Diskurs-Salon #1: “Clapping Won’t Pay My Bills” – Streit über Geld & Arbeit
An event as part of the special exhibition STREIT. Eine Annäherung at the Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
SEX SELLS! And so does a dispute. But at what cost? Money is the driving source and the subject of profound disputes. In this context, financial and political demands can rarely be separated. And when it comes to literature and art, money tends to only be available in smaller quantities. We will discuss this issue with literary scholar Iuditha Balint and author Daniela Seel. The discussion will be moderated by cultural theorist Falko Schmieder.
With the stripper stories by the Berlin Strippers Collective, the second part of the evening presents us with a societal controversy: what happens when artists turn their body into capital? The Berlin Strippers Collective’s position is clear: They perform to promote the social, political, and economic acceptance of sex work.
A cooperation between the Museum für Kommunikation Berlin, Diskutier Mit Mir / Forum X, and the project Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature at the ZfL.
Program
6.00 pm Exhibition tour MONEY & WORK in the special exhibition STREIT. Eine Annäherung
6.00 pm, 8.30 pm, 9.45 pm DJ intervention
Mo Chan / DJ Kohlrabi stands for diversity and variety in nightlife and for the combination of the familiar with the outrageous and unexpected from the depths of the musical underground. Thus, a dynamic is created that leads music lovers to lose track of time to not go back home but rather order one more drink and continue their discussion.
7.00 pm Reading & Talk
Bread-and-butter jobs & literature
Very few authors can spend a large part of their working hours on writing. They have to pursue their full- or part time bread-and-butter jobs, provide care work, or spend time on marketing their work and networking. The recent years saw an increase in public attention for authors’ working conditions, also following the publication of Brotjobs & Literatur by Verbrecher Verlag in 2021. The literary scholar and co-editor Iuditha Balint (director of the Fritz-Hüser-Institut für Literatur und Kultur der Arbeitswelt, Dortmund) and the author and publisher Daniela Seel from Berlin talk to cultural theorist Falko Schmieder (ZfL). They discuss the relationship between literary work and money, financial recognition of literary activity, and the question whether and how literature can be paid for, followed by a discussion with the audience.
9.00 pm Performance
Stripper Stories
The Berlin Strippers Collective is a stripper collective that consists of feminist performers and workers. In their manifest, the collective writes that “women*’s bodies are constantly sexualised without their consent, but if we capitalise on this, if we take advantage of the system, society judges us. […] This is how we rise above. On the stage, we receive attention because we choose it, because we get paid for it.”