Interaction and participation are essential pillars of the Leipzig Festival of Lights. Only thanks to the active involvement of dedicated volunteers and local cooperation partners does the Leipzig Festival of Lights become what the people of Leipzig and their guests value so highly. Here is an overview of the workshops that have taken place so far as part of the preparations for the Festival of Lights.
Workshops
Leipzig Festival of Lights
Local partners and workshops
In the anniversary year “35 Years of the Peaceful Revolution”, the Leipzig Festival of Lights offered opportunities for participation. Several artist teams involved the people of Leipzig in their projects in advance:
The artist team Xenorama conducted video interviews for the Festival of Lights project “’89 Perspectives”.
The artist collective Fils de Créa collected lamps and lampshades for their project “Passage”.
Artist EunJin Park interviewed contemporary witnesses in advance for her project “Where did the hero come from?”
Umbrellas for Freedom with an International Message – DHL Hub Leipzig
For three days, the employees of the DHL Hub Leipzig quite literally had the opportunity to become patrons. In glorious sunshine and high summer temperatures, from 11 to 13 July 2023, umbrellas were at the centre of an activity in preparation for the Leipzig Festival of Lights.
DHL and LTM had invited participants to place thoughts and statements on the theme of freedom on the umbrellas. This resulted in numerous messages of freedom – not only in German and English, but also in Spanish, Greek, Polish, Portuguese and Italian, among others. After all, people from almost 100 nations work at the international DHL hub in Leipzig. The decorated umbrellas were used as part of the Leipzig Festival of Lights on the 9ᵗʰ of October 23 for the installation shown on Richard-Wagner-Platz. The umbrellas were one of several symbols of freedom.
City festival activity for project at Burgplatz
The Leipzig Festival of Lights 2023 was already casting its first shadows in June 2023 and offered an opportunity to take an active part. Many Leipzig residents took advantage of this chance during the city festival. First, it was time to pick up the needle. In cooperation with the association Restlos, banners with slogans from autumn ’89 were created, which became part of the Festival of Lights project on Richard-Wagner-Platz. Sustainable thanks to upcycling!
The following day, numerous city festival visitors stepped in front of the lens of Philipp Geist. The Berlin-based artist will use the photographs as part of his project at Burgplatz – a large-scale projection onto the New Town Hall and the Stadthaus.
Workshop “we see ourselves free” (Augustusplatz)
For the project “wir sehen uns frei”, the duo Robert Sochacki and Wera Morawiec involved several artists and cultural professionals from Leipzig: Marek Brandt and Pina Rücker (triPhaze) composed directly for this installation, and Marc-André Weibezahn developed the interactive app “Augen auf!”. The Museum of City History, the Forum of Contemporary History, the Polish Institute and the City Archive supported the image and audio research, while the students Minou Becker, Paula Bültemann and Lisa-Marie Klee curated the original sound recordings for the sound showers. During the workshop at the end of June, an intensive exchange took place and all threads of the multi-part project “wir sehen uns frei” were brought together.
“Many people are involved in the project. We are very happy about this. We all work closely together, we are connected to each other – corresponding to the basic idea of the project that communities are at the core of every society. The installation therefore does not show a single perspective, but is built on the interaction of all participants,” say the Polish artists.
Cooperation partners:
Marc-André Weibezahn: weibezahn.com
Polish Institute Berlin, Leipzig Branch: instytutpolski.pl/leipzig/
Leipzig City Archive: stadtarchiv.leipzig.de
Museum of City History Leipzig: www.stadtgeschichtliches-museum-leipzig.de
triPhaze (Marek Brandt and Pina Rücker): soundcloud.com/marek-brandt-triphaze
Forum of Contemporary History Leipzig: www.hdg.de/zeitgeschichtliches-forum
Workshop “The I and the WE” (Burgplatz)
In June 2022, a multi-day workshop for the project “The I and the We” took place, in which the artist Betty Mü, together with Leipzig students, explored the following questions, among others: What challenges do our societies face today? Does deglobalisation mean risk or opportunity? What is the relationship between the I and the We? What still connects our society today? The results of the workshop were incorporated into the overall concept and can be heard as audio statements in the kaleidoscope.
“It was very important to me to bring young people on board. At the heart of the project is also the ‘We’ from ‘We are the people’, probably the best-known slogan from the autumn of ’89: WE can create change. WE are the hope. WE are the future. Every single one of us. This installation is about the individual and the masses. About the I and the We. About the individual’s doubt and the strength of the many. What can I actually do? What can I, as one person among 7.9 billion, even achieve? How difficult is it today to ignite a light of hope and to begin change within oneself?”, says Betty Mü.
