Zukunft der Demokratie #12

In the organizer's words:

Democracy and attitude
Lukas Bärfuss in conversation with Mely Kiyak

Anti-Semitism at the documenta, poisonous politicization of the Berlinale, irreconcilable cultural battles in museums: the questions of freedom and responsibility are posed to art with new acuteness. How does literature assert itself when propaganda, disinformation and denunciations dominate public debate? Can poetry preserve its space of freedom? And how can this space be protected? Or, on the contrary, should literature take a stand, enter the fray and expose itself to political contradictions? Does this mean it loses its innocence, its beauty? What is the role of writers when the public expects them to take a stand? Can poetry insist on its ambivalences when bombs are falling? Or is the approximate merely an escape from responsibility? Is ideology compatible with beauty? How can language comfort? How does it accompany us through grief? Can it cool heated minds, should it warm cold hearts? Does it allow frightened people a brief escape or does it dare to look at the terrible reality?

Whatever the answer is, for the writer Mely Kiyak it is clear: without the stories we tell, show or sing to each other, there would be no freedom, no human rights, no prospect of a future.

Moderator: Lukas Bärfuss
Guest: Mely Kiyak
Curated by: Lukas Bärfuss, Judith Gerstenberg

Further information: Future of Democracy #12 | Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg