#supergau

Problem: My school key is gone. Meaning, the chip that unlocks the main entrance and the key that unlocks the classes. I know for a fact that I still had it on Monday afternoon, but when I arrived at school on Tuesday morning, it was gone.

"The narratives we tell or have told" is a review of the Supergau Festival 2023 by artist Edwin Stolk (project: Conversation Pieces). You can read it here:

After an open call early 2022, I was invited by artistic director Tina Heine to work on 'Conversation Pieces'. A site-specific concept for the Supergau Festival 2023 in Lungau Austria. With this artistic intervention I focused on the 'rural flight' (called 'landflucht') where young people exchange the countryside for the city. This beautiful region has a rich cultural past, but what about its future? 'Conversation Pieces' offered a valuable opportunity to imagine and discuss the future. I am proud to share with you the video documentation on You Tube!

More information you can read here:

[Ger] Am vergangenen Samstag nahmen Künstler Edwin Stolk und seine Frau Hristina im Rahmen des Supergau-Festivals das Foto für deren geplantes Projekt "Lungauer BürgermeisterInnen 2030" auf. Edwin will damit gezielt die Geschlechtergleichstellung und die derzeitige Situation im Lungau, mit 14 männlichen Bürgermeistern und einer Bürgermeisterin ansprechen.

https://www.edwinstolk.nl/conversation_pieces_ger.html [Eng] Last Saturday, artist Edwin Stolk and his wife Hristina took the photo for their planned project "Lungau Mayors 2030" as part of the Supergau Festival. Edwin wants to specifically address gender equality and the current situation in Lungau, with 14 male mayors and one female mayor.

This article is published in German @ Supermag - magazine from the Supergau Festival.

In June, I wrote a postcard to all Lungau mayors to exchange views on the future of their municipality. Mayor Manfred Sampl of Sankt Michael im Lungau responded right away enthusiastically. The newspaper ‘meinbezirk’ reports about his attempt to make it harder to sell out to foreign investors and stop the flight of young people from this rural region. We agreed to meet at the town hall.

While most young people leave to study in the city, I wonder how this migration can be reversed. After all, the elements for a good learning environment are present in Sankt Michael im Lungau! Clean air, space & quiet for studying and new sports facilities are under construction. Theresa Santner lives in this market town and took us on a tour. Just imagine if studying in the countryside wins out over the city, perhaps nightlife could also be revived?

Back in my childhood we went a few times on holiday in Austria. As children we played in the summertime with the stones at a waterfall. Depending on the position, size and shape of these stones, the flow of the water changed. The water itself was of course unstoppable. In Lungau I looked at how we arrange the environment and how this affects our movements...

Christina Zitz works for Akzente (an organisation dedicated to youngsters), she gave me the Ultimo magazine, a special on "Youth between crises". In it, you can find an essential article on public space as democratic space. Within this environment, we present ourselves to others. Here we actually show who we are. The article mentions also that young people do not have so much to say about this shared environment.

Social geographer Andreas Koch concludes his article with "Public spaces are not neutral in terms of their possible uses. They offer - like stages - a contingent, but not completely arbitrary framework. On the one hand, this means that they must be open to design, to change. On the other hand, this means that it is not the space itself, but the actors assigning meaning to it, who have to ensure creative conflict management - and this among equals."

What is our role in shaping this space? Can we collaborate to change something (temporarily) and see how this affects our 'movements'? As with the stones and the flow of the water, the active imagination and shaping of our living environment?

It strikes me that young people do get asked for their opinions, for instance with a youth parliament or a summer school, I just cannot find the outcomes anywhere documented.

In "Between wilderness and leisure park", a pamphlet by Werner Bätzing, is explained how after 1989 neoliberalism affects the movement of persons in the mountain region. Shrinkage regions emerge and 'feral' in several ways. Foreign investors see holiday regions as a revenue model. Where there are hotels built, young people from the region cannot live. Metropolitan areas, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly similar and losing their identity.

In Lungau, you are never alone, Magdalena Egger wrote to me. The air is clean and the nights are wonderfully cool in the summer. Life here is connected to nature wrote Anna Aigner. “Club life is supported in Lungau, many friends, acquaintances in the association who help and support each other, also professionally.”

In the studies "Heidi no longer lives here" a project by StadtLandBerg and "Land without a daughter" by Isabel Stumfol, is mentioned that these close-knit communities can also have a downside. There is high social control, which does not suit everyone. Somewhere else, I read that staying means adapting, following traditions and rituals - 'the course of the river'.

With Christina Zitz of Akzente I talked about the relatively high number of people who commit suicide. We agreed that this is a difficult topic surrounded by taboo. How do you find the right help when things get tough? In a newspaper article was written that when someone commits suicide, others follow their example. "In the regions, people don't accept help so quickly. People are almost ashamed if they have mental problems or are depressed." In another article is the emergency number 147 mentioned where you can seek for help.

The mayor of Zederhaus, Thomas Kößler, told me about the rich association life in his nature park municipality. Christina Zitz emphasised that research shows (A3_Fact Sheet_Jugendreport 2020/2021) the need for informal spaces for youngsters, outside the association structure. After all, when your parents are on Facebook, you also prefer to choose another platform to keep in touch with friends.

With Nataliya Oberhummer I spoke about the special work of the Lungauer Women network. This is an independent platform for women's interests. The studies mentioned earlier both write that the rural exodus is feminine. We talked about the patriarchal division of roles between men and women, the importance of opportunity equality and the lack of suitable jobs for highly skilled women. We also discussed the fact that in Lungau are currently 14 male mayors and only 1 female mayor -- Waltraud Grall, whom I met later that week.

