Welcome!

On the way from the station into the town, I am uncertain. Curiosity is usually combined with unease when I travel to small East German towns as a Black woman. Most of the time, I am helplessly confronted with the question of how to dispel the worries about my safety and the stereotypical images that accompany me. In Bitterfeld-Wolfen, the voting behavior of the local residents seems to speak a particularly clear language. 37 percent of people here voted for a party whose far-right orientation simply cannot be explained away. If this place has a welcoming culture, then it probably doesn't apply to me.

Two days before the start of the OSTEN theater festival, I walk to the main venue, which is located on the grounds of the old fire station. While I'm thinking about how much the residents of Bitterfeld-Wolfen will get involved in the lectures, workshops and the questioning of their own social structures, a car pulls up in front of me. The man at the wheel gives me a friendly wave from across the road. The same thing will happen to me twice more on the short journey to the fire station: On a stretch of road without traffic lights or crosswalks, drivers stop just because they see that I want to cross to the other side of the road. I chat with friendly passers-by who show me the way to the fire station. With kiosk owners who also want to come by the festival in the next few days. And very slowly I feel addressed when Wolfen whispers in my direction: Welcome.

I’m greeted even more effusively at the festival center: by the curatorial team, technicians, architects and people working in the administration. And then the press officer Daniela Schulze arrives to collect me. We walk through Wolfen along an art trail that shows the artists' work throughout the town center. I see photographic works, installations and films, works by local and visiting artists who are trying to build a bridge to the city's complex past. Against the backdrop of old factories, they tell of textile and color film manufacturing and the chemical industry. They evoke associations with the much-cited environmental pollution in the region, but also with the first environmental demonstration that took place here in GDR times. They show the ambivalence of memories that arises when lignite pits become bathing lakes and yet toxic contaminated sites remain omnipresent. They shed light on the specific experiences of the women who shaped local industrial life. And in between all of this, the spirit of a historical cultural experiment hovers in the background: the radically participatory Bitterfelder Weg project, which aimed to bring artists and workers together at the beginning of the 1960s.

I'm sitting in the Wolfen Industry and Film Museum, at the end of the art trail, sorting through historical and political facts, soaking up the bustling creativity of the town, with an indecisive gray sky reflecting the mood. Shortly afterwards, torrential rain pours down on the parched meadows outside. Daniela Schulze and I are wondering whether we can make it to the fire station with the protection of some bin bags when the museum director, Sven Sachenbacher, approaches us. An employee follows him, a bin bag in each hand, but Sachenbacher waves him away. "Come on, I'll drive you," he says. And on the short drive to the fire station, he talks about the last major flood disaster. At the festival center, I will later be told that the experience of the Mulde bursting its banks with such force left many people distraught. But they say that dealing with the floods was also one of the great communal events of recent years. A time when people from the area felt connected to each other again. And the festival is also about fragile bonds.

Back at the old fire station, Aljoscha Begrich explains that he and his team primarily want to create a festival FOR something, not AGAINST something. "We are interested in events for diversity, for democracy, for pluralism – for a space for exchanging opinions. We work together with associations such as 'Frauen helfen Frauen,' with multi-generational houses, amateur theaters, school classes, motorbike clubs and many others from the town. And, of course, there will also be AfD voters among them, I have no illusions about that given the election results."

It goes without saying that certain attitudes will not be tolerated by the festival. Anyone who adheres to this is welcome. The hope is that the audience will be as diverse as possible and interested in the past and present of a place that tells us so much about the complexity of East German experiences.

A number of people from Wolfen are involved, from social welfare organizations, various schools and youth clubs to allotment garden associations. Supra-regional and international supporters are also involved: Colleges and universities from Dresden, Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, Frankfurt (am Main), Goethe Institutes from New York and Kyiv, artists from the United States, Japan and Ukraine. The projects that have come to the town via THE ART OF STAYING MANY seem to be in the best of company. For example, Tanja Krone's "Exercise in stimulating election campaigns" or the performance "Paul and Paula in search of happiness without end," based on the GDR cultural film, by the group Das Helmi, who set out in search of happiness with employees of Diakonie, the Protestant social welfare organization. "I see the whole festival as a large theater production in which art becomes an opportunity for encounters and exchange," says Aljoscha Begrich. "I believe that the historical tradition of the location contributes greatly to making exactly that possible."

