my roles: Co-creation of the format, performer, workshop leader
SALON OF HOME FEELINGS
Vienna, 2018/2019/2020/2021
A day to explore one’s own relationship to Austria, to another homeland, and to being at home in general. What feelings arise when the word home is mentioned? What does it really mean to feel “at home”?
Annually on October 26 – Austrian National Day,
Duration: approx. 10h. Issue #3 in cooperation with Brunnenpassage in Vienna-Ottakring
Initiator & overall artistic concept: Teresa Distelberger
The Salon der Heimatgefühle is open to people of any origin, any gender, any sexual (non-)orientation, living in any (non-)relationship and with any form of physical particularity.
We are all born somewhere, grow up somewhere. Possibly strongly rooted in the home country or not, or intentionally elsewhere, or perhaps nowhere. Many people find it easier to feel at home in their own neighborhood or in the whole world than in one country, for example Austria.
There is a lot of talk about home – but what does it really mean for each of us to feel “at home”? How does it feel to have lived here for years and at the same time still (still) be considered “foreign”? What sense of home do people develop who are marginalized because of non-binary gender identity? What effect does it still have today if one’s own (grand)parents were Nazis or fellow travelers? Or if they once had their home here and then had to flee? How does that even work, to (re)settle in a place, if the change of place was voluntary or forced? Can we also have many homes at the same time? Or is home always where our feet just touch the ground?
In the lives of the people of Vienna, there is much going on around these and similar questions that needs to be heard and seen. A team from the fields of dialogue art, performance and music opens a space on the national holiday to share their own,
to explore the multi-layered relationship to home. Love of home, anger, shame, security, homesickness, brokenness and even more – all feelings are welcome.
Viennese salon culture is redefined here: tradition meets contemporary expression, performance meets apple strudel, and musical improvisation meets meditation. The centerpiece is in-depth conversations in which people from different life worlds find each other and listen attentively to the experiences of the “others” with feeling at home. In order to facilitate this quality of conversation, the Salon team is developing an interaction game entitled “The Home Compass,” which does equal justice to the multidimensionality of the concept of home as well as the cultural diversity of Vienna.
For many years, the events at the Brunnenpassage on Vienna’s Yppenplatz have dealt with issues of migration-related diversity in our society. An art-interested public meets diverse communities that are now establishing and also reinterpreting rites and customs of their respective societies of origin in their new, second home Vienna. The Salon der Heimatgefühle pursues the very related goal of bringing people with a wide variety of biographical experiences of home into contact with one another.
The Heimatkompass also makes the artistic claim to build up a basis of trust in a relatively short time, and to intensify the depth of these encounters. This game is based on the experience of the first two editions of the event, and the reliable effectiveness of the dialogue methods on which it is based has been tested many times by the Salon team in other projects as well.
One of the central concerns in the Salon of Homeland Feelings is the development of a global consciousness while staying connected to local roots. We are convinced that experiences of this kind can make a significant contribution to counteracting the increasing division of society.
Impressions of the Salon of Homeland Feelings 2019 at Aktionsradius, 1200 Vienna – Photos: Maria Noisternig
Voices of participants 2019:
“This was a very special day, in an atmosphere that you created wonderfully. You were so attentive with us participants. Through the questions in the small groups it was a very intense confrontation with oneself and the other person. I was very touched. These kinds of conversations create incredible closeness and intensity on a fine level.”
“Your salon was incredibly inspiring for me, on many levels. A real connection is created, and to feel that is very good. I’ve been thinking about the many intense encounters and conversations all week.”
“Brilliant, a new kind of encounter, your combination of talks, workshop, music and performance. It opens me up and gives me access to other people’s experiences. Viiieeel more lively than other formats I have encountered so far!!!”
Contributors 2020
Core team (artistic process and dialogue design, interactive performance):
–Shao Hui He, photographer and silent speaker, born in Austria with Chinese parents. A constant observer of life, one of his preoccupations is the problematic question “Where did you come from? ” www.heshaohui.com
– Mario Sinnhofer / aka Touched, born in Salzburg, lives non-binary gender identity and works in the intersections of performative art, social sculpture and intersubjective dialogue spaces.
– Teresa Distelberger, filmmaker and artist, born and living in Vienna, raised in the countryside. She explores collective traumas, loves paradoxical dirndl dresses and designs meeting spaces. www.artofco.com
Music, vocals and interactive performance: Simon Mayer
Team coaching: Karoline Maria Wibmer
Support: Uta Stromberger
The Salon der Heimatgefühle is sponsored by the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna.
