On Friday, 25 September, from 4 pm, Franziska Herold, the City of Chemnitz’s Equal Opportunities Officer, and the Chemnitz Sexual Education Cooperation Group invite you to the closing event of the travelling exhibition ‘Stimmen’ at the Subbotnik, Vettersstraße 34a. To mark Safe Abortion Day, the International Day for Safe Abortion, the evening will feature an exhibition, a film, a reading and a concert, offering a varied programme exploring abortion, self-determination and solidarity.
The exhibition addresses a topic that is often kept quiet in everyday life, even though abortions affect many people and are of great social and political significance. Personal accounts, impressions and perspectives invite visitors to take a closer look, ask questions and take the realities of people’s lives seriously. In this way, the exhibition creates a space where anonymous accounts of abortion experiences are brought to light and different perspectives are given a voice.
The closing event is intended as an invitation to engage collectively with a socially relevant topic and to demonstrate solidarity. Visitors are invited to listen, reflect and engage in conversation with one another. The event will be moderated by Franziska Herold and accompanied by music from a DJ.
Programme
- 4.00 pm: Start with coffee and refreshments
- 5.30 pm: Quiz on the topic of abortion
- 7.00 pm: Remarks on the event and the exhibition
- 7.30 pm: Short film ‘Nine Days in August’ by Ella Knorz
- 8.00 pm: Reading from ‘Wir doch nicht’ by Nora Burgard-Arp
- 9.00 pm: Concert by the band Superbusen
Short film “Nine Days in August”
This 17-minute short film by Ella Knorz tells the story of 18-year-old Lea, who is pregnant. Whilst the seemingly carefree summer days drift by between the outdoor swimming pool, parties, the local fair and sunrises, Lea has to grapple with the bureaucracy involved in terminating her pregnancy.
From one telephone loop to the next, and amidst occasional tender encounters with her unsuspecting father, “Nine Days in August” explores the hurdles of a suddenly emerging parallel world of unwanted pregnancy.
Reading from ‘Not Us, Surely’
‘Not Us’ is Nora Burgard-Arp’s debut novel. This dystopian novel is set in Hamburg in the year 2050 and describes how a free democracy transforms into a totalitarian regime.
At the centre of the story is Mathilda, aged 37, a resident of a dictatorship ruled by the fascist party ‘Victory for Germany and the Germans’ – SfDD for short. A ban on contraception and abortion is one of the numerous measures through which women are gradually stripped of their rights to self-determination. It is only when Mathilda becomes pregnant against her will that she fully realises the extent of the prison in which she lives.
Nora Burgard-Arp, born in 1985, is a writer and journalist. She studied German, English and Philosophy in Cologne, as well as journalism in Hamburg. As a journalist, she writes for Zeit online, amongst others. For her work, she has been awarded the Reportage Prize for Young Journalists, nominated for the Grimme Online Award and twice voted Journalist of the Year by Medium magazine. Her work focuses, amongst other things, on gender equality and mental health.