HAB KEINE ANGST

Woyzeck-Schafott 2024 – Voices of Resistance

Installation
Leipzig’s market square | Leipzig | 2024

Two hundred years after the historical events surrounding the execution of Johann Christian Woyzeck in Leipzig, we continue our artistic exploration of the last public execution on Leipzig’s market square, while turning our attention to the present-day realities of political imprisonment around the world. Drawing on letters and testimonies from prisons across different systems of injustice—both historical and contemporary—we have transformed a 6 × 7 × 4 metre cube in the heart of Leipzig into a powerful space of inner and outer experience, giving voice to those subjected to arbitrary violence and oppression.

“Don’t be afraid” these words were scratched into the wall of a solitary confinement cell in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison by a political prisoner—addressed both to himself and to those who would be imprisoned there after him.

“Will you draw flowers in your letters to me again? And send me photographs too. But no photographs of landscapes. Those are forbidden. It is strange, but looking at nature—even if only on a piece of paper—is forbidden.”
From We Will Also See Beautiful Days – Letters from Prison by Zehra Doğan

“There are moments in the cell when you feel the walls moving towards you. You feel them coming closer and closer until they are about to crush you.”
From Woman, Life, Freedom – Women in Iranian Prisons Tell Their Stories, edited by Narges Mohammadi

Artistic Direction Shahrzad Rahmani, René Reinhardt, Lisa Schiller-Witzmann
Scenography Shahrzad Rahmani, Lisa Schiller-Witzmann
Voice Homa Faghiri
Illustration Afshin Chizari
Produktionmanagement Jennifer Krebs, Hannes Raetz
Research Elisa Liebscher
Graphic Design Thomas Szabo
Construction Robert Schiller
Technische Leitung Benjamin Henkel

Photos © Phil Dera

A production by Schaubühne Lindenfels in cooperation with the Leipzig City History Museum, with additional cooperation from Amnesty International Leipzig. Funded by the City of Leipzig.
The residency as part of this project is supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM). The residency takes place at Schaubühne Lindenfels as part of the Fonds Darstellende Künste Residency Programme in cooperation with flausen+.