OSTBEGEGNUNGEN - Workshops (2024)

collaboration with Luisa Bäde & Karolin Benker

OSTBEGEGNUNGEN is an interdisciplinary workshop & performance project for the visibility of East German perspectives of the Nachwendekindergeneration (post-reunification generation).

The three artists Karolin Benker (theater direction), Josefine Luka Simonsen (dance & performance) and Luisa Bäde (participatory documentary film) use the project to complement the often West German-influenced perspective on East Germany with diverse East German socialized voices and realities of life and thus expand the view of the East with new narratives.

In 2024, the project started with a research phase in workshops. The artists hosted two workshops in Cologne and Weimar and invited other Nachwendekinder to an autobiographic research using artistic methods from dance, theatre and documentary film. In these workshops, the artists collect diverse perspectives of the Nachwendekindergeneration and explore how this generation was also shaped collectively by the transformation processes of the reunification.

The material from the workshops was used to create the installative performance „OSTBEGEGNUNGEN - Nachwendekinder alive and kicking!“