SOMEWHERE THERE'S WAR

What place do real experiences of war – as a soldier, witness or refugee – and their unseen consequences have in our society today? And what do they tell us about the absurdity of escalating friend-or-foe narratives and scenarios of approaching threats?
Although many people in Germany have experienced war, those experiences often remain untold and invisible in everyday life. Instead, war is presented to us on the news as a daily tally of horrific facts, as a numbers of things destroyed and deaths, in blockbuster tales of heroism or as stories from the past. Between the pictures we see and real-life experience, between interruptions to daily routine and the war that cannot be spoken of there is a yawning gulf: a gulf in reality, experience and trauma. Studio Urbanistan is a label for performative events in urban spaces. In their new work, ‘Somewhere There’s War’, a peaceful housing development in Düsseldorf becomes the everyday backdrop for a promenade performative audio installation. Three groups walk through three locations in the development in rotation, in a trilogy that has no beginning or end, where momentary glimpses flare up of the absurdity of what we cannot comprehend.