PERFORMANCES & EVENTS
POLITICIANS’ CLIMATE EXAM.
As part of the Fridays for Future strategy team, we conceptualised an artivistic intervention for the 2019 Austrian National Council elections: Politicians running for office were invited to sit a "climate exam", which was broadcast live on the national Puls24 TV channel. Candidates from the entire political landscape accepted the challenge, with the exception of the right-wing Freedom Party. Being put back into the shoes of pupils, they had to present their respective plans for reaching the national Paris climate targets. These were analyzed and evaluated by Austria's leading climate scientists, Gottfried Kirchengast and Karl Steininger (University Graz) Helga Kromp-Kolb (University for Life Sciences Vienna) and Sigrid Stagl (University for Business and Economics VIenna). The event was moderated by Johannes Stangl, activist and complexity scientist, Corinna Milborn, TV anchor, and me. The audience consisted of students, who questioned the politicians about their responsibility for the welfare of future generations.
TIME CAPSULE 2050.
Hybrid storytelling ritual for six hundred change-makers across the globe. Developed and facilitated for European Forum Alpbach. Participants travelled through time via communal storytelling. By activating their imagination, the emotional divide between ancestors and descendants, present and future was bridged. After putting themselvces into the shoes of people in the far future, they wrote letters to future change-makers, which were put in a time capsule to be opened in 2050.
SCHNABELPERCHTEN.
This public intervention in collaboration with artist Franziska Graf was a response to an Alpine tradition called “Perchten-Läufe”. In these folkloristic parades, devil-like creatures drive out bad spirits around the midwinter period. They are led by a female figure called “Frau Percht” who was originally a pagan goddess known for being nurturing towards children and nature. Despite its historical roots , this tradition only allows men to participate in the parade, dress up as Perchten and whip people with chains.
This is especially perverse in the case of Schnabelperchten, a sub-category of Perchten from the Tyrolean Rauris region. Here, the figures are depicted as female bird creatures, yet again inhabited solely by men. Often, the older meanings and connections to nature have been lost in the parades.
In an eco-feminist reclamation of Austrian folklore, the Schnabelperchten were reintroduced at Vienna’s Christmas market and reconnected to their ancient roots. Instead of being whipped, passers-by were prompted to reflect on entering the midwinter period by caring for themselves, their community, and the natural world.