X-Erinnerungen

All over the world, colonial monuments are being toppled, streets renamed and history is being rewritten. The memories of long-suppressed perspectives are finally being heard. At the same time, nationalist-right forces in Austria and elsewhere are trying to hijack memory and reinterpret history.

 

For “X-Erinnerungen”, local and international artists set out on a search for traces throughout St. Pölten. A total of 21 places, including private flats, abandoned factories, historic farms and hidden clubhouses, will become sites for the negotiation of memories. What stories are hidden in the living room behind the inconspicuous façade in the pedestrian zone? And where do the stories of the former Glanz­stoff factory, whose smell hung over St. Pölten for decades, take us?

 

Along three routes through the city, the participating artists develop ten minute performances, plays or installations, which the audience explores in groups of two. They connect the imaginary, researched or experienced with the local contexts and thus create unexpected encounters between then and now, here and there. How can we remember together and what perspectives does this open up for the way we live together in the future?

 

“X-Erinnerungen” is an extension of the successful format “X-Wohnungen”, invented by theatre maker Matthias Lilienthal, which has been realised in Johannesburg, Caracas, Berlin and Duisburg, among other places, since its premiere in 2002.