Volxtheater caravan
The Volxtheaterkarawane was a socially critical post-dramatic art project in Austria that existed between 2001 and 2011 . The Volxtheaterkarawane was initiated by parts of the Volxtheater Favoriten from Vienna and media and anti-racist activists from the platform for a world without racism. Central topics were the discussion of racism , sexism , borders , migration control and state surveillance .
The Volxtheaterkarawane was a loose association of politically and culturally active people. There was no permanent ensemble and attempts were made to organize on a grassroots basis . The caravan traveled to places of political controversy that are turned into the setting for artistic interventions . It was about not only questioning boundaries, but also actively crossing them.
In 2011, the group officially disbanded after several years of inactivity. The Italian judiciary had previously closed a case against numerous activists of the caravan who had been pending for years and who were arrested after the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 . The Volxtheater Favoriten is still active.
Projects
From June 26th 2001 to 2006 the Volxtheaterkarawane realized several projects. While the “Noborder, Nonation Karawane” (2001) and the “noborderZONE” (2002) were each set up for one year, the “noborderLAB” project is to run indefinitely. For this reason, among other things, IG Kultur Austria awarded “noborderLAB” on May 9, 2004 with the “ Promotion Prize for Political Cultural Work ”.
Noborder, Nonation Caravan
The Volxtheaterkarawane first appeared in public with the "Noborder, Nonation Karawane", which began on June 26, 2001. In Nickelsdorf , an Austrian town on the border with Hungary, under the slogan “Artists learn to shoot”, a memorial erected in honor of the former Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock was fired with blank cartridges by activists disguised as UN soldiers . The aim was to deal with refugees on Austria's eastern borders ( assistance from the Armed Forces ) 11 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain .
The next stop was the protests against the World Economic Forum in Salzburg (June 28th to July 3rd), where a street party was organized on July 2nd.
This was followed by participation in a border camp in Petišovci , Slovenia . Through a media-effective campaign in front of a deportation prison in Ljubljana - in the context of which banners ("No-Borders" etc.) were spread out in front of the building while being watched by the media and attention was drawn to the prison conditions via megaphone in various languages - the Volxtheaterkarawane succeeded in to critically address the handling of refugees in the Slovenian public.
The arrest of 25 caravan activists after the G8 summit in Genoa ( Italy ) on July 22, 2001 made international headlines . The activists had to stay in Italian prisons for three weeks. They are accused of looting and participating in violent rioting in the context of the protests against the G8. After the arrest, according to the victims, there was abuse by the Italian police. A prisoner abuse trial of 45 police officers, including a general, began on October 12, 2005 in Genoa. The prosecution is based on several thousand testimonies. As early as March 2005, an examining magistrate had established that the police themselves had pushed evidence (Molotov cocktails, knives and clubs) on the demonstrators.
When the arrests went through Austrian and international media, there were solidarity rallies and demonstrations with the arrested members of the Volxtheaterkarawane in Vienna and other cities. Well-known artists such as Elfriede Jelinek and Marlene Streeruwitz showed their solidarity with the group, while the then Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner allegedly passed on incriminating material to the Italian police and described the Volxtheaterkarawane as "officially known people".
After the release, the events of the summer of 2001 were filmed in "publixtheatrecaravan.mov". The film was shown at Diagonale 2002 as part of the “noborder - nonation 1” series of events.
The Volxtheaterkarawane also returned the favor to Benita Ferrero-Waldner during her presidential election campaign in 2004 by taking part in a slogan competition for the candidate and winning with several slogans, whereupon they performed at a festival organized for the winners of the competition in which they played against the presidential candidate Advertised.
NoborderZONE
The noborderZone project (March 21-23, 2002) scheduled for the time of the Diagonale , the annual film festival in Graz , in the inner city of Graz included an extensive program on the topic of “Globalization - Migration - Resistance”. It was a targeted expansion of the framework of a media project into public space.
In July the Volxtheaterkarawane took part in a “NoborderCamp” in Strasbourg ( France ), a meeting of NoBorder activists from all over Europe. The location was chosen because the Schengen Information System (SIS) is located there. After a first demonstration, further rallies in the Strasbourg area during the weekend of the NoborderCamp were banned by the police.
Following this, the Volxtheaterkarawane paid an uninvited visit to Documenta11 in Kassel ( Germany ) - in retrospect. The caravan was part of a photo exhibition there by the artist Lisl Ponger with the title “Summer in Italy” (photo work for the G8 summit in Genoa, 2001). The English double-decker bus was parked near the documenta hall on Friedrichsplatz and a street theater was staged: with deck chairs, paddling pools, parasols and rubber trees, a “holiday idyll” was presented in which the members of the Volxtheater moved. They were dressed in white overalls and equipped with indefinable electronic devices. The installation should point out the restriction of the freedom of movement of refugees within the EU. After the Volxtheaterkarawane was classified as a security risk by those responsible for the documenta, it had to leave the square under threat of arrest and confiscation of the media bus.
As in 2001, the Volxtheaterkarawane and the noborderZONE took part in the anti-WEF protests in Salzburg.
