"Will the East remain different?" was the key question on Tuesday, 8 October. Author Steffen Mau presented his recently published book and then engaged in a discussion with Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka, curator of the #3000Garagen project, and Julia Brettschneider from the puppet theatre at Chemnitz Theatre.
35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the discussion about differences between East and West is still ongoing. Sociologist Steffen Mau addresses these differences in his latest book Ungleich vereint (Unequally United) and asks what defines the East - politically, sociologically and economically. Many projects in the Chemnitz 2025 programme also deal with the eventful history of the city and the biographies of the people who live in Chemnitz and the Capital of Culture region. That's why Steffen Mau got into conversation with Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka, curator of the #3000Garagen project, and Julia Brettschneider from the Puppet Theatre of the Chemnitz Theatre after an impulse on the theses of his book. The event was moderated by Caroline Galvis.
On the podium:
Steffen Mau is Professor of Macrosociology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His book Lütten Klein (2019) is dedicated to the transformation history of Lütten Klein during the collapse of the GDR. In 2021, he received the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation.
Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka is the curator of #3000Garages, one of the main projects of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. Since 2022, she has been working in the environment of the countless Chemnitz garage yards, most of which were built by their users themselves during the GDR era. In the programme field "Eastern State of Mind", #3000Garagen takes a look at these places of everyday architecture and draws a collective portrait of the city of Chemnitz based on the people who use garages and their stories.
Julia Brettschneider is a director at the Figurentheater Chemnitz, where she is staging the "Archaeology of Things": a theatre piece about objects found in Chemnitz garages. The play performatively explores the stories from the garage environment. With a biographical-documentary approach, an open approach to the hidden, the lives of the owners as well as passions, expertise and transformations unfolds. Julia Brettschneider has directed at theatres including Theater Aachen, tjg Dresden, Theatern Chemnitz, Junges Schauspiel Bremerhaven and tdjw Leipzig.
Note: Steffen Mau's impulse on the theses from his book "Ungleich vereint" are not in the video. The event took place on 8 October 2024 in the Hartmannfabrik. The discussion series is part of the Soft Skills Academy, a project of the European Workshop for Culture and Democracy of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH.
