Kafka: "Alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I am running into."

"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.

This fable by Ranz Kafka has received multiple interpretations. One way to look at it is to link it with how we see the present and what we expect from the future. Is there really no alternative as trap and cat for the mouse? By the way. The song “Cymbaline” by Pink Floyd addresses a similar issue.

Especially students face a situation in which they have to make numerous decisions for a future. These issues are both individual as well as collective, not the least because the question of a better future concerns individual aspirations as well as collective possibilities.

If we turn to current issues, the future is confronting us with problems like the environment, climate change, cultural alienations and loss of meaning, insecurity, economic collapse etc. How can positive views of the future and alternative futures be maintained under the current conditions?

The workshop will first of all look at what students see as problems be it individual or collective. How do these impact on future perspectives and alternatives? In the later workshop it will be transformed into a performance. Arahmaiani is well known for her performances. This performance shall be a joint effort of all involved, or a “community based art project”, as she did in Yogjakarta and Tibet.

Arahmaiani Feisal | wurde vor allem durch ihre Performances international bekannt. Sie äußert sich aber auch als Dichterin, Philosophin und Umweltschützerin. In Bandung geboren lebt sie heute in der zentral-javanischen Kulturmetropole Yogyakarta, ist mit ihren Performances aber ständig unterwegs – zwischen New York, Tibet, Australien und vielen anderen Orten. Arahmaiani ist derzeit als Gastwissenschaftlerin an der Universität Passau tätig. Mehr unter bio-arahmaiani

Lesen Sie auch einen 2017 veröffentlichten Artikel in der Jakarta Post über die Künstlerin