NoborderLAB
As part of the project “Noborderlab - Another war is possible”, the Volxtheaterkarawane pitched its tents from May 29th to June 1st, 2003 on the occasion of the Austrian Social Forum (ASF) in Hallein . There she initiated an alternative project “ beyond state, capital and nations ” with the “A.nanas S.ozial F.abrik ”. The main topic of discussion in workshops and discussions was the situation of the “Sans Papiers”, i.e. those refugees who do not have official papers on their origin. In addition, a football game was organized between Sans Papiers and members of the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions .
Then the project, including the exhibition and media bus, drove to the noborderCamp Timișoara ( Romania ), where it stopped from June 9th to 15th.
At the Festival of the Regions in Upper Austria from June 27th to July 5th, the caravanists fell among other things through a declaration of war against the Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner that was disseminated via the Internet and, not unlike a horde of football hooligans , the Upper Austrian Governor Josef Pühringer's fan club on.
On June 30, 2003, activists of the Volxtheaterkarawane gained access to the private Lambach collegiate high school , presented themselves to staff and students as employees of the fictitious “European Institute for Biometric Research” and asked students to be biometrically measured. Among other things, students should answer questions about their parents' appearance and bank details, submit stool samples or provide hair. The activists were due for deception , official arrogance , falsification of documents displayed and falsification of specially protected documents and the official arrogance eventually found guilty. The charges relating to forgery of documents were dropped during the preliminary proceedings. In the main trial, the accused were acquitted of the charge of fraud and sentenced to conditional fines of between 100 and 400 euros for presumption of office. The conditional fines imposed were more symbolic, but annoying for the defendants in that they resulted in an extension of the probation period for convicts with conditional sentences still outstanding.
As part of the “Schengenblick” project , the “Bukaka says: Another war is.” Piece based on the text “Bukaka spat here” by Alexander Brener and Barbara Schurz was presented on July 24th at the Dom im Berg in Graz - the European Capital of Culture 2003 possible ”. It's about Bukaka, who is an artificial being, a cyborg, about her confrontation with identity and the world.
The Volxtheaterkarawane managed to submit five of the ten winning slogans to the slogan competition announced by the ÖVP on the occasion of the 2004 federal presidential election campaign. Because of these profits, five activists of the Volxtheaterkarawane were invited to a wine tavern with Benita Ferrero-Waldner in the 19th district of Vienna on April 12, 2004 . On this occasion, the performance artists published their invitation on the Internet and invited everyone interested to come to the Heuriger. About 40 people followed the request and cheered the Volxtheaterkarawane, which appeared as the Benita fan club ("Benita Ultras"). However, access to the Heuriger was prevented by the police and security personnel. Only two of the winners were allowed into the Heuriger. When they identified themselves as members of the Volxtheaterkarawane, however, they were removed very quickly by the security staff. Only after a long period of intervention was another winner allowed to enter the Heuriger. Inside there was a brief argument with the Foreign Minister, extracts of which were broadcast on radio and television. A few weeks later, Ferrero-Waldner apologized for forwarding police records to the Italian judiciary and described the affair as a "hangover in her career". She narrowly lost the election for Federal President to Heinz Fischer .
From October 20 to 30, 2004, the Volxtheaterkarawane, together with the Living Theater in New York, made a guest appearance at the “Public Playgrounds” series of events initiated by the Forum Free Theater in Düsseldorf . Finally, "the first pilot deportation of the cooperation partners european heimkehr and LTUuuh, with the support of the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, BgehS and Dusseldorf International Airport" was staged at the Neuss departure center and in downtown Düsseldorf. In public space the Volxtheaterkarawane “executed” a “new simple, cheap and safe method” of deporting asylum seekers on several people on October 29th. Attention was drawn to companies such as LTU and European Homecare that are benefiting from the deportation business . On October 27, 2004, “Genova Sample” - a staged reading dedicated to the recorded experiences of the people of the Volxtheaterkarawane arrested in Genoa in 2001 - premiered at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele.
Performances
- "Genova Sample" | October 2004 - January 2005
- "Bukaka says: Another war is possible" ( Brener / Schurz ) | Fall 2002 - July 2004
- “The lie of performance” ( Brener / Schurz ) | Spring 2001 - Summer 2002
Videos
- no-racism.net/nobordertour ( RAM ; 0 kB) Action at the Nickelsdorf border crossing
- www.kanalb.at “volXtheater meets benita ferrero-waldner”, video from kanalB
literature
- Janine Hüsch: "Interventionist forms of political theater. The connection between artistic practice and political activism using the example of the Living Theater and the VolxTheater" University of Lüneburg 2007, Master's thesis
- Gini Müller: "Antics of the performative. Theater, activism and queer politics" Vienna 2008, Turia + Kant publishing house, ISBN 978-3-85132-496-9
- Gerald Raunig: Art and Revolution Vienna 2005, Turia + Kant publishing house, ISBN 3-85132-425-0
- Gerald Raunig (ed.): Transversal - Art and Criticism of Globalization Vienna 2003, Turia + Kant publishing house, ISBN 3-85132-352-1
Web links
Media reports
- www.republicart.net another war is possible // volXtheater
- www.telepolis.de "Genoa: mistreatment of members of the VolxTheater caravan confirmed"