Aufbruch: Hinter den Fassaden

In the organizer's words:

A woman is at the center of the bronze relief "Aufbruch". Like a socialist revolutionary icon in a flowing dress, she is surrounded by men who join her in her courage to move forward, almost in disgust. Always forward, yes yes. After the system collapsed in 1989, the belief in socialist superiority disappeared and the relief was also pushed from its prominent place on the façade of Leipzig University to the sports campus on Jahnallee. Only the cliché of the strong woman has survived.
Artist Jule Würfel literally looks "behind the façade" of the socialist image of women - and the bronze relief - on the occasion of the Light Festival. In her video installation, she contrasts the static image with interview sequences with Harriet Wollert. She was a member of the expressive "Künsterinnengruppe Erfurt" and talks about a time between political violence and personal liberation. Again and again, the female body is the scene of the action. Wollert tells in a haunting tone of a stay in the closed venereological ward in Erfurt known as the "Tripperburg", of forced adoptions of her children, of a prison sentence in Leipzig. She was a "drifter" because she had fallen in love in a capitalist foreign country - and, like presumably thousands of women, was shamed and punished for this love.
The work is framed by flags directly in front of the Sportforum, which show faded flyers from GDR women's and lesbian groups. They are part of the "Lila Offensive" by artist Julia Lübbecke. Both works revolve around the question of female emancipation - and what remains of it. "Once in your life, at the right time, you must have believed in the impossible," Würfel's contemporary witness quotes the writer Christa Wolf - and thus builds a bridge back to the woman in the flowing dress on the relief.