About Staging IG Farben Building

video doc. edited by Hanaleena Hauru | Event website

Travertine, a monumental building, a glass rotunda, and never-ending corridors: the 
IG-Farben Haus designed by Hans Poelzig is now the home to the humanities departments at Goethe-University Frankfurt. It was built in 1928 for IG Farben, a concern of German chemical companies that not only profited under the rule of National Socialism, but also were actively involved in exploitation of forced labor and extermination campaigns. It operated the firm's own concentration camp Auschwitz Monowitz III, performed a series of human experiments, and supplied Zyklon B for the gas chambers in Auschwitz Birkenau. After the fall of the Nazi regime, the process of dissolving IG Farben into individual companies was initiated under pressure from the Allies and the building became the headquarter of the US forces from 1945 to 1995. With the relocation of the university into the IG Farben Haus in 2001, students and faculty members alike began to question how the history of the building as well as the university's own Nazi history has been dealt with. A group of international students from the Institute for Theater-, Film- and Media Studies decided together with several artists to explore the presence and absence of history(s), current politics of remembering and forgetting on campus, and the significance of today's knowledge production in this complex structure in the interdisciplinary project  ייStaging IG-Farben Building" under the artistic direction of Diego Rotman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Sala-Manca Group). The project consists of performances, videos, installations, and interventions that challenge historical constellations starting with the building: What happens when a structure of knowledge production bases itself in a structure where decisions regarding mass murders were made? What consequences does the university's  renewed interest in politics of remembrance have after years of ignorance? And how can performative  approaches contribute to these socio-political debates? The one-day event is the product of a  half-year artistic research project that began with a seminar on the history of the building led by Nikolaus Mtiller-Scholl (Goethe University Frankfurt) and a guest lecture on site-specific performance conducted by Daphna Ben-Shaul (Tel Aviv University). 

Curation & Dramaturgy: Diego Rotman 
Curation and Dramaturgy Assistance: Luise Besier Research & Concept: Nikolaus Mtiller-Scholl Technic: Anton Svoboda 
Production Management: Mirjam Narani Works by: Vera Boitcova, Sara Gabor, Mira Gebhardt, Christian Grall, Elinor Hasselberg, Hannaleena Hauru, S. C. Lee-Jeong, Jean Maurer, Ann-Kathrin Pfahler, Stefanie Oberhoff, Helga Lazar, Walter Solon, Jorge Loureiro.

The scenic project is part of the 12th Holderlin Visiting Professorship for General and Comparative Dramaturgy and will be presented for the first time as part of Politik im Freien Theater. With the kind support of the Adolf and Luisa Hauser Foundation, the Hessian Theatre Academy, the Forderfond Lehre and the Global Office of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt.