SPEAK TO ME, CIVIL RIGHTS

Floris Lantink PyraSied Xtreme Acrylic

For her current project, Sprich mit mir, Grundrechte/Speak to Me, Civil Rights, Witt interviewed fifty Chemnitzers about their subjective relationship to fundamental rights. The work is based less on statistics and facts than on each individual’s emotions and experiences. At the same time, the project examines the current debates about the “order … to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2” and its impact on civil society. It also picks up on the debate that raged in June about striking the term “race” from article three of the German constitution.

To do this, Witt conversed with a wide range of people from diverse social milieus. The resulting records of anonymous conversations serve as the basis for public reading. At scheduled times, a performer will read selected excerpts out loud. A convoluted pavilion made of acrylic glass plates has been installed close to the Roter Turm (Red Tower). It functions as both connector and divider. For one, the acrylic has a distancing effect, and for another, the fixed wall guarantees that hygiene and safety rules are obeyed, thus permitting an intimate situation that allows an audience to listen to individual readings.

ANNA WITT * 1981 in Wasserburg am Inn, DE, lives and works in Vienna, AT

Anna Witt investigates the area of conflict between the individual and society—the boundaries between the self and others. Her main issue is how social conventions influence the formation of the subject. How do we become what we are? What do we want, and what could we become? For her performative interventions in the public space, she involves selected individuals and groups who become collaborators in the action.