My Grandparents
Memory Bureau

Paris, Centre culturel suisse, September 2019 (Image: Margot Montigny)

Bern, Museum für Kommunikation, September 2010 (Image: Toni Suter, T+T Fotografie)

Hannover, Festival Theaterformen, Cumberlandsche Galerie, June 2009 (Image: Andreas Etter)

Basel, Theater Basel, Klosterberg, September 2008 (Image: Tanja Dorendorf, T+T Fotografie)

Genf, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (Mamco), February 2010 (Image: Toni Suter, T+T Fotografie)

Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Hotel Reichshof, October 2010 (Image: Iris Holstein)

Solothurn, Theater Solothurn, Dachstock, April 2009 (Image: Tanja Dorendorf, T+T Fotografie)

Vienna, Wiener Festwochen, Kunsthalle Wien, May 2009

Bern, Festival Auawirleben, April 2008 (Image: Marco Zanoni)

Memories of our grandparents are above all childhood memories of old people. Yet, what do we really know about the days when our grandparents were young? They are our most personal link to a past we only know from films and books – but how did our grandparents live and love in these days? And what is left of it now? With his latest long term project «My Grandparents | Memory Bureau» Mats Staub pursues these questions by asking generations of grandchildren to join him for a talk.

At every venue the Memory Bureau is a place of both production and reception: on one side conversations take place, are recorded, cut and transferred to iPods – on the other side each visitor can move freely through the growing collection of stored and incomplete memories; he gets a glimps of other people’s life stories and at the same time retraces his own grandparent’s story.

«My Grandparents | Memory Bureau» enquires about the grandchildren’s perspective and evoques personal questions about social background, oral tradition, remembering and forgetting, about the relationship between family story and world history, about stories and the so called truth.

For the Artbook «Meine Grosseltern / My Grandparents» (Edition Patrick Frey, 2010), Mats Staub brought together grandparents of different generations: The earliest born grandmother died in 1945—the youngest was born in 1939. They lived through the world economic crisis, war and expulsion, post-war reconstruction and modernisation. Mats Staub is able to draw the rudimentary biographical information and events from the many anecdotal memories of later generations. These life stories and pictures intersect, forming a web of countless empty spaces that spark the imagination.

Press

«Amazingly, one begins to (re-)construct the memory of one‘s own grandparents. Focusing on the fate of totally unknown people leads to one‘s own history. What began as a visit to strangers, ends in a kind of selfassertion.»
Theater heute, 8/9 2009

«When speaking to Mats Staub not only memories emerge, one also notices what he or she does not know. And one notices, slightly annoyed, that one never asked the grandparents or parents about it. Therefore, Mats Staub is far more interested in these blanck spots than in amusing stories. It is in these spots that wider correlations appear which go beyond family tales.»
Der Bund, 22.04.2008

«The frontieres of the disciplines are long blurred and you catch yourself watching yourself and other peo- ple who are watching their grandparents in their imagination. A kind of new theatre emerges, involving everybody, even the dead. [...] The past itself is at stake and the atmospere is slightly melancholic. And still, there is just as much of the past as of the present – and of the present of the visitors – that is recorded here.»
bz 13.09.2008

Stations

Stuttgart, Stadtmuseum / Wilhelmspalais (March–April 2013)
Frankfurt, Historisches Museum (September 2012–February 2013)
Stans, Nidwaldner Museum / Salzmagazin (March–June 2012)
Liestal, Museum.BL (April–December 2011)
Aarau, Stadtmuseum / Kunsthaus (October 2010)
Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Hamburg / Hotel Reichshof (October 2010)
Bern, Museum für Kommunikation (September 2010)
Geneva, Théâtre du Grütli / Mamco (February 2010)
Chur, Theater Chur (November 2009)
Hannover, Festival Theaterformen (June 2009)
Vienna, Wiener Festwochen (May 2009)
Solothurn, Theater Biel Solothurn (April 2009)
Basel, Theater Basel (September 2008)
Zurich, Theaterspektakel (August 2008)
Bern, Festival Auawirleben (April 2008)

Credits

Initiative, Concept, Direction: Mats Staub
Collaboration, Design: Svetlana Marchenko
Scenography: Monika Schori (Bern, Zurich, Solothurn, Hannover, Genf & Audio-Exhibitions); Martina Ehleiter (Basel); Eva-Maria Schwenkel (Vienna); Iris Holstein (Hamburg)
Dramaturgy: Karl Baratta (Basel); Silvie von Kaenel (Solothurn); Elisabeth Schack (Vienna)
Assistance: Maria Ursprung (Basel); Sam Mosimann (Solothurn) Simone Eisenheld, Stefanie Sourial (Vienna); Swantje Nölke (Hannover); Nathalie Garbely (Geneva); Olivia Ebert (Frankfurt); Käthe Hientz (Stuttgart)
Production Manager: Martin Handschin, imRaum
Technical Production: Alesandra Beiro, Stefan Marti
Support: Erik Thurnherr, Texetera (Programming iPods); Rolf Büttikofer (Sound, Bern); Oliver Koinig (Sound, Vienna); Jan Wagner (Camera, Vienna)
Producer: zwischen_produktionen, imRaum
Co-procucer Erinnerungsbüro: Theater Basel, Theater Chur in co-operation mit Auawirleben Bern,Theater Biel Solothurn, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Wiener Festwochen,Theaterformen Hannover, Théâtre du Grütli, Schauspielhaus Hamburg

With support from: Pro Helvetia, Migros-Kulturprozent, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Schweizerische Gemeinnützige Gesellschaft, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung
Atelier-Grant: L'arc – Littérature et atelier de réflexion contemporaine

My Grandparents
Memory Bureau

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Memory Bureau

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Memory Bureau

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