A theater work in public space, a fictional radio broadcast on provenance research and restitution of looted Jewish property.
The project deals with looted art and everyday objects from former Jewish possession from the region. These objects and the personal stories surrounding them are the focus of a theater work in public space. Residents and visitors of the Salzkammergut are invited to deal with Nazi looting, provenance and restitution, with questions of loss, value and memory in a low-threshold way. At the weekly markets in Bad Aussee, Altaussee and possibly in other places in the Salzkammergut, a fictitious radio station will be set up during market hours to broadcast what appears to be a live program featuring these very narratives and also including what is happening at the market. The genre “entertainment broadcast” opens up a variety of possibilities to convey the topic with the necessary ease: Interviews, wish concert, live music, contact with people at the market, calls, competitions, but also interviews with experts and live guests, live broadcasts to the surrounding area, etc. The focus is always on the objects that were previously discovered and selected in the course of research. This approach enables the project team to deal with the topic of provenance in the region without pointing fingers. It relies on the power of personal narration and turns the looted objects into protagonists. At the same time, the expertise of the provenance researchers provides the project with an excellent scientific foundation. The project will be accompanied by a documentary filmmaker and documented and published in an independent and attractively designed publication. In addition to a thematic introduction and detailed object histories, a curated conversation with descendants of the Mautner family, among others, is planned, as well as a documentation of the Theater im Bahnhof performances. The publication is to be available at the conclusion of Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024.
