UNITE + SHINE DEMONSTRATION | 19.05.2019

Call on artists, active members of the cultural landscape and cultural institutions to on May 19th 2019 to the brilliant demo “UNITE & SHINE” (Treffpunkt Volksbühne Berlin, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz). Here you can find the complete program and the route of the demonstration.

Art is not created within national borders! Freedom of art, right of asylum and freedom of movement are indivisible: Safe escape routes, solidarity and an open society form the basis for the “right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community …”. – as stated in the Declaration of Human Rights. Restrictions or threats to artistic freedom are a bitter reality in Europe, both within and outside the European Union. Artists, intellectuals, dissenters and people with different lifestyles are increasingly pushed to the margins of society and/or forced to emigrate by right-wing extremist policies.

NOT WITH US! FOR ARTISTIC FREEDOM, AN OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS DEMOCRATIC DESIGN IN RESPECT, DIVERSITY AND TOLERANCE!

The countries of the European Union represent a diversity of lifestyles and cultures. Their political shape must be based on the idea of a Europe of many: A Europe of solidarity that does not always seal itself off, but creates secure access for people from non-European countries who want to live here. We demand that the right of asylum and artistic freedom do justice to a Europe of many. Together we are sending a brilliant signal for an open society: for the further development of its democratic design in respect, diversity and tolerance, as well as against racism, discrimination and right-wing national authoritarianism.

#UNITEANDSHINE #SOLIDARITÄTSTATTPRIVILEGIEN #ESGEHTUMALLE #DIEKUNSTBLEIBTFREI

DIE VIELEN E.V. is a registered, non-profit association founded in June 2017. DIE VIELEN would like to strengthen communication and opportunities for action among artists, ensembles and actors of the performing and visual arts. The association shows solidarity with all those active in the art and cultural landscape and their institutions who are attacked or questioned by right-wing populist and right-wing extremist positions. He advocates living together with open borders – both internally and externally. DIE VIELEN organize actions and happenings that turn against hatred. This triggers controversial debates within the theatre and art landscape. The association acts as an active support network and offers networking platforms for art and cultural institutions and artists.

ROUTE & SCHEDULE

START: ROSA-LUXEMBURG-PLATZ AT THE VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN

12 PM: ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE START THE MANY

12:05 PM MUSIC | MAIKE ROSA | VOGEL Maike Rosa Vogel is a political singer-songwriter. In addition to five studio albums (most recently 2017 “Alles was ich will”) she writes music for films (e.g. “Whores’ Glory” by Michael Glawogger) and collaborates with various theatre makers. In 2013 she was awarded the Förderpreis der Liederbestenliste.

12:15 PM | SPEECH | INGO SCHULZE Ingo Schulze lives as a freelance writer in Berlin. His more than 25 literary publications have received numerous nominations and awards. He has been a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin since 2006 and of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt since 2007. In addition, he is a member of the Saxon Academy of the Arts and the PENZentrum Deutschland, which advocates the freedom of the word and educates people about programs such as writers-in-exile and writers-in-prison. In autumn 2019 he curates the forum:authors at the Literaturfest Munich under the motto “Einübungen ins Paradies. Questions to the world after 1989”.

12:20 PM | SPEECH | PIA MARIA ROLL & SARA BABAN Pia Maria Roll is a director at the Black Box Theater in Oslo. Her production “Ways of Seeing”, in which the actress Sara Baban was also involved, started a public and legal discourse on artistic freedom in Norway in November 2018: in the play, film footage of house facades of Norwegian politicians women could be seen. The right-wing Minister of Justice Tor Mikkel Wara and his partner Laila Bertheussen instrumentalized a series of vandalism attacks in and around their homes, allegedly motivated by this play, in order to deprive the Black Box Theater of its cultural support. The accusations led to a public smear campaign and police investigations against those involved in production and the theatre management. As it turns out in March, however, Tor Mikkel Wara and his partner committed the attacks themselves.

12:25 PM| MUSIC | ADIR JAN With his Cosmopolitan Kurdesque, the Berlin singer-songwriter represents a clear message: universal love and resistance to the most diverse forms of oppression. His band Adirjam is one of Berlin’s hottest art rock bands. Their music and party series “Zembîl” in the South Block is a call against homophobia and racism and for free love.

12:30 PM| LECTURE | “WORTE SCHWEIGEN, FLÜSTERN GEIGEN” VON ELFRIEDE JELINEK, GELESEN VON ANNE TISMER Anne Tismer is a performance artist, actress and co-founder of the Kunst- und Theaterhaus Ballhaus Ost. Over the past 30 years she has collaborated with countless important theatre makers, performance groups and visual artists*. She has received numerous international awards. Since the beginning of the year she has been a permanent member of the ensemble and part of the artists’ advisory board of the Volksbühne Berlin.

