Getting Real
Unsere Heimatstadt ist Aschaffenburg.
Nach der schrecklichen Tragödie der letzten Woche: Unsere ganze Liebe gilt all unseren Freund:innen, Familien, Communities, und denjenigen, die von diesem schrecklichen Vorfall betroffen sind.
In diesen Momenten sind wir mit unseren Liebsten eng verbunden, aber das bedeutet nicht, dass wir andere ausschließen. Ausgrenzung und Hass sind niemals eine Lösung.
Mit all unserer Liebe, Sorge und allem, was wir tun können.
—
Our hometown is Aschaffenburg.
After the terrible tragedy of last week: all our love goes out to our friends, families, communities, and those affected by this terrible incident.
In these moments we hold our people close, but that does not mean excluding others. Exclusion, hate, and fear are never answers.
With all our love, care, and everything that we can offer.
— PAPER LANTERN COLLECTIVE
It’s also the end of our first month here in Chemnitz. Reflections from the team from our weekly meeting:
1 - What is one small success from this week that you’re proud of?
Mareike - We made a big decision on how we want to document and communicate our work going forward. I am very excited about what is to come. Also, I started the funding application game again - keep your fingers crossed pls.
Marleen - For me there was this week not one big thing - at the moment it slowly feels like building a kind of new routine. The routine at the moment is still without workshops, so it is fairly calm, even if there are lots of things to do - but compared to running a big programm with so many workshops per week - I have at the moment energy to read books, to do some linol print, to keep in touch with friends!
Matt - We led a first workshop! Was quite surprising - because that wasn’t the plan! But after a good few weeks since the last one (due to the engagement work happening right now), it was great fun and brilliant to be back in that space and mode. It was also a great instant success (despite my terrible attempt to play accordion). Looking forward to starting our programme proper! And very excited about how it’s shaping up! Stay tuned!
2 - How did you adapt or stay flexible in your work this week?
Mareike - Since the beginning of this week I am back in NDJ. Having to adapt to a 30 degree difference, having no fridge, french lessons and catching up on my job here, I decided that I need to adapt my workload. Although my to do list keeps growing, I allowed myself to have quite evenings and to catch up on everything PLC over the weekend. I am still working out what a good routine looks like that also leaves room for rest.
Marleen - Am Freitag hatten wir ein sehr überraschendes Engagementtreffen mit der LBS Schule. Wir dachten, wir treffen ein paar Lehrkräfte und quatschen ein bisschen, hatten keine Instrumente dabei und auch keinen Workshop geplant. Es stellte sich dann heraus, dass wir von 8 Schüler:innen und ihren Betreuer:innen im Musikraum erwartet wurde kurze Überforderung und Adrenalin und dann: loslegen! Einen Workshop aus dem Ärmel schütteln, singen, spielen, einander kennenlernen. Es war richtig cool, vor allem natürlich die Schüler:innen! Mit Vorbereitung gelingen Workshops natürlich besser, aber in solchen Momenten ist es großartig zu merken, wie sehr man auf seine Basics zurückgreifen kann :)
Matt - I think I’m still finding the way to do this. There is very little structure at the moment, so it’s all about being responsive, having open eyes and ears, and also being strategic. While this is good fun, I find tricky to do this deliberately as if it was a conscious strategy.
3 - What feedback (formal or informal) did you receive, and how will it shape your approach moving forward?
Mareike - It feels like things are starting flow. People start following us on social media without us being super active, others reach out to sign up for workshops - although we haven’t even started advertising them yet, and opportunities reach us without us looking for them. All these are small successes and feedback that we are on the right track!
Marleen - Die Stimmung mit den Kids bei diesem Workshop war einfach richtig schön, lustig, befreiend, entspannt und wir wurden eingeladen wieder zu kommen (was wir auch machen) das ist immer das schönste Feedback! Wie es damit weitergeht! Erstmal müssen wir uns wieder hinsetzen und neues Repertoire suchen und spielen - das ist in dem letzten halben Jahr viel zu kurz gekommen!
Matt - I have no idea if this counts as feedback. But the community reaction in the last days has been super interesting, and is focussing a lot of my attention and reflection time into a deep interrogation of our approach - especially as outsiders in a place. I feel we are on the right path - that our position as outsiders with new energy, insight, feelings, directions, instincts, naivety is useful and potentially powerful. But we have to be clear, careful, and ensure we act with intent and integrity.
For background, on Friday, 20 well-known young people belonging to a well-known and well-documented political youth extremist group stormed a local bar in a random act of violence. I won’t go into details, there’s plenty of news coverage for that, but only to say that the bar in question is 3-mins away from our office, and that those arrested were released the same night (although investigations and so on are ongoing). What is interesting for us is the response and the community feel. Intense solidarity but also perhaps a slight normalisation of this kind of thing (see also the recent Spiegel TV feature about the Kulturhauptstadt launch) (see every Monday evenings protest from the far-right) (see the political response locally).
There is perhaps a pervasive feeling that these kinds of random, and not-so-random, acts, whilst abhorrent, are kind-of facts of life in this place. So perhaps we should just get on with things and work around these. Do what we can in spite of these provocations/disruptions/threats/whatever.
On a practical level, yes, and this is fully and totally understandable.
And it goes without saying - but let’s say it anyway - full on respect for the multitude of super cool and super welcoming people we are meeting and planning with every day who are doing spectacular work here daily in spite of everything. I have never felt so welcome in a place.
But on another level, no. This isn’t normal. And if there was ever a time to try and make change locally and nationally and internationally, then that time is now. But how? Is it enough to stay our course? How interventionist should our practice be? In the face of, not just political extremism, but the lack of meaningful response to it, what can we do as community artists that is useful? Or maybe this is me just being naive.
Aschaffenburg, DE - 01.01.2025 - Our new year owl!
- Mareike in N’Djamena, TD- Marleen & Matt in CHEMNITZ, DE