An Initiative of the
Zipp: German-Czech cultural projects. The name of the Initiative describes its character. Just as a zip – as it is also called in Czech – effortlessly connects fabric -- the idea of the enterprise is to link up academics, artists and others working in the cultural sphere with the greatest possible ease.
The participants are involved in collaborative projects under the umbrella of “Zipp”, and work in a diverse range of areas including theatre, film and radio, architecture, fine arts and contemporary history. The projects do, however, have one thing in common. They all focus upon topical social issues. As far as ease of relations is concerned, the idea is to establish working relationships and intellectual links that are as stable as possible, but at the same time also flexible. The intention is to help free up German-Czech relations, which have become rigid and stereotypical in character in many instances, not least for historical reasons.
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Sounds. Radio - Art - Neue Musik
n.b.k. (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein)
Exhibition: 13 Feb - 28 March 2010
Life-worlds
Under the heading “Lifeworlds” three Zipp projects reflect and contrast the reality of both countries in varying artistic formats. In “rádio d-cz” for example, stations in Germany and the Czech Republic produce radio works by authors, radio dramatists, and composers, who capture individual and collective experiences in the neighboring country and transform them experimentally into soundscapes. The theatre project “Search Engine” by Rimini Protocol, a collective acclaimed for its work with amateurs, the “experts of everyday life”, uses archival material and people from Dresden and Prague to develop an evening devoted to exploring construed local specificities. “Breathless” is a series of documentary films, initiated by the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animation Film and the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague, which look into the radical changes in Germany and the Czech Republic over the past few decades.
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Utopia of Modernity: Zlín
The Moravian city of Zlín is considered a model city of Modernity par excellence. Built in the 1920s and 1930s, its planners drew their inspiration from Le Corbusier’s “functional city”, Howard’s garden city, and Garnier’s ‘cité industrielle’. Its urban-utopian aspiration made it into a unique example of urban planning in the history of European industry – inseparably connected to the Zlín firm of Bat´a, one of the first shoe manufacturers to operate globally. The success story of the company’s founder Tomáš Bat’a and Zlín’s architectural history have both been exhaustively examined; what is missing is an extensive cultural analysis of Zlín as a “utopian project”, one which examines urbanity from the perspective of a comparative critique of ideology on the one hand, while also striving to (re-) vitalize the discussion of the relationship between Modernity and the city. A symposium to be held in Zlín between 19 – 23 May 2009 and an exhibition in fall 2009 in Germany shall contribute to this cultural analysis, for the first time investigating the interrelationships between economic and social, biographical and architectural factors in this utopian urban planning project. In this way the symposium and exhibition also represent an important contribution to the current European discussion on urbanity.
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Kafka
The Kafka conference held at Liblice castle in 1963 is generally regarded as one of the intellectual precursors to the political upheaval and sense of new departure that gripped Czechoslovakia and culminated in the “Prague Spring” of 1968. To mark the 125th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s birth, the crucial years between these two dates are to be explored anew. At a conference in Liblice entitled “Kafka and Power. 1963-1968-2008”, held in October 2008, the different perspectives of literary scholars, contemporary witnesses, historians, and philosophers on the events and their context are to be interrelated. In addition, for a period of 20 months Zipp is supporting work on the projected 30 volumes of the historical-critical edition of Kafka’s works (FKA) by the German scholars Roland Reuß and Peter Staengle. It is the goal of the FKA to facsimile Kafka’s complete works, making them accessible to the public in an authentic form.
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1968|1989
2008 marks the 40th anniversary of those events subsumed under the label of “1968”. Such a subsuming belies though the heterogeneity of the historical events and the diverse possibilities of their interpretation. From the outset of 2008 there has been no lack of remembering, arguing, polemic, and glorifying in the media and broader public. It is thus high time for an approach that is better equipped to come to grips with the complexity and contradictory nature of the theme. The project 68/89 – Art.Contemporary.History takes a multiperspectival approach: it brings together historians, dramaturges, and artists from several countries, creating a process wherein they can share and exchange their experiences and reflections. The starting point for this exploration of “1968” is the reform process launched in the then Czechoslovakia. The “Prague Spring” will be discussed from two angles. Firstly, it is to be located in the broader context of the European and global history of the social protest movements and cultural avant-gardes which came to the fore in the late 1960s. Focus will be placed on the common features of the movements, cultural transfer, and ideological or personal misunderstandings between the 1968ers in East and the West. At the same time, the project points beyond “1968”: it examines cultural developments after the rollback of reforms in Czechoslovakia, the fate of the forged East-West contacts during “normalization”, and the role the 1968ers played in finally bringing down the Iron Curtain. Finally, the project will ask how commemoration of the historical turning points of ’68 and ’89 functions today, which myths and symbols are shaping historical memory, and to what extent the demise of communism casts a new light on “1968”.
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Background texts
Reissverschluss am Trainingsanzug der Geschichte
THIS TEXT IS AVAILABLE IN GERMAN ONLY.
Über zwei Jahre wird Zipp – deutsch-tschechische Kulturprojekte mit sieben gezielt initiierten Projekten den deutsch-tschechischen Kulturaustausch bereichern. Künstler, Kulturschaffende und Wissenschaftler aus beiden Ländern kooperieren in verschiedenen Konstellationen, um die Herausforderungen europäischer Gegenwart gemeinsam und kreativ zu verhandeln. In Ausstellungen, Theaterstücken, im Radio und auf Konferenzen. In welchem Kontext aber geschieht das? Wie komplex ist das deutsch-tschechische Verhältnis, wie mächtig die Vergangenheit, wo liegen die Grenzen gut gemeinter Diplomatie, welche Chancen bietet Zipp? Katrin Klingan, Leiterin von Zipp, Tomáš Kafka, Diplomat im tschechischen Außenministerium, und Tobias Weger vom Bundesinstitut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa im Gespräch, Moderation: Christiane Kühl.
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