16 April 2018

Our Stories – Rewrite the Future
Reading and discussion about the Storytelling Partnerships with young refugees and German-language authors

Wednesday, 25 April 2018, 7 pm, Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz
With Shida Bazyar, Larissa Boehning, Ralph Hammerthaler, Kerstin Hensel, Sabine Peters, Katerina Poladjan and Senthuran Varatharajah

As part of the project by Akademie der Künste 'Our Stories – Rewrite the Future', youths and young adults who came to Germany as refugees engaged in joint storytelling partnerships with the authors Shida Bazyar, Larissa Boehning, Ralph Hammerthaler, Kerstin Hensel, Sabine Peters, Katerina Poladjan and Senthuran Varatharajah. For the first time, those involved will present the literary texts which resulted from these intense encounters spanning more than a year in readings and discussions on Wednesday, 25 April. The storytelling partnerships began in December 2016 as part of the Akademie's exhibition 'Uncertain States'. The young adults reported their experiences of fleeing, exile and a new beginning, how they felt and their frame of mind; the writers allowed themselves to be affected by it, and thus new literary accounts form together from that which was shared. The authors and their respective partners used several workshops to develop questions and strategies for creating images and ideas that gave birth to fictional stories, ones which go far beyond individual biographies.
The stories that came about from this, narratives of change in uncertain times, are brought together on the website www.rewrite-the-future.de. This archive of new departures can become a literary document on a time of social and political upheaval, and personal new beginnings, one which enchants you into reading it, prompts you to change your point of view, and enables a better understanding across linguistic, cultural and other borders.

Funded by the Deutscher Literaturfonds

Event dates Our Stories – Rewrite the Future. Storytelling Partnerships
Reading and discussion
With Shida Bazyar, Larissa Boehning, Ralph Hammerthaler, Kerstin Hensel, Sabine Peters, Katerina Poladjan and Senthuran Varatharajah
Wednesday, 25 April 2018, 7 pm, free admission
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin

Press tickets at presse@adk.de, Tel. +49 (0)30 200 571 514