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a u f B r u c h
ART PRISON CITY
Was founded in 1997 and produces arts and theatre
projects at Tegel prison and other public spaces
in the city of Berlin.
"Inside": An average of two productions
a year take place at Tegel prison. At the moment,
the prison theatre group has about 25 members,
most of them serving long sentences.
"Outside": Performances, which are
thematically connected to the "Inside"
productions, are created on the Alexanderplatz,
along and on the river Spree and in other spaces
not normally used for theatre. In this way, different
points of view come into focus..
aufBruch has so far also initiated the KNASTFESTIVAL,
which took place at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
and in numerous prisons in Berlin and Brandenburg
in May 2000, as well as the very first interactive
prisoners´ website.
History: Theatre/ performance // 1997 First Unusual
Entry – "Oil Rig/ Tegel Lake" /
Second Unusual Entry – " The Besieged
Castle" / "Stone & Flesh" /
"The Robbers – Tegel Mixture" //
1998 "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest"
/ "Tegel –Alexanderplatz, Part 1: Committal"
/ "Tegel – Alexanderplatz, Part 2: Release"
// 1999 "The Hidden Space, Part 1: Transfer
Night – A journey in time on the river Spree"
/ "The Hidden Space, Part 2: Transfer Tegel"
// 2000 "Endgame" / "Consultation
on the State of the Nation"
History: Arts projects // 1997 "Drums in
Tegel", workshop / The Mobile Office // 1998
"Voices from Tegel", sound installation
/ "Faces from Tegel", photo installation
/ "Tegek Theatre", photo exhibition
// 1999 "Sheltered", installation /
"Children of Berlin", installation (New
York)
History: Internet // 1998 www.planet-Tegel.de,
website // 2000 www.trabant-Tegel.de, interactive
website
History: events // 1997 " Does insecurity
endanger security?", press conference and
discussion // 1998 "Is prison too humane?",
press discussion // 2000 KNASTFESTIVAL
Artistic directors: Roland Brus and Holger Syrbe
Team: Sibylle Arndt, Georg Kistner, Winfried
Tobias, Sommer Ulrickson, Wiebke Warskulat, Karen
Witthuhn and many others
In co-operation with Hebbel-Theater, Akademie
der Künste/ Junge Akademie Berlin, Kunst
& Knast e.v.
ART is to be taken out of the aesthetic ghetto
of theatre institutions and to take its place
in the public structure of the city. Through ART,
blurred traces in the urban landscape can be read,
human beings become visible again. As if under
a microscope, life is revealed in hidden spaces.
aufBruch mixes different styles and ART forms,
from theatre/ performance to sound and photographic
installations to internet projects. The combination
and opposition of these means correspond with
the complexity of the subject matter. ART enables
looks from the "outside" to the "inside"
to the "outside" – through constant
reflection, a new, different view of reality is
created.
PRISON. A city within the city with roads, houses,
doors and gates, parks, a sports ground, offices,
workshops, hospital, high walls and its very own
PRISON. A non-public place which is part of the
public space. An isolated world to be discovered,
inhabited by people living hidden lives. Violence,
crime and life in a multinational society are
inseparably linked with the desires, dreams, hopes,
fears and biographies of the individual. Social
life follows its own fixed rules in a strictly
confined space as if under a burning glass. We
see PRISON as a school for perception and as a
mirror of society.
CITY. Not just architecture, but a living social
organism, whose pulse aufBruch wants to accelerate
over and over again. The function of public spaces
as the organs in the body of the CITY becomes
perceptible in this way. We aim to find out where
there is still life to be detected in the "New
Berlin" in spite of the beauty surgery of
recent years, and to direct the gaze at gradually
paling traces in the face of the city. CITY is
the visible expression of the social order. aufBruch
wants to leave fresh imprints in the concrete
of this order and to enable its audience to see
their every day surroundings with different eyes.
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