Freedom shimmers
Short texts from Czechoslovakia, Poland, the GDR and other states behind the ‘Iron Curtain’.
Until the autumn of 1989, many people in Europe lived behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, in a part of the world considered socialist. Despite the utopian promise of those in power, this system of government was not ‘heaven on earth’, but for many of its citizens quite the opposite.
But what troubled people? What did they lack, given that (most of them) had secure jobs and material security? What moved them to take to the streets under slogans such as ‘For an open country with free people!’, to express their wishes and longings, and thus to stand up to those in power?
Here, the power of light is set against the power of words. A collage of texts – some distributed via stickers – filled this space of light: the spoken-word artists Rainer Holl and Josephine von Blueten Staub entered into dialogue and contention with 30 years of history and our present day. A musical contribution by singer-songwriter Stephan Krawczyk rounded off the opening of the space of light.
