türken, feuer

A house goes up in flames. Five people die, three children and two women. Teenagers from the neighbourhood set the fire. The case is the subject of a flurry of media coverage, suddenly the little city is famous, but then everyone moves on to other stories. For the survivors and those killed by the attack, this night does not fade away. The mother who jumped out of the window and tried to protect the baby with her body keeps talking about when she jumped and the moment of her death. The mother of one of the perpetrators tells of the silence that weighed on their flat, the knowledge that something happened, the doubt about his guilt. The relatives who survived the fire see the flames in front of them every day, feeling the heat, smelling the smoke. Everyone stays imprisoned in their experience, their pain – and yet they seek communication, encounters, the possibility of a conversation.

The arson attack in Solingen in 1993 is the starting point for türken, feuer (turks, fire). Reaching beyond the medial logic of attention and exploitation, Dündar searches carefully and precisely for a language for what happened, in which all perspectives are taken into consideration, and through this retains a painful timeliness.

In a corresponding version, türken, feuer was awarded Radio Play of the Year 2020 (German Academy of Performing Arts). Together with the actress Abak Safaei-Rad, Özlem Özgül Dündar reads a version by Yunus Ersoy that brings the text together with Dündar's an grenzen (2021).

We will also broadcast the event via livestream.

This event is part of ’61–’91–’21: Immer Wieder Deutschland, the accompanying programme for the exhibition Offener Prozess.