deutsche wohnen (was singen die diven)

Deutsche Wohnen (Was Singen die Diven) is a film opera about the tension between modernity and property investment, Stalinallee and the Hansaviertel, homelessness, and the question of how we want to live.

“Every house a diva!” was the slogan in a 1957 Berlin brochure published by the Senate on the Hansaviertel, which was built in West Berlin as a response to Stalinallee – now Karl-Marx-Allee – constructed in East Berlin after the end of the war. In both cases, the urban planning concepts are shaped by a “tabula rasa”, the experience of destruction during the Second World War and the hope for a fresh start for society, the so-called “Hour Zero”. For Ulf Aminde and Christoph Grund, this “Hour Zero” does not lie in “1945”; rather, the turning point arises with the deportation of the Jewish population from these neighbourhoods. In their work, they focus on both locations, interrogating and distilling the history whilst drawing a line through to the present day. In doing so, they link current discussions and debates on nationalism, racism and the memory of Jewish life with the rent struggles on Karl-Marx-Allee and the question of the expropriation of the housing association Deutsche Wohnen.

The fundamental starting point for the collaboration between Ulf Aminde and Christoph Grund with countless residents of the two neighbourhoods was the question of what can be heard when we allow built, lived-in, imagined and remembered spaces to resonate. What kinds of spatial production and use have been and are being implemented in each neighbourhood, and how can these be captured musically and performatively with their residents, a recording device and a camera? Interviews with residents and key figures gave rise to texts that were transformed into libretti, spoken word and arias.