AUTOABAHN In the west of Berlin, the Schlange housing estate swallows up part of Berlin's A 100 city highway. A TUNNEL over six hundred meters long runs through the residential building, which is home to around 4,000 people: the SCHLANGE. In the middle is a park-like courtyard. The highway can only be found here if you look for it.
The closure came in April 2023: safety deficiencies. The hidden car culture comes to the surface: bypasses cause noise, exhaust fumes and road rage. District administration plans highway restoration. But local people are still divided. They are being courted by political parties: social housing, climate-neutral transport policy, car-friendly but barrier-free urban space? Political camps face each other. Can the rigidity of confrontation be broken with the liberating power of nonsense?
That is the aim of the Autobahnschlange parade. It will set off on September 14, 2024 at 18:30 in the inner courtyard of the snake at the summer festival of the large housing estate. The heart of the parade is a mobile box from which a polyphonic city talk about the Schlangenbad Tunnel will be heard. Guests at the summer festival put on their own hats: one of the many made of cardboard, in which artistic ideas of the future of the highway tunnels that may never be built appear. By repeating and rhythmizing city talk, they turn what were previously words into sound. Together they wear a huge snake costume made of gauze and concrete. The most famous building material on the highway - concrete - feels different, mobile and fragile. The cracks in the huge costume of the highway snake create colorful light reflections and enable new associations. They match the audio fragments from the box.
Two weeks before the parade, interested parties can gain an insight into the process that culminates in the parade. The audio installation (01.09.2024 17:30 Theater Jaro) allows the discussion process to shine through: from taking stock of life with the freeway to spinting, possible rededications of the freeway tunnel to joint play and Dada. It offers the interviewees of different political persuasions the opportunity to listen to each other and forms the prelude to a conversation that moves on in the parade.
Artists/Collaborators: Klara Kroymann, Michaela Muchina, Eduardo da Conceição, Philipp Caspari, Leonie Ott, Fernando Perez, Philip Jürgensen, Leon Heymann/Theater Jaro, Stefanie Hintzsche