In the organizer's words:

Ariane and Sam are the protagonists of Thea Mantwill's second novel, who have been searching for their place together in an inhospitable city since childhood. Homelessness has reached such proportions that many people - even those who have jobs - have to resort to the city's severely limited public dormitories.

Only a few can afford to spend the night in private sleeping hotels. Private apartments are reserved for the elite. As Sam is not recognizable on the ID card, on which only two genders are available, almost all doors are closed to them. So they spend their nights on buses, while during the day Ariane leads a life that looks normal from the outside and has an office job that she loathes, but which at least guarantees them a small degree of security. One day, Sam finds accommodation with people who manage to live outside the system, and Ariane is left alone. She begins to spend her meagre savings on temporary rooms and lives far beyond her means, fleeing from one transitional situation to the next. Eventually she quits her job, becomes a nanny for a rich family, follows others into their homes and beds in her search and tries to find a place where she can and wants to stay - driven by a hunger for life that makes her both afraid and hopeful.

Thea Mantwill studied at the art academies in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf, where she graduated as a master student of John Morgan. Her works are multimedia and combine texts with visual art. Mantwill lives and works in Düsseldorf.

In cooperation with sipgate.