herbst Academy: workshop call
Deadline for registration: Friday 31 July 2015
academy [at] steirischerherbst.at
Back to the Future: steirischer herbst 2015 focuses in many different ways on the notion of “inheritance.” Questions of property and capital, inheritance and inherited burden, transfer of knowledge and our handling of cultural heritage form the starting points for various artistic processes in this year’s festival. As part of the herbst academy, steirischer herbst is once again running four workshops. They will revolve around the conference “Future Perfect: Dystopia, disruption and alternatives—what we will have to have provided for.”
Workshop 1
To What End?
8–9 October
by Gülsen Bal (GB/Turkey/Austria) and Walter Seidl (Austria)
The exhibition To What End? investigates the idea of “inheritance” as a device for reclaiming historical memories so as to enable criticism of dominant narratives and cultural ideas. How can we understand the concept of “inheritance” when it is a matter of making a wide range of voices heard, all reflecting different cultural contexts? What potential lies in post national forms of belonging that run counter to widely accepted strategies of globalisation? And how are current political and social changes manifested in the creative world, how can we integrate them into the spheres of art? Through artist talks, discussions, and a film programme, the aim is to widen the range of topics connected with social, political and economic codes by means of experimental research.
Workshop 2
United States of Europe – Europe as a Location or Idea?
8–9 October
by Regine Dura (Germany) and Hans-Werner Kroesinger (Germany)
Modern day Europe, which we prefer to see as having been born of the French Revolution, came into being in 1950 as a coal and steel union: If you work together, you don’t fight against each other. So the birth of the European Union was induced by economic concerns and a desire for security. Internal borders were abolished for the movement of goods, external borders closed. Is Europe a community of values? If so, which values are involved? To whom do they apply? And what kind of role does common cultural heritage play? Or the EU Frontex agency? Theatre director Hans-Werner Kroesinger and dramaturg Regine Dura examine Europe with the aid of documents. In this workshop, a document is everything that the participants regard as relevant in this context. Material for a later presentation will be developed from the pool of resources.
Workshop 3
Mineral Rights
12–13 October
by Lara Almarcegui (Netherlands/Spain)
In her work, Lara Almarcegui often explores wastelands or unheeded places. In order to deepen her investigation of territory, the past, and the origin of “the built,” she now turns her attention to what lies below. “Mineral Rights: Acquisition of the mineral rights of an iron deposit” is an ongoing project in several countries in which Almarcegui tries to purchase land—not to extract minerals, but to highlight how the territory is shaped at a geological level, and how it is broken down for exploitation. Looking back on the long history of mining and land ownership, the workshop investigates how rulers of different countries oppose the idea that individual citizens might acquire rights to mineral resources. The workshop will also analyse the situation around Graz in depth. Various forms of landscape representation are investigated alongside this process.
Workshop 4
Places of Overwriting
12–13 October
by Daniel Wetzel / Rimini Protokoll (Germany)
In the performances of the Rimini Protokoll theatre collective, the act of remembering, generally a way of preventing something from being forgotten, is made visible as an act of overwriting and, above all, inscribing personal, political and social pasts into the present. For Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, Band 1 & 2, co-produced by steirischer herbst, it is once again the expertise and experiences of the protagonists with the propaganda publication that constitute the central material, 90 years after publication of the book. The incomplete search for traces turns the stage into a field of play between fact and fiction. In other projects, the company uses specific sites—almost parasitically—as a stage on which to view the present. The workshop examines selected works of Rimini Protokoll with the aid of practical experimental set-ups.
Conference
“Future Perfect
Dystopia, disruption and alternatives: what we will have to have provided for”
10–11 October, Heimatsaal Graz & Porubsky Halle Leoben
Curated by Christiane Kühl