Cooperation partners:
Thomas Süßmair: akkordarbeit.com
Leipzig students
Workshop “Democracy Needs Colour – Spray with Us!” (Richard-Wagner-Platz)
At the HEIZHAUS in Grünau, home of the association Urban Souls, an interactive workshop with young people took place in the summer of 2022. “Enabling participation” – the guiding principle that inspired the art project at Richard-Wagner-Platz – was also firmly rooted in the work of the local partner: Urban Souls e. V., founded 20 years ago, is a non-profit association dedicated to promoting youth welfare, culture, sport, music, art and support for the elderly. A team of 24 full-time staff, more than 80 freelance workers and many volunteers organises a wide range of activities for children, young people, young adults and senior citizens. Initially focused on the skating scene, the organisation soon expanded its range to include dance, music and graffiti. In 2009, the HEIZHAUS opened, offering far more than “just” a skate hall – it is a space with activities for the whole family and all generations. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people take part in HEIZHAUS projects every year. Part of the interactive workshop in Grünau took place in the rooms of the open leisure centre “Völkerfreundschaft”, known as the “Völle”. There, the young participants were able to spray graffiti both in the traditional way with spray cans and digitally using a controller. The Leipzig City Archive supported the project with historical visual material.
“Writing or drawing something on a wall means bringing your ideas into public space, knowing and hoping that others will see them. It is a special way of expressing yourself, of being heard without being loud. Graffiti creates an exchange of thoughts. Graffiti brings ideas to the streets,” says Cart’1, street artist.
Cooperation partners:
Urban Souls e. V. / Heizhaus: heizhaus-leipzig.de
Open youth centre ‘Völkerfreundschaft’: leipzig.de/voelkerfreundschaft
Leipzig City Archive: stadtarchiv.leipzig.de
Workshop “WE ARE” (Augustusplatz)
The Archive of the Citizens' Movement in Leipzig, the association Zeitgeschichte(n) in Halle, as well as the Polish Institute Leipzig opened their doors for the project WIR SIND, enabling conversations with contemporary witnesses, city tours tracing the events of 1989, and a creative workshop with pupils from the Gerda Taro Grammar School. “There are many parallels between the events in Leipzig and those in Hungary or Eastern Europe, even if not in our personal stories, but in those of our friends and families. Experiencing this while working in the archives, with the pupils and the contemporary witnesses, is essential for WIR SIND,” said the artist team Tamás Zádor and Márton Noll (Glowing Bulbs) from Budapest.
Local cooperation partners:
Archiv Bürgerbewegung Leipzig e. V., archiv-buergerbewegung.de
Gerda Taro School Leipzig, Grammar School of the City of Leipzig, taroschule.de
Polish Institute Berlin, Leipzig Branch, instytutpolski.pl/leipzig/
Zeit-Geschichte(n) e. V. – Association for Lived History Halle, zeit-geschichten.de
Workshop “Ring” (Burgplatz)
For “Ring (do/undo/redo)”, the collaboration with local initiatives and stakeholders focused on the themes of future and sustainability. The ideas developed during the process and an initial workshop held in June influenced both the video content projected onto the rotunda at the Leipzig Festival of Lights and the final definition of the wall. During another workshop in September, the partners ultimately designed part of the installation using recycled transparent and reflective materials. “Just as diverse as the individual partners are their contributions/their input, which makes ‘Ring’ particularly multifaceted and exciting,” say Ben Busche and Miguel de Guzmán from the Spanish artist team Brut Deluxe.
Local cooperation partners:
Bunte Gärten Leipzig e. V., bunte-gaerten.org
Freies Gymnasium Borsdorf, freies-gymnasium-borsdorf.de
Kunststofferei Leipzig, kunststofferei.de
Leipzig fürs Klima, leipzigfuersklima.de
LGH Leipziger Gewerbehof GmbH & Co. KG, lgh-leipzig.de
Restlos – the creative upcycling project, Leipzig, muetterzentrum-leipzig.de/projekt/restlos-das-kreative-upcyclingprojekt/
Stadtreinigung Leipzig, stadtreinigung-leipzig.de
Workshop “89 Voices” (Richard-Wagner-Platz)
During the multi-day workshop in June 2021, the Berlin-based artist team Loomaland held extensive conversations with many contemporary witnesses from Leipzig, with the aim of deliberately exploring women’s perspectives on the Peaceful Revolution and artistically incorporating them into the light project “89 Stimmen”. Florian Giefer and Denis Bivour were deeply impressed by the intensity of the conversations, their directness and strong emotionality – a special quality of so-called oral history and a key element in generating the textual content of “89 Stimmen”. “The interviews were organised and accompanied by Frauenkultur e.
V. These women took part in the workshop: Mona Ragy Enayat, Beate Ißmer, Gisela Kallenbach, Monika Lazar, Elke Pietsch, Christine Rietzke and Susanne Wagner. These women also contributed their voices and perspectives to the project: Kathrin Darlatt, Christiane Eisler, Gaby Essbach, Susanne Kucharski-Huniat, Brigitte Moritz, Susanne Scharff and Regina Schild.
And words from these women also became part of the light project: Isolde Alicke, Gisa B., Regina Benkert, Angelika Fischer, Christa Gottschalk, Katrin Hattenhauer, Elke Jäpelt, Johanna Kalex, Petra Nora Karrasch, Ute Leukert, Adelheid Liebetrau, Lila Offensive, Petra Lux, Laura M., Katharina Marlow, Cornelia Matzke, Renate Rietzke, Petra Seyde, Uta Schlegel, Sigrid Schmidt, Beate Tischer, Annette Wolf, Marion Ziegler.
Local cooperation partner:
Frauenkultur e. V. Leipzig, .frauenkultur-leipzig.de