Opening performances and installation followed by a talk

With Christina Lederhaas, Vera Hagemann, Heidrun Primas, Igor F. Petkovic', Dr. in. Jur. Christine Lanschützer, invited: representatives of the initiatives Komitee Rösselmühle, Verein Aporon 21, Wohnlabor, Studio Magic, circulART Materialhalle, SizeTwo, Raum 117, young people from Graz, as well as owner representatives and decision-makers from the City of Graz.
Artistic management team: Astrid Behrens, Angelika Fink, Katja Kettner, Elsa Büsing
 
Children of Compost - Talk

Welcome: Katja Kettner and Angelika Fink
Moderation: Heidrun Primas

An attempt at an approach - the Rösselmühle in its current development process raises the question of what value we as a society attach to urban space and its post-industrialized traditions. How do we deal with the living memory of the city?
In interim use projects such as the Rösselmühle, freelance interdisciplinary artists represent an indispensable potential and expertise for upgrading the urban development process of such areas. How can these creative players be heard in the ongoing participatory process of this development?
We talk to the various initiatives that are currently artistically active as interim users in the Rösselmühle and ask about their visions and ideas for the future of the Rösselmühl area?  How can common goals be found in a constructive and respectful setting and how can forms of communication be developed to implement them? What will Graz look like in 100 years? What threads can we cast out into a common future?
Cohabitation.... means "living with", which is not always pleasant, innocent, beautiful or free from danger. "Living with" promotes the development of neighborhoods. The closed residential complexes of gated communities are their opposite, because neighbors are beings whose presence we have not chosen. This includes complicity with plants, even those that are considered weeds, by the roadside and elsewhere. Plants are the pillars of the world, with their bodies and their metabolism they hold the earth and the sky together.[10] Without them there would be no cities, no urban air, no humans and animals. ( Fahim Amir, Solidarity is the tenderness of the species, cohabitation its lived exploration).
 
CHILDREN OF COMPOST INSTALLATION - Astrid Behrens and team

The visual layer for Children of Compost is based on video material that was created during research trips with Munich senior citizens to Fröttmaninger Berg in 2022 and 2023. The surface of the so-called "renaturalized" mountain of garbage appears here like a stage on which the performers move in the Rösselmühle. The superficially healed crust of the mountain becomes a performance space, a foil for their own compost and an impulse to kick off the subsequent talk.

IT SEEMS LIKE I'M GONE - a choreographic loop by Christina Lederhaas
 
I withdraw myself! I remove myself! I absent myself! I disappear! I dilute myself! I recommend myself! I'm getting out of here! I'm going down the drain! I pull the cord! I'm getting away! I'm getting away! I'm taking off! I'm staying out! I'm not coming! I do not take place!
ES SCHEINT, ALS WÄRE ICH WEG is a choreographic loop by Christina Lederhaas about the longing to (briefly) submerge when the air on the surface becomes too stuffy.

brûlons ce vieux monde oder als ich feuer fing - text-based sound performance by Vera Hagemann
 
… als ich feuer fing, ging es mit mir 
durch 
als ich feuer fing, brannten alle sicherungen durch
als ich feuer fing, brannten die alten doktrine, die glaubenssätze,
es brannten die schulen,
es brannten die mühlen in denen ich gemahlen wurde.
als ich feuer fing, ging kaputt was
schon kaputt war
als ich feuer fing, stieg ich wie der phoenix aus der asche und
war frei.
als ich feuer fing, brannte ich
kurz.
als ich feuer fing, fing man mich.
in den fängen jener
sehnte ich mich
nach dem nächsten großen feuer.
 
With the kind support of the Cultural Promotion of the City of Graz, Creative Europe, the Dramatists Festival and the artists at the Rösselmühle