayder Munshed, Enana Najm, Marzieh NazaryniaI, Ahmed Al Obaidi, Tatjana Okresek, Dawoud Palo, Ognjen Petkovic, Sara Karami Olia, Ovido Pop, Hayder Quasim, Melika Ramic, David Robinson, Carolina Rosales-Farias, Lucia Rosati, Marcos Rondon, Moustafa Sahune, Dilan Sengül, Natalie Sopuchova, Özlem Sümerol, Ṣafak Suppan, Theda Schifferdecker, Hannah Swoboda, Ahmet Zavlak, Rainer Zeitlinger, Rachid Zinaladin. The biggest thanks goes to all artists, participants and visitors, neighbors and cooperation partners for the many years together, the beautiful experiences and the good cooperation. 242

Imprint

Art Practices in the Migration Society Transcultural Strategies in Action at Brunnenpassage in Vienna Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard (eds.) 2nd, revised and expanded edition Authors: Elisabeth Bernroitner, Gordana Crnko, Zuzana Ernst, Tilman Fromelt, Natalia Hecht, Ivana Pilić, Anne Wiederhold-Daryanavard Photography: Tal Adler (p. 78/79, p. 80/81, p. 82/83), Karin Cheng (p. 58/59), Ulrich Eigner (p. 224), Niko Havranek / Burgtheater (p. 48/49), Igor Ripak (p. 62/63, p. 142/143, p. 144/145, p. 179, p. 201 (left), p. 228/229, p. 230/231), He Shao Hui (excerpt p. 40, p. 86/87, p. 88/89, p. 96/97, p. 98/99), KHM-Museumsverband (p. 66, p. 68, and excerpts on p. 41 und p. 74/75), Oreste Schaller (p. 170/171). All other photographs by Bert Schifferdecker. Illustrations: George Ferrandi (excerpt on p. 40, p. 91, p. 100/101) Eleni Palles (p. 102/103, p. 109, p. 114/115) Louis Hofbauer (p. 138/139) Graphics: Louis Hofbauer Cover Design and Kelim Patterns: Stefan Wirnsperger Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt Administrative Assistance: Elif Ișik Content Editing Main Chapters: Persson Perry Baumgartinger Editing Promising Practices: Fanny Müller-Uri Proofreading English Edition: Charlotte Eckler Print: Gerin Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-5620-6 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839455463 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-5620-0 © Brunnenpassage Brunnengasse 71/Yppenplatz, 1160 Vienna, Austria Vienna 2021

This book was supported by:

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