Interested people from Sofia, Berlin, Belgrade and Marseille met in the Bulgarian capital from 10th to 13th June 2024 to discuss “Walls in the mind – discover the other”. There were young and old, dancers, actors, people involved in a district centre or a language café, deaf people and their sign language interpretor – almost everyone was multilingual. Initial ideas for the joint performance and photos for the exhibition were created. Both will be shown in Berlin in October 2025.
Mixed groups started by making associations with the project theme. The ignorance of people in Western Europe about societies in the east of the continent was seen as a “wall”. This lack of understanding has cultural and social dimensions and is also characterised by neglecting history. This expresses a certain selfishness, but also fear, a fearful circling around oneself. Participants from Eastern Europe in turn cited the exclusion of deaf people as examples of “walls”: in the theatre, when a lot is demanded over the phone, that there are hardly any trained sign language interpreters in Serbia. Or they mentioned fear, loneliness, (pre-)judgements, barriers due to language, religion and culture. Still others spoke of the polarisation of public opinion and that people are labelled rather than having a debate based on arguments. It was also extremely difficult to talk about the war in Ukraine.
People get to know and understand each other better when they do something together – and develop their creative potential and self-expression. Initial ideas for the performance with elements of theatre, cinema, visual arts and literature were playfully compiled by the participants. They wrote down 100 words per art form in four small groups. From these, 10 words were then selected. A text was then created from these words or the words were visualised. Example: public sphere. The term was represented by a Greek-style amphitheatre and the WIFI symbol for blogs, internet newspapers and social media. In contrast, the reference to samizdat literature (self-published in socialist times) appeared with the symbol for high voltage. Up-to-date? Yes. In what way?
The knowing eye sees better, and an environment is perceived differently with the camera. Often more intensely. The participants were invited to take five to ten photos of objects that particularly appealed to them during their visit to a gallery and the Museum of the History of Sofia. The discussion about this was very revealing. Because it showed what people can perceive from the same exhibition – and what not. After an introduction to the padlet platform, the images are shared online and the material for the exhibition is compiled. See here the common padlet.
“It was great to experience an international encounter.” “Fortunately, it’s not a big goodbye. See you in Marseille.” End of September 2024.
