IM AUFTRAG SCHREIBEN

Multi-part research on commissions, writing, work, archiving and the writer Josef Reding In an open research project, Anna Kpok deals with the Dortmund writer Josef Reding, his way into the archive of the Fritz-Hüser-Institut für Literatur und Kultur der Arbeitswelt (FHI) and writing as work and commission.

We have the impression that Reding understood writing as a mission: As a mission through his witnessing of the Nazi era and the war, of racial segregation in the USA and injustices around the world and in the Ruhr region. But also that he wrote repeatedly on commission – for the WDR, for the DGB weekly “Welt der Arbeit”, for radio and television.

We gained this impression while sorting through countless boxes in an archive for the literature and culture of the world of work, to which he handed over almost every piece of paper, every letter, every piece of paper that ever lay on his desk during his lifetime. We gained them from conversations with the people who sort, categorise and decide there and elsewhere, who want to make as much as possible possible for those who will be interested in the future, and who in the process steer many things in certain directions, reflectively but without choice.

We have so many questions about this process. We ask them of ourselves, we ask them of those involved and we ask them of the visitors.

Anna Kpok presents the results of a project proposed by the Fritz Hüser Institut and the FAVORITEN Festival on the Dortmund writer Josef Reding and the extensive material stored in the archive on his work.

The parts:

An interactive installation (12.-14.9./ studio 2)
What is on which desk? What goes where? How do we decide?
On Thursday there will be a public installation with Anna Kpok.
On the following days, visitors are invited to (re)carry out sorting and decision-making processes at any time: On one side, the overflowing desk of the Reding imagined by Anna Kpok. On the other side, boxes, categories, sorted items.

Film screening and discussion (12.9./ sweetSixteen-Kino)
OI! WARNING
(Director: Benjamin and Dominik Reding, DE 1999, 86 min.) (14+)
What connections can be found when we integrate biographies and experiences?
Long before Anna Kpok knew about Josef Reding and his writing, we knew about the feature film by his sons, Dominik and Benjamin Reding. It shows a world that is both close and foreign to us, skins, punks, the Ruhr area, the site of a construction trailer, violence and queer desires. In a short discussion at the film screening, Anna Kpok will provide insights into her work IM AUFTRAG SCHREIBEN.

Excursion to the archive and Close Reding (13.9./ studio 2 & FHI)
What is in the archive, what is preserved, how do we deal with it? What do we find in old texts, what touches and interests us, what repels us?
From the installation in the depot, we will travel together on public transport to the Fritz Hüser Institut archive on the Zeche Zollern in Dortmund-Bövinghausen. There, original typescripts and manuscripts by Reding can be viewed. Above all, however, we would like to read some of Reding’s texts together with Begüm Karagöz and our fellow travellers. The excursion will end with drinks and finger food at the FHI.

An audio piece with voices on the subject of archiving in general and Josef Reding in particular will accompany the audience in the installation, on the excursion to the archive and in the digital space.

Ein Audiostück mit Stimmen zum Thema Archivieren im Allgemeinen und Josef Reding im Speziellen begleitet die Zuschauer*innen in der Installation, beim Ausflug ins Archiv und im digitalen Raum.

Cast & Credits:
Anna Kpok (Kathrin Ebmeier, Kirsten Möller, Klaas Werner), Rasmus Nordholt-Frieling
Dialogue partners: Felicitas Arnold, Iuditha Balint, Jannick Griguhn, Begüm Karagöz, Patricia Lenz, Almut Pape, Kyra Palberg