2018
a project by Freundliche Mitte (Steinbuch / Rinnert / Straub)
Freundliche Mitte postulates a society of the many. BERGEINS is a walk-through installation of sound and image – the archive of a society between retreating and running.
Austrians voted in the autumn of 2017 – and they voted for the right. For the second time in the era of the Second Republic, an Austrian government includes the Freedom Party, whose members hardly conceal their proximity to right-wing extremism. From paramilitary exercises to Holocaust denial, from a policy of social exclusion to a self-staging as “the new Jews”: the right wing knows how to paint perpetrators as victims. Its representation of itself and the world is gaining popularity, not least among young people. Shouting out their goal to “defend Europe!”, the Identitarian movement fights against a multicultural mix and in its stead for the “genuine Austrian”. But who is this genuine Austrian? Certainly a man! What about female and transgender Austrians? Where exactly do the limits of society lie and who decides who is allowed to be part of it?
It is here that Freundliche Mitte and their new project pick up. In various steps, they deal with the hot topic of how to live together as a society and as a community. The basis for their walk-through installation is work with several associations in Vienna, from a senior club to a scout group, and extensive research on projects of community housing in Vienna and utopian concepts of organising cohabitation. The interior of Mountain One links the narrative of a community inside the mountain with documentarian footage, blurring the lines between fiction and European reality. Is this mountain a utopia or a refuge? Is it a way of running away or walling off? And does it still exist, this so-called Outside?
Conception: Freundliche Mitte (Gerhild Steinbuch / Philine Rinnert / Sebastian Straub)
in Collaboration with: Katharina Bach, Johannes Bellermann, Bernhard Fleischmann, Pia Derler, Simon Dietersdorfer, Lucas Gruber, Dario Stefanek and Mechthild Weber.
With: Cleidy Acevedo, Rupert Angermeier, Vitus Angermeier, Michael Bednar, Max Bohm, Manuel Bumba, Elias Calinescu, Andrea Dobersberger, Marco Ebli, Antonia Fätkenheuer, Michael Floigl, Daniel Fröhlich, Imola Galvácsy, Eva Geißler, Marlies Gruber, Ernestine Gstöttner, Hamid Haiharoev, Matthias Hofer, Sophie Humer, Cheyenne Jehsenku, Reinhard Klauser, David Knauer, Silvester Kößler, Larissa Kopp, Bartek Kubiak, Dora Kuthy, Bettina Laimer, Stephan Langer, Claudia Lomoschitz, Hannah Mayr, Theresa Maehr, Carsten Missmahl, Andreas Müller, Aleksandar Murkovic, Laura Negele, Mirjam Papouschek, Henriette Pascher, Christina Plank, Elias Polterauer, Christina Raab, Simona Reisch, Martina Rösler, Lea Salvasohn, Tobias Salge, Gabriel Schmidt, Alina Sklenicka, Margarethe Staudner, Sophie Steinbeck, Marlies Surtmann, Valerie Tillinger, Sandy Tomsits, Bünyamin Titiz, Ilse Urbanek, Simon Usaty, Isis Várkonyi, Teresa Walentich, Stephanie Wörter, Eva Wolfesberger, Helga Wolfgruber, András Zeöld, Zbynek Zigo, Pfadfindergruppe 6&7 „PAXTU“
Opening: 14.02.2018 at brut, Wien
Invited to Dramatikerinnenfestival in Graz, 7th June 2018, Dom Im Berg.
A co-production by Freundliche Mitte, brut Wien and uniT Graz. With the kind support of the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of Graz and the Styrian Provincial Government.