When I follow the news in Lungau, I see an article about heavy rainfall and flooding in June. Climate change affects us all. The summer was hot across Europe. In the Netherlands, rivers (which originate in the Alps) reached their lowest water levels. The climate is changing across national borders – the rivers connect us.

In Mauterndorf, young people mentioned the long travel time between their native region and student cities like Linz or Graz. Whereas you drive to Salzburg in an hour and a half by car, from Tamsweg it takes six hours and fifty minutes by train. The planned Tauernbahn was never built. The narrow-gauge railway stops at Club 760 “Verein der Freunde der Murtalbahn in Mauterndorf.” Iris Burtscher writes provocatively in Salzburger Nachrichten "Führt uns die Murtalbahn nach Salzburg?" I talked about this topic with the mayor of Mauterndorf Herbert Eßl.

The good news is that recently a night bus for young people "Nightline Lungau" is presented. Between our appointments, out on the street, we had an energetic encounter with Ursula Mayr from Hotel Post. We showed her the first idea sketches and agreed to keep in touch.

Baker Werner Löcker in Zederhaus passionately told us about working and living in Lungau, it's hard to live on just a few cows he ensured us. Before we left the bakery, he also confides a saying to us: "We pray the Lord give us our daily bread and protect us from black and red!" Then we step outside with bread and delicious cookies.

Dutch architect Floris van Alkemade wrote: "The most powerful engine for change is evoking a desire for change. Imagination is essential here. Not the world determines who we are, but vice versa, with our stories we shape the world." This text inspires me.

The Supergau Festival is an opportunity for me to share these stories by moving 'the stones' (metaphorically), so that it enables us to imagine what happens when we change ‘the way the water flows’. If the one way exodus of young people towards universities concerns you, or the lack of public transportation, or equal rights for women, or informal spaces where youngsters can meet, let this text be an open invitation to get in touch and work together on these aims.

Warm regards, Edwin Stolk

More information about Conversation Pieces:

https://www.edwinstolk.nl/conversation_pieces.html

This article was first published in the online SuperMag -  magazine from the Supergau Festival.

The chance to publish a report in the Supergau Magazine is a nice opportunity to invite you to get involved in the upcoming Supergau Festival. I am a Dutch artist living near Rotterdam. The beauty of art is that it has many forms and possibilities. I am especially interested in the social insights that art can offer when we work together. In order to create meaning, I try to get to know the Lungau region and the people who live there.

Therefore I felt excited that I was invited in June by Tina Heine from Supergau to come to this beautiful environment. We stayed at Hotel Post with a large group of artists. After a two-day car trip with my wife Hristina we were welcomed by the Mayr family in Mauterndorf.

It was an impressive weekend with many special encounters and conversations. We were warmly welcomed by Tina Heine and Matthias Ais & Martina Berger Klingler from Salzburger Land. Afterwards we were shown around by Mayor Georg Gappmayer of Tamsweg and enjoyed a wonderful diner in the Kuenburg Castle. It promised to be an inspiring weekend.

During my first online research I had read about 'Landflucht'. That's what it's called when young people exchange the countryside for the big city. This theme intrigues me because it says something about the preferences we have. Where do we want to live and under what circumstances? During my stay in the area I spoke about this theme with a variety of people.

I saw that local traditions and rituals have an important place in daily life. At the same time, I noticed that these old traditions are announced today as events in the tourist agenda. It got me thinking. In the Netherlands there is little left of the old traditions outside the famous touristic sites and villages.

It strikes me that 'Landflucht' is often seen as something negative. Empty shops can be witnessed here and there. Due to globalization there is a worldwide tendency in which people, knowledge and resources are mainly concentrated in and around the large cities. But new technologies offer also the opportunity to attract people from abroad and to revitalize shrinking communities.

The youngsters I speak to or read about go to study in Saltzburg, Graz, Wien or Linz, for example. One of them pointed out the long traveling time from Vienna to get back 'home'. The qualities of the countryside are slowly fading into the background it seems. I wonder whether climate change and the corona crisis might shed a different light on this?

Among the people I spoke to were also youngsters who came to this region to work from outside Austria. The question that arises from these conversations is how accessible the local community is to newcomers? I read on the internet that you can even feel an outsider if your parents come from Graz. So how do you maintain the rich local traditions when your own population is shrinking?

We attended a presentation from Georg Macheiner about Lungau as the largest biosphere park in Austria. On the website of this model region for sustainable development, I see the future vision presented of a boy and a girl on an alpine meadow, dressed in traditional clothing. Heike Posch of the Supergau organization explained to me that this clothing is passed on from generation to generation and is therefore very sustainable. I wonder how do I relate to this image if I would like to come and live in the Lungau region?

The Lungau region has a rich cultural past and that past is visible wherever you look, but what about the picture of the future? This billboard near Tamsweg with 'We protect Austria' makes clear that the future must be above all a safe future. But how do you bind young people to this region and invite them from abroad to contribute and built a future in Lungau?

In the line of this question I am collecting ideas for the development of this area. I'm curious what do you think? For example, someone told me, “why don't we create flexible workspaces in the empty shops of Mauterndorf?” By placing construction boards at various locations during the festival in 2023, I want to expose these ideas in their environment and offer 'windows of opportunity'. What possible developments in your town or village make the Lungau region attractive for youngsters?

Let me know if you want to contribute with your ideas to ‘Conversation pieces’ or if you want to help realizing this art project: info[at]edwinstolk.nl I will return to Lungau in September and would love to meet with you in person. The beautiful photographs in this article were made by my wife Hristina Tasheva.

All the best, 

Good news! The research in Austria was fruitful. Now I am happy to announce that I will continue working in Lungau @ Supergau Festival on 'Conversation Pieces'. For the Supermag I wrote about my findings so far: