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 These are some of the questions being posed by a Berlin-based
collective of artists, called copy & waste, in a performance
inspired by the way Hill Valley changes during the 1980s "Back
to the Future" science-fiction comedy films.
Titled "Knick-Knack to the Future", by day the artists run a
fictional "concept store" selling coffee, cupcakes and "Back to
Future"-themed bags, shoes and T-shirts in a bid to encourage
people to discuss how much they're willing to pay for products.
At night the group uses the space to offer "time travel
workshops", theatrical performances in which the audience
follows the cast from room to room as they use English and
German in music, speech, clips from the movie trilogy, and
filmwork to explore issues of gentrification.
"First come the artists and studios, followed by the students
and the cupcake cafes and then the well-to-do and boutiques. And
this process takes place over increasingly shorter periods of
time," the group says on its website.
Gentrification is a hot topic in Germany, and especially Berlin.
A sharp increase in rents of as much as 30-40 percent in cities
such as Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt since 2007 prompted the
government to act, introducing a cap on rent rises to prevent
tenants being priced out.
The location of the copy & waste project near the Kottbusser Tor
underground station in an up-and-coming area of the city is no
accident. Once an almost-forgotten area home to Turkish
immigrant workers, just a couple of streets away from the Berlin
Wall, the area is surging in popularity, causing rents to rise.
"Here, the process of gentrification is so obvious, it's so in
your face," Steffen Klewar, director and actor at copy & waste,
told Reuters ahead of a performance last week.
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The artists decided to make a fancy store part of the production to
highlight the changing nature of the neighborhood, where concept
stores selling sweaters for hundreds of euros (dollars) sit across
from stores selling items for a euro apiece.
"We're not here to make money, we want to talk to people, see how
they react," writer Joerg Albrecht said.
American actor Daniel Brunet, who is Producing Artistic Director of
the English Theatre Berlin, said affordable housing was a basic
right.
"I can barely picture what New York will look like in 2045, could it
be like the worst version of Hill Valley, with some people living in
luxurious penthouses and others cramped in on the edge of town and
just not given enough?" he said.
After a run in Berlin until Sept. 12, the artists will take their
performance to the rundown former industrial town of Muelheim an der
Ruhr in western Germany, and then to wealthy Graz in Austria in
September and October.
For more information: http://www.etberlin.de/production/knick-knack-to-the-future-ruckzuck-in-die-zukunft-copy-waste/
(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Michael Roddy and Mark
Heinrich)
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