„Identity(ies)“: Artistic workshop seminar with the Carlo-Schmid-School:
The theme of "Identity(ies)" was the central focus of several different seminars at the wannseeFORUM in 2016. Following a voluntary social year/cultural elective seminar in visual arts in April and the Pentecost Academy on youth participation in May, the year also saw an artistic workshop seminar with the Carlo-Schmid-School from December 5th to 10th addressing this topic. The students of class 8.23 from the Spandau school were guests at the wannseeFORUM, exploring the concepts of "I," "we," and "them" through three parallel workshops: music/songwriting, performance, and photo/film.
On the first day of the seminar, the political spectrum of the topic was explored with the young people. The participants were asked to position themselves on an imagined "agreement scale" in the room, according to their stance on identity politics: Should civil servants, such as teachers, be allowed to display religious symbols? Should families living in Germany speak (or be required to speak) German at home? And should left-handed children be forced to become right-handed? Particularly prompted by the last question, different conceptions of what constitutes our identity were discussed, along with how these conceptions, as well as "evaluations" and hierarchies of identities, can change over time: What was once taken for granted is now almost unimaginable – or is it?
In the artistic workshop, participants then explored their own conceptions of identity(ies) and the question of what exactly constitutes our own identity. The photo-film group (led by Anna Kohlschütter) focused on the sub-theme of family: Here, the family was viewed as a kind of primal unit of identity formation. The tragedy of a seemingly "perfectly normal" family was depicted: The resulting photo-film (an animated sequence of superimposed still images set to music) told the story from the perspective of the youngest of three sisters, illustrating the upheavals caused by their parents' separation into the originally stable family structure. The effects on the various family members differed, but what they all shared was that the family's disintegration left deep scars.
The performance workshop (led by Vinzenz Fengler) explored the tension between individual and group identities in their work. In striking images and with great seriousness, the young people from the Spandau "hotspot" neighborhood of Heerstraße-Nord presented insights into their innermost selves: what defines me, what do I love, what makes me angry and sad – and what do I wish for? Over the course of the art-reading performance, the eight individuals coalesced into a group that embraced both the individual and the shared collective: "It's about our self – our collective – our life!"„
A similar essence was presented by the music workshop (led by Cenk Arpa) at the end of the seminar: „I am who I am. You are who you are. This is our "Life" – that's the catchy refrain of the song the group wrote together over the course of the week. The verses, sung in English and German, dealt with important aspects of the two singers' identities, and also with the central role that music plays in them.
At the end of the seminar, in addition to the numerous impressive works of art and performances, there was also the realization that art can offer some answers to the big questions of being an individual, a person, and a group – and in doing so, raises many new questions.
Photo impressions from the seminar:
The seminars were funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family.
