Reading by Albert Ostermaier, accompanied by Hans Platzgumer.

The Kunsthaus exhibition “printing futures. art for tomorrow” as part of the partnership project with documenta fifteen features a stirring photo series: Maya Mercer’s “The Parochial Segments”. It is the starting point for her joint project “YUBA – Ring of Fire” with the playwright and author Albert Ostermaier.

Yuba County in northern California, plagued by drought, sparsely populated with a predominantly white, very poor population, offers few prospects for young people. They are the protagonists of the photographs Mercer took there for her series.

Mercer’s photographs and Ostermaier’s poems are the first uncovering of buried, suppressed narratives of this toxic topography. Ostermaier’s poems are a kind of seismographic search for voices. A chorus announces itself in them, figures contour themselves, the boundaries between image and language become fluid.

Albert Ostermaier was born in Munich in 1967, where he now lives as a freelance writer. His first volume of poetry, “Herz Vers Sagen”, was published in 1995 and was awarded the poetry prize of PEN Liechtenstein. In the same year, the premiere of his first play “Zwischen zwei Feuern – Tollertopographie” took place in the Marstall of the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel. World premieres followed at renowned theatres in Germany and abroad. The latest volume of poetry “TEER” will be published by Suhrkamp Verlag in autumn 2021. Hans Platzgumer (*1969 in Innsbruck) is a writer, composer, musician and producer. Characteristic of his extensive works is his interdisciplinarity, which drives him between music and literature. A cooperation of Kunsthaus Göttingen and Literaturhaus Göttingen on the occasion of the exhibition: “printing futures. art for tomorrow”. A partnership project for documenta fifteen.

Further information and tickets can be found on the website of the Literaturhaus Göttingen: Literaturhaus Göttingen – two under one roof (literaturhaus-goettingen.de).

Picture left: ©Jochen Manz