12:40 PM| SPEECH | CESY LEONARD Cesy Leonard is an artist, filmmaker and head of the planning staff of the Center for Political Beauty. The union of action artists suffered a severe attack on the Kunstfreit in 2018, when authorities investigated the ZPS as a “criminal association” for 16 months according to § 129 StGB. The paragraphs allow the authorities to take measures aimed at suspending fundamental rights without prosecuting a specific offence. Triggered by the reconstruction of the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe on the neighboring premises of the AfD politician Björn Höcke, the proceedings against the ZPS continued for more than a year, even though the Cologne Regional Court dismissed an action for invasion of privacy. The proceedings were not discontinued until April 2019.

12:45 PM| SPEECH | PAWEŁ ŁYSAK (TEATR POWSZECHNY / WARSCHAU) Paweł Łysak is the director of the Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw, which is repeatedly exposed to violent right-wing extremist protests. In 2017 the protests reached a new level of escalation when an alliance of right-wing national groups supported by parishes called for resistance against the church-critical play “klątwa” (German: Fluch/English: Curse) and violently entered the building during the performance.

12:50 PM| MUSIC | BERNADETTE LA HENGST Bernadette La Hengst is a musician and theatre-maker with a self-postulated inclination towards socio-political themes and utopian ideas. The 6th solo album of the agitation chanteuse, “Wir sind die vielen”, was released by Trikont in 2019. Since 2004 she has realised countless participative theatre projects and radio plays as a musician, director and author between Berlin, Hamburg, Freiburg and Bonn.

12:55 PM| DEMO- START | FEAT. SASHA PERERA Sasha Perera, also Mother Perera is a British musician living in Berlin. She is singer, MC, composer and lyricist of Jahcoozi and released four albums with this band. She also works as a DJ under the name Mother Perera and plays Future-Bass, UK Garage.

INTERMEDIATE STOP| UNTER DEN LINDEN

2 PM | SPEECH | OLIVER FRLJIĆ Oliver Frljić lives and works as a director, author, actor and theorist in Croatia. He has received several awards for his productions and has been invited to international festivals, including “klątwa” (German: Fluch/English: Curse), which led to right-wing radical protests in Warsaw. In 2014-2016 he was artistic director of the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka. In protest against Croatian cultural policy he announced his resignation in spring 2016.

FINAL| PLATZ DES 18. MÄRZ 14:40 PM| SPEECH | MARTA GORNICKA Marta Górnicka is a Polish director and singer. With the support of the Warsaw Theatre Institute she founded the “Choir of Women”. Since 2010 she has revived the choral principle in her plays as one of the most powerful elements of theatre. Her play “Grundgesetz” premiered in 2018 in a libretto she edited in front of the Brandenburg Gate, with a choir of 50 professional and non-professional actors from the different spectra of civil society.

2:45 PM| SPEECH | WOLFGANG TILLMANS (LONDON/BERLIN) Wolfgang Tillmans is a German photographer and artist who lives and works in Berlin and London and thus knows first-hand how Brexit changes artistic everyday life. He is founder of the foundation “Between Bridges”, which is dedicated to the promotion of democracy, international understanding, the arts and LGB rights. In 2016 he realized the “AntiBrexit-Campaign” (2016), followed by the campaigns “Protect the European Union”, “7 posters on the Bundestag election” and currently the “European Elections Campaign”.

2:50 PM| END | ANNOUNCEMENT HOLGER BERGMANN (DIE VIELEN)

FROM 3 PM | AM GROSSEN STERN | CLOSING RALLY „EIN EUROPA FÜR ALLE“

THE BERLIN EXPLANATION OF DIE VIELEN

Since November 9th 2018, leading figures from around 240 Berlin theatre, art and cultural institutions have signed the BERLINER ERKLÄRUNG DER VIELEN. They thus commit themselves to working together for an open, democratic society and to solidarity with cultural institutions and actors in the arts who are put under pressure by agitation and abuse. Together, illegitimate attempts by right-wing nationalists to exploit cultural events for their own purposes are to be fended off. Ethnic nationalist propaganda should no longer be offered a podium in a public discourse that is already overused by right-wing slogans and demands. Instead, an open, enlightening and critical dialogue on right-wing strategies is to be shaped with a nationwide campaign, action days and dialogue forums, and our society is to be further developed as a democratic one. The undersigned and supporters* of the DECLARATION will show solidarity with people who are being pushed further and further to the margins of society by right-wing extremist policies. The Germany-far campaign is carried by the non-profit association

DIE VIELEN e.V. – FURTHER DECLARATIONS OF DIE VIELEN

In other cities, regions and federal states, 23 further DECLARATIONS OF THE VIELS have been issued since then, which follow the declarations of action and the self-commitment of the BERLINER DECLARATION OF THE VIELS. In less than five months, more than 4,800 signatories and supporters of the BERLINER DECLARATION OF THE MANY have joined in Germany. The numbers rise daily. 24 DECLARATIONS OF THE VIELS in German cities, regions and federal states > 230 signatory Berlin theatre, art and cultural institutions > 4,800 signatories and supporters nationwide