ANOTHER ALPHABET PLAYLIST #5 – Amani Padda

Before the Sky Cracks

With roots stretching from Great Britain and Germany all the way to India,Amani Paddafound her first home in books. She studied law at the University of Leipzig, and in her free time, she loves to draw her characters.

An event presented by ZEBRAS Collective and Kulturzentrum Merlin, sponsored by the City of Stuttgart

The ZEBRAS Collective:

“You’re only a zebra if you have black and white stripes!”—Is that really true? As people with a migration background, we sometimes feel like “white zebras”—beings without a distinct appearance, because we have to hide our individual traits to conform to the norm. – Not standing out often also means simply remaining silent. Especially when German isn’t one’s first language. Then even communication between generations within a family is marked by misunderstandings and a lack of words. For example, parents can’t express their expectations to their children, and vice versa.

The ZEBRAS Collective aims to build intercultural bridges using languages that aren’t limited to a single alphabet and are easily accessible. We believe that all artistic disciplines have interpersonal communication as their goal. These include, for example, drawing illustrations, cinematic storytelling, and much more. Essentially everything, if we view ourselves as a just and open society. Especially for people for whom German is not their first language, music, with its universal appeal, can serve as a kind of “barrier-free measure.”

Given our own history of migration, we want our work to specifically reach people of Southeast Asian descent, as there are still insufficient cultural offerings for this community in Stuttgart, causing it to often remain invisible. But the ZEBRAS Collective also sees itself as an inclusive space that is open to everyone. Because we understand society as a community… of diverse zebras.