As the rain eases, we see that the work on the huge planned water slide on the forecourt was only briefly interrupted by the rain. The children from the neighboring daycare center are already standing at the garden fence again, looking longingly at the goings-on next door. Perhaps they will come to the festival in the coming days with their parents, swimming costumes in tow. But what about the city's older children, who are no longer so easily integrated into the community? Art student Carla Maruscha Fellenz has photographed some of them and presented them on large posters in an underpass near the Film Museum. She accompanied the young people to the bus stop, where they can be found almost every day after school. They are intimate pictures that tell of boredom and slowness. Of an environment that stands between a complicated past and a politically questionable present and that doesn’t offer much to the young people. After all, in places like these, who takes a comprehensive interest in young people? Who can they talk to? And beyond committed cultural worlds and civil initiatives, who even wants to talk to each other openly?

"I arrived here in 2016 with an attitude that I had acquired in Berlin's cultural world," says Aljoscha Begrich. "My motto back then was: I don't talk to right-wingers. On one of my first visits, the CDU mayor took me to the city parliament and said: 'There's someone from the AfD sitting at every third table here.’ So, I quickly realized that I would have to talk to right-wingers. They were already sitting in our living rooms, so to speak. For me, that still means learning to negotiate how we don't give certain positions a platform – and still tolerate the fact that there are points of contact. Because they are omnipresent in this region."

Matthias Goßler was someone who was able to make connections. He ran an event company in Wolfen, he owned the Kulturpalast and he helped to launch the OSTEN festival. When he died in an accident two years ago, it was a loss on a human level, says Begrich, but also on a political and social one. "Matthias was in the CDU, the civic association, the volleyball club and simply knew everyone. He gave me practical tips about security companies that were good to work with and those you should stay away from. If the AfD came to power in places like this – and it most probably will – then we would need completely new strategies for thinking about cultural work. We will still need permits from fire protection authorities, public utilities and administrative offices. We'll have to get electricity and place signage on the streets." Begrich believes it is important to encourage an exchange of ideas between those involved in THE ART OF STAYING MANY. To explore the question of what the increasing shift to the right means in practical terms for theater makers?

For artists in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, the main task at the moment is to explore the many overlapping local stories. Photographer Anke Heelemann has collected private photos relating to the town. The result is a very personal work with contributions from photo albums, boxes of mementoes and brigade diaries. Pictures of family celebrations, everyday scenes and excursions, in whose casualness the stories of the region unfold. On the possible captions that Heelemann provides for visitors to the festival to create their own stories, there are sentences and snippets of words: "I was at the movies." "Champion shot." "Pickled cucumber season."

"When we were planning the first festival four years ago, we asked ourselves whether it was possible to build on the Bitterfeld approach," says Aljoscha Begrich, referring to the amazing willingness of some local people to get involved in art projects. "We have found that there is still something in the structures that can be salvaged. Because at the end of the day, this is the idea of a social practice: artists going out into the real world and meeting working people, who in turn are encouraged to make art."

On the way back to Berlin, I change trains in Bitterfeld. A quote from the writer Monika Maron adorns the tiles on the station walls: "If we don't see each other in this world, we'll see each other in Bitterfeld." How would the notorious critic of Islam feel about the many Arabic-speaking people I meet on the platform – people who have come to Saxony-Anhalt from all over the world? How does Bitterfeld feel about them? A young woman is standing right next to me. As it turns out, she’s Moroccan, while an older couple who join in the conversation are from Syria. A little further away sits a group of young men who are laughing loudly and also speaking Arabic. I imagine them all leaving Bitterfeld-Wolfen station together. That they will receive the same warm welcome as I did a few hours ago. Because then perhaps there would still be hope. For Bitterfeld – and for the rest of the world.

This text is part of a series of articles accompanying THE ART OF STAYING MANY program. Elisabeth Wellershaus is in charge of the series, in which she looks at open and closed spaces in a fragile society with authors such as Esther Boldt, Nora Burgard-Arp, Zonya Dengi and Mirrianne Mahn.

On June 14, the theater truck of the series will make a stop in Bitterfeld-Wolfen and invites you to the workshop "Schön aufmischen! An exercise in stimulating election campaigns" with Tanja Krone. The program includes the premiere of "Paul und Paula auf der Suche nach dem Glück ohne Ende" by DAS HELMI, the performance "Baggern" by STUDIO URBANISTAN and the concert "Holiday am Silbersee" by the Wolfen punk band AbRaum.