3 Fragen an Carolin Schmidt über die Arbeit in einem Kollektiv

von Carolin Schmidt | Mai 10, 2020

Arbeiten im Kollektiv

Carolin  Schmidt is our newest and actually youngest team member. However, the literary scholar already dealt with experts during her studies as part of the book project “ On the market for experts ”. But of course that is only one of the reasons why it is a real asset to our joint project. A brief introduction in three questions:

In addition to our joint project, you are also part of a collective called „kaboom“. Why do you call yourselves a collective? What’s behind it?

The idea behind the collective is the collective thought. It all started with an exhibition project with the scenographer Margaret Schlenkrich – we noticed that we can work and think well together and that we are interested in further projects. The collective idea is that you work on a topic together – so different authors, artists or experts are involved in every project. It’s about leaving the familiar path and taking on new perspectives. For that you need friction and exchange with other people.

In the projects you take texts and create new approaches to literature by adding further dimensions. Isn’t text alone enough to convey the message?

The text is the text is the text. I see our art campaigns, exhibitions and text experiments not as a replacement for the actual text, but as a further reading, a possible access, an extension that, in the best case, makes you want to read the original text.
Every text changes through its form, regardless of whether it is spoken or presented by hand on paper, with a certain design between book covers, as a sung song, as a dramatic text on the stage or with images in the film. We think about these different forms and always ask texts about their tonal and spatial dimensions. To give a specific example: In our “A Poem for Dinner” campaign, we presented four cooks with a poem that they used as inspiration for a dish. For four months, the guests were able to read the poem on the menu and order and taste the accompanying dish. The poem speaks for itself and doesn’t necessarily need a food to go with it. But what happens when you sit at this table with friends can taste the spices, read the poem together, talk to the cook? You start talking about literature. That goes far beyond any mediation.

So far you have mainly made literary texts. Is such an approach also conceivable for advisory topics or non-fiction books?

It’s a very interesting question that I’ll take with me in a moment to our next brainstorming meeting. Why not? Of course, poetic texts offer more possibilities for artistic adaptation, but why not even start an action on an exciting non-fiction topic. I could well imagine planning an action in urban space on the subject of participation, for example, or a kind of literary health trail through the botanical garden. It is important that you have meaningful texts as a basis and a good idea of ​​how you can surprise people. This creates new spaces that invite you to exchange ideas about literature, politics and art.